Artisanal and natural foods have been enjoying a massive spotlight over the past few years. People are always looking for new ways to make their diets both healthier and tastier. They are taking more risks with their food than they ever have before. It is easy to go to a restaurant or casual eatery and try flavorful foods that have been prepared by expert chefs. It is much harder to prepare exciting new foods at home, especially if you are not particularly skilled at cooking anything at all. Beginners struggle to find user-friendly recipes because they don’t even know what they’re looking for. Fortunately, several emerging companies aim to fill in these gaps.

Cooking is very underrated as a learned skill. In order to make a palatable meal from scratch, one has to have an instinct for how proportions of ingredients interact with each other in order to come together as a seamless flavor profile. You have to be able to look at raw ingredients lined up next to each other on the counter and predict how they will taste once they are cooked. Additionally, you need to estimate portion sizes and gauge how the finished foods will play off of the individualized palates of other people. It’s no wonder that many people opt to warm up frozen prepared foods much of the time. These meals are wrapped up in the homey label of “comfort foods,” but they’re not comfortable at all. They’re easy to make and loaded up with superficially tasty carbs, but comfort has nothing to do with it. Fresh, healthy and interesting foods surely make for a more enjoyable and comfortable eating experience.

Food delivery services can sometimes conjure up feelings of doubt. It is understandable that people would be cautious about eating food that had been shipped to them in the mail. Questions of freshness arise, and people may wonder why they should have food mailed to them when they could just go to a grocery store. They can rest easy on these counts. All reputable food delivery services process and pack their orders right before drop-off, and delivery is completed within 24 hours. Perishable foods are packed in foam cases and surrounded by disposable ice packs that are still frozen when the boxes are opened. Dry foods are shipped in packaging that prevents them from breaking or being crushed.

These services are not intended to facilitate a complete and immediate shift in your eating habits. They are providing you with the tools to help you gradually upgrade your current diet. For example, when you incorporate a few delivered meals into your weekly routine, you are allowing yourself to develop a taste and feel for new things without giving up your long-term favorites. This is how a shift to healthier eating should happen. You are trying new things without committing to a diet plan or a new lifestyle, and if any given food doesn’t work for you, you never have to try it again. Even so, you can keep working your way through the options offered by these companies until you find the ones you like.

Once you discover foods that feel like good complements to your current eating habits, you can either keep ordering them from your service of choice, or you could try your hand at preparing them yourself. This is where an interest in new foods starts to get really exciting. If you think the delivered products taste good, just wait until you figure out how to make them exactly how you like them best. You can substitute different ingredients or experiment with different spices. You could even pair the dish with unexpected complements to create your very own flavor profile. Once you are at this point in your food explorations, you could explore companies that ship individual ingredients or side dishes. This type of service leaves more room for personalization than services that simply send you healthy foods to heat up. For example, when you look up Hampton Creek on Instagram, you will find a great assortment of ideas and tips for creating new foods out of simple, whole ingredients.

Hangin’ with Liberia’s ministers of Gender and Education – two very inspiring people.

A photo posted by Hampton Creek (@hamptoncreek) on

The ideal approach to food is as an all-encompassing aspect of everything you do. Cooking should not be perceived as a chore or as a stand-alone task that must be completed after a busy day at work. Food is the fuel you need to be able to do all of the things you love, and it should therefore considered an integral part of your life. Healthy eating is a necessary part of every active, creative and busy person’s very identity. Cooking is a creative outlet in itself, which is why so many food enthusiasts treat it like an art. A food delivery service and some pointers from blogs can help you develop a taste for fresh foods and change your perspective on eating.