Faculty of Health, School of Exercise & Nutrition Sciences, Deakin University, Melbourne Burwood Campus, 221 Burwood Highway, Burwood, Victoria 3125, Australia.
Faculty of Health, Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition (IPAN), Deakin University, Melbourne Burwood Campus, 221 Burwood Highway, Burwood, Victoria 3125, Australia.
Health Promot Int. 2023 Dec 1;38(6). doi: 10.1093/heapro/daad155.
Popular commercial meal kit subscription services (MKSSs) may support families to overcome barriers to cooking and eating at home, and facilitate improved vegetable consumption. The global meal kit market has expanded rapidly creating a gap in our understanding of the health-promoting potential of MKSSs. This paper describes the contemporary MKSS market in Australia and provides a vegetable-specific content analysis of a sample of recipes. A 1-week subscription was purchased for all Australian-based MKSSs (n = 9) and websites were systematically reviewed to document key characteristics and recipe features. Vegetable content of all available recipes within a 1-week period were analysed. Our findings highlight the rapid expansion and evolution of MKSS market offerings over the past decade and their potential to support family vegetable consumption. Across all analysed recipes (n = 179), MKSSs provided a median of 2.5 vegetable serves per person (range 0.7-7.5 serves) and a median of 3 different types of vegetables from 2 vegetable subgroups (i.e. dark green, red and orange, starchy, legumes and all other vegetables). This suggests that MKSSs may support family vegetable consumption if families select recipes with a greater number and variety of vegetables. However, an opportunity remains for MKSSs to improve both vegetable quantity and variety to positively influence population health. Further research is required to describe how families use meal kits promoting a greater understanding of their potential to improve family nutrition.
流行的商业套餐订阅服务（MKSS）可能有助于家庭克服在家做饭和用餐的障碍，并促进蔬菜消费的增加。全球的餐盒市场迅速扩张，这使得我们对 MKSS 促进健康的潜力的理解产生了差距。本文描述了澳大利亚当代的 MKSS 市场，并对样本食谱进行了蔬菜专项内容分析。为所有澳大利亚的 MKSS（n=9）购买了一周的订阅服务，并系统地审查了网站，以记录关键特征和食谱特征。分析了一周内所有可用食谱中的蔬菜含量。我们的研究结果强调了过去十年中 MKSS 市场产品的快速扩张和演变，以及它们支持家庭蔬菜消费的潜力。在所有分析的食谱（n=179）中，MKSS 平均每人提供 2.5 份蔬菜（范围 0.7-7.5 份）和 3 种不同类型的蔬菜，来自 2 种蔬菜亚组（即深绿色、红色和橙色、淀粉类、豆类和所有其他蔬菜）。这表明，如果家庭选择含有更多种类和数量的蔬菜的食谱，MKSS 可能会支持家庭的蔬菜消费。然而，MKSS 仍有机会提高蔬菜的数量和种类，以积极影响人口健康。需要进一步的研究来描述家庭如何使用套餐，以更好地了解它们改善家庭营养的潜力。
