Gourmet to go

Don't want the hassle of preparing diet-conscious meals? Here's how to do it like the movie stars with a home-delivery service

Jenny Lee, Vancouver Sun

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Take a tip from the movie stars.

Home-delivered gourmet meals turn the drudge-laden misery of dieting into sheer gastronomical pleasure.

No shopping, chopping, washing, steaming, counting, calculating, choosing, combining -- you don't even have to do the dishes.

Visiting celebrities here to work in Hollywood North have inspired local entrepreneurs to cash in on the California gourmet-to-go trend -- and for dieters, be they celebs or not, the results are easy to measure.

"On Entertainment Tonight, Charlie Sheen [said he] lost 30 pounds on a Zone diet delivery service to join the cast of Spin City. I saw that and called every caterer in town," says movie studio manager Nigel Malkin, 27, who soon developed the idea into his now one-year-old The Specialty Gourmet service. The business delivers Zone, Atkins and Healthy Living meals (based on the Canada Food Guide) to his primarily movie industry clientele. The Specialty Gourmet's food is prepared by the long-established Vancouver caterer, The Lazy Gourmet.

Derek Good's five-month-old Low Carb Express offers a similar delivery service catered by North Vancouver's The Moveable Feast.

Good claims Lord of the Rings actor Sean Astin as a client while the actor was working in Vancouver.

The best part for those trying to lose, or control, their weight is that the carb-counting, weighing and measuring is done by the experts. Specialty Gourmet carefully follows Atkins, Canada Food Guide and Zone dietary guidelines.

"We follow them exactly to the letter," co-owner Malkin says. "We're extremely conscientious about that."

For instance his caterer, The Lazy Gourmet, makes his Healthy Living cheesecake with non-fat cream cheese and egg whites, while his Zone cheesecake is made with low fat cream cheese and a protein powder.

All Healthy Living recipes come from cookbooks endorsed by the American and Canadian Heart and Stroke Foundations. Food is low fat, low salt, low cholesterol, grilled, steamed or blanched. Mashed potatoes are made with skim milk and margarine. Cakes are baked with whole wheat flour, egg whites, apple sauce or prunes rather than refined white flour, whole eggs and butter.

Atkins menus come in Atkins' first two phases (20 grams of carbohydrates daily for induction and 40 grams daily for ongoing weight loss) after which clients are advised to switch to the Zone program, which follows similar principles of avoiding starchy foods and refined sugars.

The Zone menu (40 per cent carbs, 30 per cent fat and 30 per cent protein for optimal balance in insulin levels) is overseen by certified Zone consultant and Zone Canada owner Craig Moore.

Atkins and Zone clients generally lose four to 12 pounds in the first two weeks and are then asked if they want to work on ongoing weight loss, Malkin says.

Portion size is calculated from client's measurements and goal weight.

With the encouragement of my editor, my husband (who said he wouldn't mind losing a few pounds in preparation for a half-marathon) and I decide to join the celeb set for a week and try it out.

The Specialty Gourmet promises to home-deliver breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks to a cooler on our doorstep by 6 a.m. every morning. Each meal will be pre-cooked and packed in fuss-free disposable containers.

I choose their Healthy Living menu, a low fat, minimal salt diet that follows the Canada Food Guide. Ever wonder what five to 10 servings of fruit and vegetables, and five to 12 servings of grain a day looks like? I'm about to find out.

My husband, creative director Ray Mah, decides to check out the Atkins diet. Nigel Malkin didn't want the kids languishing on macaroni and cheese while we eat in pre-portioned splendour, so he delivers Healthy Living dinners for them too.

DAY ONE

6:30 a.m. My husband loves his Atkins-styled spinach and feta omelette. The spinach is beautiful -- a fresh, luscious green, and the omelette delicate and tasty. If this is packaged food, we're buying. Ray weighs in at 150 pounds.

My Tomato, Onion and Feta Omelette is a rather firm wedge of egg. I find out later it's healthfully made with lots of egg whites. Being a fruit and veggie fan, I eat the tomato and onion topping, devour the grape garnish, steal the strawberry off my coconut flan "snack", and ditch the egg.

By 9:30 a.m. I've finished my delicious Roast Chicken, Avocado Citrus Salad lunch and thrown in a few mandarin oranges of my own.

12:30 p.m. My husband's clients want to take him out for lunch, but good-naturedly order in when Ray produces his Specialty Gourmet Nicoise Salad. The salad is delicious, my husband reports.

Since I finished my Specialty Gourmet lunch at breakfast, I supplement my menu with some whole-grain bread and peanut butter, a fruit salad with a bit of yogurt, and a fistful of mandarin oranges.

6 p.m.: Joy and bliss. No need to fret about what to cook for dinner. Rather than mentally scanning the contents of my freezer, I'm remarkably cheerful and attentive as I chauffeur the kids home from their activities. I've gained a good 45 minutes to my day. Actually, scrap that. Throw in 10 minutes to nag the kids to set the table, and another 10 minutes to clean up the kitchen, I've gained well over an hour.

But two out of three kids are hungry a half hour after their Healthy Living dinners of peppered steak, leek-mashed potato and broccoli. We were all surprised at the two giant scoops of mashed potato and the tiny half cup portion of steamed broccoli -- more veggies please! My husband stares incredulously at his dinner -- two beautiful but lonely skewers of beef with roasted peppers and eggplant. The whole shebang is what he would usually call an appetizer. Aah, well, it is a diet.

DAY TWO

My husband finds himself eating at conventional mealtimes, a major accomplishment for a man who frequently forgets to eat until he gets home at night.

"It's handy," he says. "If I'm working late, it's nice to have dinner in the studio refrigerator ready for me to eat. No fuss, and it's nice to know it's in the context of the diet."

After just a day, he weighs in at 145 pounds. He is happy, but hungry as he heads out for his usual 80 minute run. Later he stretches out his poached dill salmon by eating v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y.

The kids and I are surprised by the heavy emphasis on starch in our dinner of Mee Goreng noodles with chicken, and I begin to follow my stomach, disregard The Specialty Gourmet's labelling and eat half my dinner by mid-afternoon.

DAY THREE

I get a small Fresh Fruit Salad for breakfast and a Bocconcini, Tomato, Basil, Onion Salad for lunch. Tasty, but I'm starving.

Ray's digestive system rebels against a high fat Atkins-styled salami salad, but the kids and I gaze longingly at his dinner. He seems to get beautiful pieces of meat or fish with veggies while we seem to get lots of starch. We resolve the problem by asking The Specialty Gourmet for larger meals -- standard procedure and no additional fee, says owner Nigel Malkin.

DAY FOUR

Ray's buzzing with energy and wants to tackle the world by 4 a.m. He loves his Shrimp and Feta Stew with Zuchinni lunch.

"This doesn't feel like a diet," he gushes. "It's a nice outlay of good food and lots of veggies. I was under the impression that the Atkins diet was Spam, Spam and more Spam."

The kids and I have Tropical Breast of Chicken with rice for dinner. Where are the veggies?

DAY FIVE

Ray's up at 4 a.m. again and goes for his regular two-hour run. He downs his breakfast smoothie but for the first time complains about eating "diet" food.

"Diet food is something you have to gulp down. It's not to be enjoyed," he says.

DAY SIX

Ray flies out of town on business and forgets to eat. I thoroughly enjoy my French Toast Soufflé breakfast and -- at last -- a very generous Grilled Vegetable Salad lunch. Late at night, Ray makes a point of eating some carbs to fuel his half marathon the next morning.

DAY SEVEN

Despite his high-protein, low-carb week, Ray manages to run his usual speed of 152 minutes at the Scotia Bank Half Marathon.

THE DAY AFTER

First thing in the morning, Ray weighs in at 144 pounds and is thrilled. He hasn't seen this side of 145 in years.

"But after I took a shower, I was 145. Go figure," he says.

His clothes feel somewhat looser, he's clear-headed, "sparkly" and would like to continue with this diet, but he misses milk and fruit.

The last word? "It was quite enjoyable and to come out losing six pounds is great," he says.

He'll miss the ease of home-delivered diet meals and is definitely tempted at the thought of continuing the gourmet-to-go lifestyle, but I quickly nix that. At $40 a day per person for a family of five, that's $200 a day compared to the $150 to $180 I normally spend per week on groceries.

The kids will miss opening the fridge at any given time of day to find a cooked meal waiting. Who wouldn't?

As for me, well, I didn't lose any weight, I'm grateful to be back to my own oversized portions of fruit and vegetables, but sorely lament the loss of Malkin's most priceless gift -- a free hour every night.

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Nigel Malkin's Specialty Gourmet charges $39.95 a day for three meals and a snack and about $30 for lunch, dinner and a snack.

Five-month-old Low Carb Express offers a similar delivery service catered by North Vancouver's The Moveable Feast, but the menu follows owner Derek Good's personal take on the Atkins diet.

"It's just food I ate for a year while I was on the diet," says Good, a British Columbia Institute of Technology marketing graduate who recently lost 115 pounds and markets himself as a weight management coach.

Low Carb Express charges $40 for breakfast, lunch, dinner and a snack. Lunches alone are $15.

Contact The Specialty Gourmet at 604-983-8511 and Low Carb Express at 604-897-9730.