Healthy Bites Meal Preparation offers restaurant quality, yet affordable and nutritionally balanced meals for all lifestyles

In a day and age where we live a hectic pace and things seem to be getting increasingly more expensive, any chance to save time and a bit of cash is always welcomed. One of those unavoidable expenses and one that can consume large amounts of time is an absolute necessity: eating.

There are almost as many ways to approach eating as there are people. Most of us use a differing ratio of take-out and home cooking. Of course, home cooking depends on grocery shopping and grocery shopping can take a significant amount of time.

Often, the price difference between take-out and grocery shopping is minimal and many people would rather take all the extra time to play catch up on other things or simply spend with the family at the table. It’s a balancing act that is common to the American household. Everyone has tips, tricks and ways to save a buck.

The problem is that often, saving some time and/or a buck comes at the expense of a nutritionally balanced meal. This is a decision many of us have to struggle with. How can we save money, save time, spend more time with family and other important aspects of life, yet eat in a balanced way? It seems that it has to be one or the other in many cases.

It is because of this “pickle” that you have likely heard of meal preparation services. If you haven’t yet, you will soon enough. They are becoming increasingly more popular.

Inspiration for Healthy Bites

Growing up, my mother would often spend all day Sunday preparing a variety of meals for the week. Many would get placed in Tupperware containers and tossed into the refrigerator. Others would get wrapped and placed in the freezer. Then, when dinner time approached, she would pull out the prepared ingredients, and either thaw or pull them out of the refrigerator and put in a plan and heat.

These meal preparation services have grown out of this concept and the need to save significant amounts of time. One place is not only saving families a ton of time, but doing it in an affordable way is Healthy Bites Meal Prep at 804 Belleville Avenue. Above all, and perhaps most importantly, they are creating healthy, nutritionally balanced meals.

It seems that each meal preparation service has a niche or two that they focus on. Owners Crystal and Jeff Lister live an active lifestyle and wanted their menu offerings to reflect that. The inspiration for the entire enterprise came from Crystal’s own weight loss story: she was sick and tired of being overweight and decided to do something about it.

She didn’t turn to an exercise fad or the latest and coolest diet, but used a very common-sensical approach to nutrition and portions. She took up an exercise program, but it simply wasn’t doing enough, fast enough, and wasn’t producing the results she was looking for. Jeff and Crystal are fond of saying “You can’t out exercise a bad diet.” She began to re-address her meal choices and she began to lose a drastic amount of weight: well over 40lbs of it.

The change was dramatic enough that all her friends and family took note and began to ask questions. When she began to describe the meals that she was eating and started to show pictures of these meals, people became very interested and wanted to know if she could share the recipes or even make some for them to try.

The overwhelming response was that they couldn’t believe that food that tasted that delicious was not only healthy, but would help lead to weight loss. It is in this exchange that she found her passion, inspiration and motivation to start up Healthy Bites with the help of her husband and business partner, Jeff and they opened their doors in August of 2015.

Here was a way that she could help others achieve the same physical transformation and well-being, particularly those who didn’t know where to start. Seeing their friends and family have similar and even better results is constant motivational fuel, a perpetually rewarding experience, and validation for what they are doing.

Mouth-watering dishes and a variety of choices

Now, if you are thinking Wheat Grass shakes, chicken feed, bird seeds, or some other bland food that typically is thought of when thinking “healthy,” you’d be wrong. These are restaurant quality meals from people who grew up cooking, graduated from the New Bedford Voke-Tech culinary program, and are both in the process of finishing up thier personal trainer and nutritionist license. That’s passion.

Since Healthy Bites is about an active lifestyle, if you are not trying to lose weight, but actually gain it because you are bodybuilding, powerlifting or weightlifting, then you can also benefit from what Healthy Bites offers. The three plans offered are light, regular and bulk-up. Light for those trying to lose weight, regular for those simply living a healthy lifestyle, and bulk-up for those doing the heavy lifting.

Their cooking knowledge is deep, so the menu changes weekly insuring that you are excited for what each week holds. Here is an example from Monday’s offering: Lunch: Lime Cilnatro Chicken Skewers-All-white meat chicken breast, onions, peppers, and pineapples paired with zucchini chips. Dinner: Teriyaki Steak Tips-Grilled steak tips tossed in my homeade teriyaki sauce paired with white rice and roasted carrots. Snack: Blueberry Honey Bar, Fresh Fruit Cup.

Through the rest of the week you’ll find items like Turkey Sliders /w Mango and Pineapple Salsa, Cheddar & Apple Stuffed Chicken, Apple Oat Muffins, Creole Style Salmon, Turkey Kielbasa Quesadilla, Lemon Coconut Granola bars. Often creative, always perfectly seasoned, never prepared in unhealthy oils and greases, but baked, grilled or roasted.

Nothing can do Healthy Bites more justice than checking the weekly menu, seeing the mouth-watering photos in this spotlight, and/or visiting their Facebook page. Better yet, try a day or week and find out first hand, just like I did.

How does the meal preparation work?
You check the menu the week before ordering. Meals are lunch, dinner and a snack and are ordered by the week, which is Monday through Friday. Saturdays are optional and an extra fee, you may swap out any meal with grilled chicken w/ whole rice and steamed broccoli. Breakfast can be added for $4 per day.

The portion size is determined by those aforementioned goals and whether you are trying to lose weight, just eat healthy, or trying to bulk-up. Determine your meals with any options for the week, place your order, then pick up on the designated days – Wednesdays or Sundays between 3-6:00pm or have them delivered.

One week’s worth of meals take care of. No stress, no planning, affordable, balanced, healthy!

Whether you are trying to lose weight, don’t have time to prepare meals, just living that healthy lifestyle or trying to bulk up, you will find value in what Jeff and Crystal are offering. It’s affordable, mouth-watering, restaurant quality food that saves you tons of money and time so you can focus on what matters: living life and spending more time with friends and family.

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