Want to eat more plants but have no idea how? Purple Carrot is coming to the rescue. The plant-based meal kit company has hit Miami, so locals can order easy-to-assemble meals delivered to their door.
Recipe options include items like maple tempeh with lime couscous salad and minty plums; Southern spoonbread with black-eyed pea tomato gravy and greens; and sweet corn risotto with lemon Parmesan broccolini and chervil. Menus change weekly; chefs are always switching it up.
"Purple Carrot is focused on empowering people who want to consciously and easily integrate plant-based eating into their life — even if it means not completely giving up meat, fish, and dairy — and become what we call a balancetarian," founder and CEO Andy Levitt says. "Even if it’s only a few times per week, eating plant-based meals has an overall positive impact on both your health and the environment."
The company was founded in October 2014 out of Levitt's garage after he and his wife watched the famous plant-based documentary Forks Over Knives, which addresses the serious health implications of eating animal products. Levitt left a lengthy career in pharmaceuticals to concentrate on food as medicine.
"Our head chef, Andrea Nordby, is the mastermind behind our weekly menus," Levitt says. "She creates three unique and seasonal recipes every week for both our Purple Carrot and TB12 Performance Meals, and her key focus is to provide our subscribers with a well-balanced plate with every meal. Andrea achieves this through experimentation with a variety of vegetables while also consistently measuring the overall nutritional value to ensure each plant-based meal is as delicious as it is healthy. She also challenges herself by finding ways to put a plant-based spin on classic meals: for example, using king oyster mushrooms in her seared 'scallops' with stir-fried farro and spicy broccolini recipe.
"Miami was actually named one of the top ten vegan cities in the U.S. recently," he adds. "With a culture so focused on fitness and eating well, bringing our plant-based meal kits here felt like a really natural fit."
Subscribers can choose from different plans: one to two people, three to four people, or high performance. Prices start at $68 per week, and meals can be ordered at purplecarrot.com.