Macrocosmically Delicious

Meal delivery services are having a moment. Outsourcing the chores of grocery shopping and meal planning frees up time and energy while helping to ensure a balanced diet all week long. And it seems like these days there's a service for every appetite, from Green Chef, which prioritizes organics, to the eminently customizable Hello Fresh and, of course, the grandfather of them all—Blue Apron, which practically spawned the meal delivery movement when it was founded in 2012.

Now Santa Fe has access to a more homegrown option: the Los Alamos-based Macros Made Easy, a service that began in November of last year. Available in both Santa Fe and Los Alamos, its founders plan to expand to Albuquerque in January of next year. But for now, they are satisfying a desperate niche, since few meal prep services extend to Santa Fe.

Chef Samantha Orner and her fiancé Matthew Scarborough joined forces to create a rotating menu geared toward healthy macronutrient balance for busy people with hectic lifestyles. Macronutrients are types of calories sub-categorized by the kind of energy source they provide. More simply, they are proteins, fats and carbohydrates, and counting these can be more effective than counting calories; some people are more sensitive to metabolizing carbohydrates than proteins, and thus have different macronutrient needs. Athletes, diabetics or even people trying to lose weight mindfully frequently track the numbers of "macros" they need to hit every day.

Orner and Scarborough's menus provide fresh, seasonal options every week that aim for the standard macronutrient balance of 40 percent carbohydrates, 30 percent fat and 30 percent protein, but with a personal touch. "I feel it's important to show that healthy food doesn't have to be boring," Orner tells SFR. "We experiment with different flavors and food combinations to really show every side to a well-rounded meal." Orner herself is the daughter of private chef Harold Orner, founder of the local catering company Executive Chef Incorporated, and everything made for Macros is cooked and prepped in his kitchen in Santa Fe.

While most meal delivery services ship pre-measured ingredients to be cooked at home, Macros Made Easy goes further, cooking everything before delivery. Meals are dropped off twice a week to ensure freshness. "Some companies just sell you groceries and recipes, and we thought that was kind of silly," Scarborough says. "If you're going to cook your own food, why spend $90 on three meals a week?"

There are two plans available—one standard and one custom, for people with special macronutrient needs. The standard plan offers weekly pricing of five meals for $70 or 10 meals for $140 per week. Additional meals cost around $10 each. Custom pricing runs $80 per week for five meals, and $160 per week for 10, with additional options ranging from $10 to $13 and a low-carb option that swaps out the high-carb part of the meal for extra vegetables or increased fats and proteins.

To further encourage clients to stay on top of their health and fitness goals, Orner uploads the company's food stats on MyFitnessPal, an app that functions as a food and exercise diary, so that her customers can connect with her and download all the nutritional information of her meals easily into their personal records.

The food itself constantly changes to avoid the malaise that can set in with nutritionally minded meal prep. Past menus have included options like beef chorizo stuffed squash with cilantro cauliflower rice, or sweet and sour chicken with mashed ginger carrots and a bok choy and cabbage slaw. The level of customization is limited by the size of the company, a team of just two people, but the food is delicious and satisfying since production is small and the options are so fresh.

I sampled coconut-crusted chicken strips accompanied by a side of chile-dusted sweet potato fries and roasted asparagus. The chicken strips had a subtle sweetness from the coconut offset by the tang of an accompanying honey mustard sauce, and the sides left me feeling full but not bloated. The fries and chicken tenders were comfortingly similar to junk food, a nice characteristic for people trying to lose weight without adhering to a life of salads. I appreciated the menu's overarching emphasis on whole foods, and while Macros Made Easy doesn't guarantee its foods are free of flour and/or simple carbohydrates, they take pains to use ingredients like coconut flour, cauliflower rice and sweet potatoes for high-carb menu additions.

Orner says she plans to add a treats menu by mid-July with breakfast options like mini quiches, nut breads and Paleo Diet-inspired baked goods that eschew white flour and sugar for almond or coconut flour, arrowroot and flax. In general, the food is knockout-good with the added bonus of not having to be prepped or cooked. If I ever feel the urge to train for a marathon, lose 10 pounds or have too much going on to fire up the oven, I will definitely give Macros Made Easy a call.

Macros Made Easy
macrosmadeeasy.net
257-8038