Purple Carrot is a meal delivery service that recently partnered with Tom Brady to create a lineup of high-performance meals delivered to your door every week. Here’s our review.
What is Purple Carrot?
Purple Carrot is a plant-based food delivery service. The company sells meals that make it easy to add plant-based ingredients to your diet a few times a week. As the official Purple Carrot website explains, “Eating plant-based meals just a couple times a week can have a positive impact on mind, body, and soul.”
The Needham, Massachusetts-based company sends portioned ingredients to your doorstep every week. You follow the recipe and cook the meal yourself.
What Are Purple Carrot TB12 Performance Meals?
5-time NFL Super Bowl-winning quarterback Tom Brady has been building his personal health and fitness brand over the past few years. He released a $200 cookbook, for example, and has been outspoken about what he and his supermodel wife Gisele Bündchen eat at home. Most of the Tom Brady health and wellness products have been marketed under the name TB12 (Brady wears the number 12, for the non-football fans out there).
Together, Purple Carrot and Tom Brady teamed up to release a lineup of meals called the TB12 Performance Meals.
The meals were developed in partnership with Tom Brady. Purple Carrot used Tom Brady’s health and wellness philosophies to create a series of meals that are designed to help athletes and active individuals perform at their peak.
All Purple Carrot TB12 Performance Meals have the following qualities:
- High protein
- 100% plant-based ingredients
- Gluten-free
- Limited use of refined sugars
- Limited use of soy
- No highly-processed ingredients
Obviously, this ingredients list is a little bit vague. Based on the restrictions above, the company can still make foods that have “somewhat processed” ingredients, for example, while also adding refined sugars and soy. There’s also no mention of preservatives, artificial ingredients, colors, and other ingredients that many people are trying to reduce.
Let’s take a closer look at the foods you can expect to eat while subscribing to the Purple Carrot TB12 Performance Meals.
Purple Carrot TB12 Performance Meals Menu
Here’s what a sample menu might look like:
- White Lentil Risotto with Winter Roasted Vegetable, Meyer Lemon, and Cashew Gremolata: This is described as a “creamy comfort dish” that replaces rice with ivory lentils. A herby, citrus gremolata is added to brighten the meal.
- Ramen Bowl with Charred Broccolini and Gingered Amaranth Greens: This ramen bowl pairs nutty brown rice noodles with a savory-sweet tamari and coconut broth along with a watermelon radish and bitter greens to give you “a balancing act of color, texture, and flavor”.
- Crispy Turnip Cakes with Quinoa Tabbouleh and Za’atar Yogurt: These are crisp cakes that use quinoa tabbouleh (which packs more protein than the normal couscous used to make tabbouleh). There’s also a cooling yogurt sauce for dipping.
Overall, Tom Brady claims that “eating meals like these is what has helped me stay at the top of my game”.
How Does the Subscription Work?
You sign up for the Purple Carrot TB12 Performance Meal subscription on a weekly basis. You receive 3 meals per week, and 2 servings per meal. Here’s the three step process:
- Step 1) We Create: Purple Carrot creates plant-based, gluten-free recipes based on the TB12 nutritional guidelines.
- Step 2) We Deliver: Purple Carrot delivers fresh, perfectly-proportioned ingredients to your doorstep along with simple, step-by-step instructions.
- Step 3) You Cook: You cook the meals using the recipe given.
Purple Carrot TB12 Performance Meals Pricing
Anytime the Tom Brady brand is involved in something, you know it’s not going to be cheap. Remember: this is the guy who wants you to pay $200 for his cookbook. With that in mind, here’s how pricing breaks down:
- 1 Week (3 Meals): $78
You get 2 servings per meal. The company advertises it as $13 per plate, which is true if you’re buying it for you and your partner or roommate, or if you’re splitting it up into two portions for yourself.
The company is currently accepting preorders through PurpleCarrot.com. The first meals are expected to ship on April 3.
Each box is $78 flat. There are no additional shipping fees or surcharges. There’s also no cancellation fee, and you can pause or cancel your subscription at any time.
The $78 per 3 meals price tag makes TB12 Performance Meals one of the priciest food delivery services available today – especially since the meals don’t come pre-cooked or pre-made. You still have to make the food yourself.
Advantages of Purple Carrot TB12 Performance Meals
Purple Carrot is known for making plant-based meals. What makes Tom Brady’s lineup of Purple Carrot meals any different?
Tom Brady claims that his diet is designed to prevent injury and promote accelerated recovery “through holistic, whole-body wellness” based on hydration and nutrition concepts. The meals are designed to help you maximize performance, get in better shape, and eat more cleanly – or for people who “just want to enjoy the same meals that power Tom Brady’s championship-caliber performance”.
Some of the specific differences between the TB12 Performance Meals and the ordinary Purple Carrot meals include:
Higher in protein and calories on average (“to help fuel the higher metabolism needs of active individuals”
- Gluten-free
- Limited in soy and refined sugars
- Only available in the 1-2 person plan
Subscribers gain access to exclusive TB12 content, including giveaways for merchandise, memorabilia, and more
Overall, Purple Carrot specifically claims that the foods used in their plan are the same foods that Tom Brady actually eats. Here’s how the company answers that question:
“These recipes are either taken directly from plant-based meals Tom and his family have personally enjoyed, or are inspired by the TB12 nutritional guidelines that structure Tom’s diet.”
Is Tom Brady actually ordering a Purple Carrot subscription every week? No, he has a personal chef who cooks everything for him.
Tom Brady announced the partnership on Facebook on Tuesday, March 7, saying,
“Our bodies are our temples and you get out of it what you put in it”.
If you want to eat like Tom Brady, then Purple Carrot’s TB12 Performance Meals may be the right choice for you and your family. You can preorder the subscription today through PurpleCarrot.com. the service launches in April 2017.
