Review by founder of community pop up Dubai Vegan Days, Ananda Shakespeare
If you’re looking to end the year and begin the new year on a healthy high, why not try the new vegan weight management meal plan from Root’D, by Freakin’ Healthy?
An extension of the successful local brand Freakin’ Healthy, Root’D’s menu is designed and certified by the Root’D nutritionist to help customers reach their goals.
You can start your Root’D plan with a video consultation or by filling out a survey, so the nutritionist understands your current situation, health and goals.
I grabbed the chance to eat healthily and well for a week, with a choice of dishes you choose from a menu – meaning it’s hard to receive food you don’t like. It’s also noticeably easily ordered online and delivered to your door/ office for a week, a fortnight or a month – depending on how healthy you want to get!
You pick a daily breakfast dish from a choice of four, with a few different options offered on different days. Then there’s a choice of two snacks each day, including the likes of fruit, protein balls, bites, snack bars and fruit and nut butters.
Breakfast
Breakfast is always a good place to start, and the Root’D chefs serve up some real treats – standout starts to the day for me were the tofu scramble Caribbean wrap and the simple, yet tasty, peanut butter and blueberry orange jam on toast. Apple and cinnamon oats were a sweet treat, too.
Yes, you could make these at home, but there are a number of fantastic reasons to let Root’D do the cooking. Firstly, it saves time. I, for one, don’t have time to prepare something like a tofu scramble in the morning, and preparing the night before isn’t an attractive option either. Secondly, all the food is not only nutritionally balanced, but calorie controlled, too. So that’s a double win, right? Also, it’s all too easy here in the UAE to always order takeaways, without really knowing how healthy they are. This plan feels like clawing back some control over your diet.
Having said that – this isn’t a dry, boring diet full of unimaginative salads. These are creative, wholesome dishes, served with thought. Everything seems homemade and fresh, and while flavourful, none of the flavours are overpowering, and I didn’t ask for any alterations. Sometimes meal planners in the UAE can be overkeen with chili and other strong spices. If you like that sort of thing, I’m sure Root’D would be amenable to a few additions or menu changes.
Lunch & Dinner
Lunches and dinners are chosen each day from a choice of five daily dishes – and while some seem a little uninspired – beans of toast and the burger – there’s a lot of tasty, filling curry style dishes, pasta, stews and a fun build-your-own falafel wrap. There’s certainly enough variety for a week – and, in fact, there are other meal plans available from the Root’D stable, with more than 45 meal options.
The curried chickpea burrito was a weeknight meal winner for me, as so any other meal plans offer bland and uninspired meal options.
I also indulged in a peanut curry, and thoroughly enjoyed the yucca coconut curry, something I would simply never dream of making myself. Black bean and sweet potato hash hit the spot, as did the sweet potato chili.
As you can now probably understand, these dishes offer the sort of tasty comfort food we all crave – and yet this plan is for weight management, remember. So a big thumbs up from me. And price wise – it comes in cheaper than other meal plan providers in town. I would order it again.
As well as the Weight Management meal plan I opted for, Root’D offers a balanced lifestyle plan for those looking for a more wholesome and clean diet, and for those looking to explore a plant-based diet for the first time, there’s a Detox-Refuel plan.
A quick breakdown of the pricing:
Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner and 2 x snacks – AED 120 / day
Breakfast, Lunch and 1 x snack – AED 72.5 / day
Lunch, Dinner and 1 x snack – AED 87.5 / day
Duration – 1 week, 2 weeks or 4 weeks
Days – Sunday to Thursday or Saturday to Thursday.
https://freakinhealthy.com/rootd/
About Dubai Vegan Days
Dubai Vegan Days was launched and conceived by Ananda Shakespeare, as a way of helping people enjoy and learn more about veganism, ethical living and how to live with more compassion. Each event brings people together to enjoy good food, good company and good products, and hopefully encourage fun, learning and friendship. We encourage dialogue and information-sharing around veganism, but are not preaching hippies.
Keep up with our events by following us on social media.
You can find out more about Dubai Vegan Days on Facebook, here:
https://www.facebook.com/DXBvegandays/
And on Instagram, here: @dubaivegandays
Sherry Aggarwal Gupta 