A week plan for a weak man: Trialing Tribe Nutrition
By Oscar Holland
I roll up to the media launch of Tribe’s new meal delivery service harboring an Earth-shattering hangover. My headache and profound sense of regret are only compounded by my hosts’ clean, wholesome branding. They are fresh, organic and healthy. I am not.
With a specially-made animation we’re introduced to Tribe Nutrition, which delivers customized meal plans to the doors of the time-poor. It’s a cute touch and the jingle’s chorus – you are what you eat; you are what you eat, eat, eat – is fiendishly catchy. But it is also making a grave allegation: that I am made of gutter oil, rat-meat chuan’r and Cornettos that have been left to thaw, rendering their cones irreversibly soggy.
I try a sample meal. Vital faculties – such as the ability to think, and hope for the future – return almost instantly. As two of Tribe’s employees parade around me in human-sized carrot and tomato costumes, I experience what alcoholics call a ‘moment of clarity.’
Recent history would suggest that I’m incapable of producing a healthy, balanced diet. Tribe, on the other hand, has made a business of it. So why not let them deal with everything?
The available programs span the self-explanatory (‘slim,’ ‘bulking,’ and ‘vegan’) and the less self-explanatory (‘fresh lite’ for maintaining a healthy weight and ‘happy sprouts’ for kids). For each, Tribe’s couriers will deliver breakfast, lunch, dinner or any combination thereof. I opt for a week on the ‘bulking’ diet because, well, I’m quite weak. And I’d like to be less weak.
A few clicks later, I’ve committed to having three meals (and two snacks) delivered every morning. Collectively, they will take my calorie count far above that required to fuel my sedentary lifestyle. So I am also committing to visiting the gym every day. Because that’s realistic.
Day one arrives, along with a phenomenal amount of food in a cool bag that colonizes the office fridge. Over the past decade, I’ve eaten breakfast just a handful of times. Yet by 11am I’ve already consumed salmon frittatas, sweet potato hash browns, peanut butter protein bars and cleanse juice. Is this… what normal feels like?
Peddlers of organic food tend to adopt an irritating holier-than-thou-ness, but Tribe seems to just genuinely believe in the mission. Each meal arrives in a biodegradable box with hand-written nutritional information. The cutlery is made from recycled wood. The ingredients come from a variety of organic farms on the city’s outskirts. I find myself buying into a lifestyle that I’d previously dismissed as only for people who wear leggings.
As the days pass, the chefs continue to find inventive ways to load my body with protein. The dinners include Kerala beef stew with couscous, glazed salmon with green tea rice, and a huge sirloin steak that wouldn’t feel out of place at one of Beijing’s better steakhouses. The breakfasts, lunches and snacks range from lox and egg toasties to various combinations of kale, quinoa and other zeitgeisty superfoods.
I shan’t go into too much detail, as the menus will regularly change and differ for those on other plans. Just know these two things: First, almost every meal was tastier than anything I’ve ever cooked for myself. And second, the ingredients are of better quality than those I enjoy eating out.
But at what price? As the most comprehensive, meat-heavy option, my bulking program is also the most expensive at RMB1,800 a week. But different plans and configurations of meals can suit lower budgets. Think of it like this: RMB60 for breakfast, RMB70 for lunch and RMB80 for dinner. Not unreasonable.
But of course, the real question is whether any ‘bulking’ has been achieved. It would be immodest for me to say in too much detail. But there was a noticeable effect. I also found myself with energy, a concentration span and renewed faith in the power of humanity.
Maybe that’s because the food was healthy, or maybe it’s because I actually undertook physical activity every day. Maybe I’ve just been consuming a selection of neatly packaged placebos. But I can’t emphasize enough just how much better this is than protein shakes.
> To order or find out more about the programs visit www.tribenutrition.com.cn or call 5900 3088
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