Hello Fresh Review and $40 OFF Coupon

Get $40 off your first week of Hello Fresh with Coupon Code: E9SK5C

I've tried every meal subscription that I know of (Blue Apron, Hello Fresh, Plated, Munchery) and I have decided that I have been sufficiently jazzed about this one to share it with all of you.

I am very selective in my meal choices, there are a lot of ingredients I'm not fond of (mushrooms, miso, curry, fennel - really anything that is very pungent).

So if you're like me and you like to consume comfort foods that are a little healthier for you on a regular basis, this review is for you!

First of all, the nitty gritty details: for $69/week you can get 3 meals for 2 people - BUT there is a BONUS OFFER CODE that gives you the full week for just $29, so you get $40 OFF!! That's a steal. The coupon code to enter at checkout is: E9SK5C

Try this subscription out for a week, there's no obligation, minimum order or monthly fee so you can cancel any time.

You can choose any 3 recipes you want from the Classic Box or Veggie Box. Unlike Blue Apron you are not limited to choosing 2 protein meals per week.

You get this giant box full of all of the healthy fresh ingredients which are separated by little baggies labeled with each recipe - very straight forward and thorough!

Now the best part, the meals for the week of 4/6/2015 (each photo is of one portion but you receive ingredients for two portions):

Steak Sandwiches with Horseradish Cream & Tomato-Watercress Salad from Hello Fresh

What's great about this service is that allergens and nutritional facts are listed in the meal choices each week.

My husband and I are *not chefs* and we are not even good home cooks, and as you can tell by the photos in this post, all of our meals looked and tasted as if they were made by Food Network Celebrity Chefs (Bobby Flay eat your heart out)!!!

This meal was probably the heartiest of the three and the meat was tender and tasted very natural and organic. It didn't take us longer than 30 min. to prepare and we had as much fun making it as we did consuming it!

Spring Asparagus & Shrimp Risotto with Meyer Lemon from Hello Fresh

This plate looks more delicious than most meals I've had at high end Italian restaurants in NYC. I still cannot believe that we made and plated this with our own hands! I will say that my husband is an artist, maybe that has something to do with how well it turned out. Regardless, this meal was our favorite!

The seasoning is entirely up to you - you can use more or less salt & pepper, lemon, Parsley and cheese as you want to. Although recipes have recommendations you can always tailor them to your wants/needs. You can even choose to omit certain ingredients if you're trying to be more health conscious or you just don't like the flavor (I will say that in other subscriptions I have avoided fennel seeds and pungent mushrooms).

Rosemary-Walnut Crusted Chicken with Roasted Potatoes & Mixed Green Salad from Hello Fresh

By the third meal, I am convinced that we are Michelin-Star Chefs. This meal is baked, yes, the potatoes and chicken are baked, not fried. This was absolutely delicious and phenomenally crunchy for a baked meal. The chicken was moist and tender because there is a barrier of mustard between the rosemary-walnut mixture and the chicken breast.

If you were to pay full price for these meals, they would come to $11.50 per person - now I don't know any restaurant where you can get this amount of fresh food with pretty healthy meal breakdowns for such a cheap price, so I will still be ordering this service even at full price. If you use the trial, each person's portion comes to just $4.83!!! Remember you have to use the coupon code at checkout for that price: E9SK5C

The service lets you skip weeks so you can look at the recipes and if there aren't three that strike your fancy out of the five options you opt out of that week's delivery.

Do you get Hello Fresh? What do you think about it? Share your thoughts and experiences with me below and also feel free to ask any questions!

Vitamins to keep you looking and feeling beautiful

Vitamins for a beautiful lifestyle
There are vitamins that protect the skin against damage from the UV rays of the sun and skin cancer and can reduce wrinkles from aging and sun damage. These are antioxidants that eliminate free radicals which are the leading cause of wrinkles. They speed up your metabolic repair systems and inhibit the production of more free radicals and reduce the rate of further aging. You may be wondering how to get these vitamins, well we easily ingest them in our every day diets, and if you do not, you should consider increasing the amount of antioxidant-rich foods you consume.

Vitamins C, E and Selenium are crucial to your skin's repair systems and can be found in creams but they are in very small quantities, so you should supplement them in your diet, either as pills or directly from the food source. Vitamin D is needed to protect your bones and joints but it is also a potent anti-oxidant, and enhances the absorption of vitamins A and C. It can reduce the chances of developing dry and flakey skin, and ultimately protects against psoriasis (painful, itchy dry reddish skin which can happen anywhere on your body especially during cold weather). Some people swear by the effectiveness of Coenzyme Q-10 and it is a matter of scientific fact that it reduces the appearance of wrinkles, but you should speak to a doctor before consuming it because it increases the rate at which your cells reproduce, which can be negative if your cells are reproducing incorrectly (such as in cancerous cells).

B-vitamins are necessary for your entire body and you should eat foods rich in these vitamins such as eggs, enriched grain products and greens leafy vegetables. You will want to stock up on these because prolonged lack of them can cause dry skin which can promote redness and itchiness which will make it difficult for you to wear makeup. This issue is very personal to me, as I have lack B-12, and the major effects of this deficiency are that the body does not produce enough red blood cells, which slows down the skin's healing, circulation and not enough oxygen is provided to tissues which need it the most (such as the brain which requires it for healthy function). I find myself feeling lethargic, confused, dizzy and it eventually can destroy your nerve endings, resulting in numbness in your fingers and similar symptoms. Although we are often over-concerned with our appearances, it should be noted that vitamin-consumption should be taken even more seriously when it comes to personal well-being and health. If you suffer from various ailments and disorders it is even more important to maintain your body's ideal vitamin concentrations because they will help you maintain a level of health that would otherwise probably rapidly degrade.

You can achieve softer and smoother skin from consuming green tea and chocolate, that's right ladies, so stock up on hot cocoa that is high in flavinoids and or have a daily bite of  dark chocolate. There are also many vegetable-based extracts which have positive effects when consumed or rubbed topically onto your skin. So claims that your mother/grandmother makes about eating foods with tomato paste, rosemary, pomegranates and grape seeds are true. It may very well be that a combination of all of these in your diet can do nothing but help your skin and internal organs. The key to living healthy is everything in moderation, it is never a good idea to completely cut out one food group or another, as you will find that each provides benefits and is wholly important to your skin's hydration balance, elasticity (resistance to stretch marks), hormonal balance (which controls your sabaceous glands, which in turn control your skin's oil production - too much or too little causes acne).

If you stay away from foods that are very high in saturated fats and trans-fats you will be helping your heart stay healthy, but make sure not to cut out essential fatty acids because they help move vitamins A, D, E and K throughout your body's tissues to where they are needed most. Essentially, if you're not consuming omega-3's and essential fatty acids, you will not be receiving the benefits of the fat-soluble vitamins you have in your diet. Fat is essential to maintaining healthy skin as it helps you have younger-looking supple skin by making it glossy and firm. This is because omega-3 unsaturated fatty acids help make the cell membrane stronger and actively eliminate toxins in cells. It makes your skin (the dermal layer) release elastic fibers, which are nature's collagen, and as we all know these will remove wrinkles on your skin.

Here is a useful list of vitamins and their natural sources:

• Omega-3 -> Salmon and other cold-water fish, olive oil, walnuts
• Vitamin B-2 -> Eggs, milk, enriched grain products
• Vitamin B-6 -> Chicken, halibut, nuts, turkey, pork, spinach, baked potatoes
• Vitamin B-12 -> Clams, enriched cereals, liver, caviar, lobster, beef, cheese
• Vitamin C -> Oranges, lemons, bell peppers, guava, fresh thyme and parsley, broccoli
• Vitamin D -> Milk, fish oil, catfish, herring, orange juice, soymilk
• Vitamin E -> Sunflower seeds, paprika, whole grains, almonds, peanuts, pine nuts
• Flavinoids -> chocolate, hot cocoa, green tea extract
• Selenium -> turkey, shrimp, snapper, cod, tuna, brazil nuts