If you have eating restrictions, you’ll likely see even more repetition. My colleague Kat Merck, who tested GLP-1-appropriate meals—and also stated a preference for no fish—found herself drowning in a sea of chicken on the six meals she tried. She found the portions appropriate to those on GLP-1 meds, and appreciated that the meals offered her the proteins she needs to maintain muscle mass even while chemically un-hungry.

But still: chicken. After eating five of her six meals, she wrote, “I don’t think I had one I didn’t end up liking, but they were absolutely repetitive. Chicken chicken chicken chicken.”

The sixth meal she ate, a mushroom cream chicken, was the only utter failure. The chicken tasted different from the chicken in other dishes either of us tried, she noted: thick, dry, slathered in viscous cream with no sign of the advertised mushrooms. It was a little sad, a reminder of TV dinners past.

But if anything, that failed meal cast into relief just how surprisingly well-managed most of the proteins turned out to be. Both Merck and I were also happy to see the occasional chicken thigh, and not just breast, in our meals. For the record, the thigh was better: Thigh is almost always better.

The Tempo meals might be a little staid. And none were exciting, quite. But they were easy, nutritious, balanced, and comforting, without relying on a pile of unhealthy sodium and carbs to be palatable. Which is to say I was relieved and grateful to have them in my fridge, while working from home with scant time to think about lunch. For many, this feeling will be well worth $12 a meal.

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