**REVIEW** Good Chop Meat Subscription

 I tried Good Chop, you guys. Here are the pros and cons of my experience:

PROS:

1. Sign-up was easy & with LifeMart, I got a good discount of $170 over the first 4 boxes.
2. It was easy to choose my box size, delivery frequency, and which items I wanted in my box.
3. The website makes it easy to change the choices for each box.
4. The website gives detailed information about each type of meat or seafood.
5. Choices include beef, chicken, pork, and seafood. There were also a few desserts.
6. The delivery is very controlled to make sure the meat stays frozen until it reaches you.
7. The box and the packing are all of recyclable materials.
8. Each meat selection was very securely sealed and labeled.
9. The website has chat and phone call options for you to contact help.
10. The delivered box lists the contents on one of the inner flaps (though not the weight or piece count).
11. For the quality and the healthy aspects of the meats, the price was fair.
12. You "send a 'free box'" to friends and family via their email addresses. (I sent out 4, I think, and still had more to go.)

CONS:

1. The website needs work, IMO.
2. You can only reach help via chat or phone during certain hours.
3. I did not get a promised tracking number - even after I contacted them about this and was told I would be given a tracking number via email.
4. The chat reps were very nice but not all that helpful. They don't seem to be that knowledgeable. I got some bad/useless info.
5. There is no phone app for the service (even though I was told via chat that I would be able to make changes via "mobile").
6. I could not figure out how to "pause" my service. I ended up deactivating the service (which then put it into "pause" mode. Weird).
7. The LifeMart discount did not include the free-for-life option (free packet of chicken or bacon for the life of the account).
8. I had to screenshot my order. There was no other way (that I could see) to keep track of what I'd ordered before the shipment arrived.
9. Finally, it pays to check this out on Truth in Advertising before making a decision. You will learn more about the Hello Fresh controversy and about those  "free for life" chicken wings, so...

What I wish I'd known:

• Good Chop is owned by Hello Fresh (and there has been some concerning controversy with them...). You can Google up quite a few articles on the subject.
• That the customer service was so... iffy.
• That I'd have to "cancel" just to "pause".
• That there are quite a few reviews out there - good and otherwise. Of course, everyone's opinion might not seem so legit. (One guy complained about "missing info" on the products when he could have contacted them or Googled the info. Most of the info was right on the website so I'm not sure why he overlooked it.)
• I wish I'd known someone who used the service. (This is why I was the guinea pig for my family!)

That's the short take. Despite all the negative aspects, I plan to sign back up for the service when my dental work is finished. Here's why:

• I am determined to eat better, even if it means eating less because of my budget.
• Every single thing in my box was DELICIOUS. The meat and seafood were gorgeous, filling, and so tasty!
• Buying the same meat locally with the same qualities is almost as much as what the box costs. Sometimes, depending on the availability of seafood, the box selection is cheaper. (For instance, jumbo shrimp bought locally is also non-GMO, etc, etc., but it's no larger than what I got in the box. Also, the pink shrimp in the box is wild-caught and has a better taste and texture. (But shout out to Walmart for having a decent selection of jumbo shrimp for around $9/lb.) I priced out similar local selections of what was in my box and it would have cost me around $170. Also, I would have to go to 3 different stores. The sockeye salmon was only available at the butcher's and did not have all the options of what came in my box.
• The delivery schedule options are 4, 6, or 8 weeks. You can also skip a box if needed. I would only have to order 1 box about every 12 weeks - versus buying locally. Again, I would have to shop in more than one place to get the same options.
• It's convenient to get my different meat types delivered in one box. 
• I can change my selection from box to box. (Since I will have all my teeth the next time I order, I will probably try the baby back ribs!)

Here are some photos and comments about the box:

This is the opened box, It is well-insulated & all my items were 

          still frozen rock-solid. I am in Iowa & the box shipped from Kansas.

These are the contents of the box. I got the "medium" box (there is no "small") and it includes 6 items of my choosing: Sockeye Salmon, Florida Pink Shrimp, Uncured Bacon, Mild Italian Sausage, Chicken Wings, and Ground Beef.

This is the bacon. I loved it but will probably only order it in every other box.

It's 12 ounces & cooks up deliciously but not quite as crisp as I like.

This is the ground beef. It is AMAZING. I will be ordering more. It cooked nicely with almost no water noticeable.

The wings are good but I wished I'd gotten more of the winglet than the leglet, if that makes sense. This bag was around 20% leglet, which I could do without.

I am still raving to my brother about the sausage. It did NOT shrink at all during 

cooking.  They are so plump and juicy that I went through them too fast!

The salmon reminded me of home a little. It didn't take long

to bake and it absorbed the seasonings really well.

You can see that I got some nice cuts. Some didn't look the same

weight but I have a scale. They were pretty even, with some

just bit thicker or thinner than the others.

I've never had this type of shrimp. It

better than any I've had here in Iowa but not as

tasty as some I had in Alaska.

Because they aren't shelled, I had to either thaw & shell them

or cook them shell-on. I found them not to be as 

"sweet" as I like & I won't rush to order more.

And this was on top of the contents.

Verdict:

So, yeah, I like it. For future boxes (I'll have my teeth fixed then, the Lord willing), I want to try the scallops, ribs, pork chops, and halibut. I thought about the crab legs but they are fully cooked. At any rate, I am a fan of the box and selections I've tried.

Initially, I thought the price was a bit high. It does seem pricey at the outset, especially for someone on a small budget. However, there are always coupons and discounts. (I see that now there is a promo on the boxes. The smallest box (called "Medium") which is normally $149 ($108 with the LifeMart promo I used) is currently $99. Not bad at all! The most important thing is whether it is worth it to eat more healthfully and I know that it is.

Once I decided to work the box into my budget, I talked it over with my family. My brother, SIL, and my niece and her family considered going in together on the Large box ($269 regularly or $219 with the current promo as I write this). The problem there was choosing meat options! We are all so picky. Going family by family is what we decided on - with me as the guinea pig.

When I was trying to compare shopping locally for everything in the box, it got tricky. For instance, Walmart has a lot of the same things but I would have to hit the butcher's, Hyvee, and Aldi to get the complete list. Also, local availability can be iffy. What I can get this week, might not be available the next time I shop.

Again, I really do like the convenience, the quality, and the selection of products. I cannot wait until all my chompers are in working order! I might eat nothing but meat and hard apples for weeks. 

Do I recommend the subscription based on my experience? I can only say that I will definitely be using them again - when I get my chompers! Perhaps someone you know can send you an invite for the "free box".

By the way, I checked with my brother. I gave their email to Good Chop for the "free box". It was free (but they had to pay the $15 or $16 for shipping). They were able to select 3 meat or seafood cuts. I think they chose the chicken wings, ground beef, and bacon. I will try to update this post when they get their box and I hear their feedback.

Peace

--Free

DISCLAIMER: I am not/will not be compensated in any way for this review. I have no affiliation with Good Chop or its parent company except as a paying customer.

I Am Such A Boomer (When It Comes to TikTok)

I have developed a habit. Whenever I have to be down for a couple of days to recuperate (and I'm not proud of this)... I love watching YouTubers react to TikTok videos. And as a Boomer, I can be so stereotypically critical. 

TikTok is so full of self-styled experts on almost everything. One guy talking about space not being real proclaimed himself (with all earnestness) to be an "investigative journalist".

There are the Tokkers (is that what they are?) who talk a lot about UFOs, the Annunaki, and the other "fallen" entities or even underwater worlds; there are the ones who love to look beautiful (or handsome) while they point upwards at someone else's content (one girl's false eyelashes were so huge they could have fanned and cooled a whole house; and then, there are the ones who never fail to annoy me with their constant exclamations of  "Y'all", "bro" (or "bruhhhh") and so on. There is one guy who I've come to dislike so much that I can identify him by voice. I can be going into a deep doze, but as soon as I hear his annoying "Y'all. Yawl!" I can't fast-forward past his segment quickly enough.

Not only does the Boomer in me get tired of the Y'all-ing and bro-ing, but I really hate the way Tokkers curse as if they just became grown enough to do so yesterday. I miss a lot of content because I can wear out the L on my keyboard fast-forwarding through all the ridiculous and needless cursing. It's almost as if some people cannot articulate a thought without using some foul word or phrase. 

Another thing my inner Boomer hates is the sheer ignorance of some of the Tokkers. I'm not being high-minded here. I know that I am not the brightest person around, but... I have listened to grown Tokkers - some of them at least in their late 20s and older - show a complete lack of knowledge about some very basic things. Some of them don't know about major world events of the last 15 or 25 years. One person was puzzled by some general political history - so general that I have 13-year-old relatives who are aware of the information.

watching some creator "content"

"The strangest thing about the ignorance I've seen is that a lot of the Tokkers (in these examples) claim to be college-educated.

Now - to be clear, when I say I'm not the brightest person around, I'm serious. I remember feeling overwhelmingly embarrassed once when I (as a not-so-young adult) was in the company of some much younger European-educated kids. They knew more about American politics, geography, and even our economic policies than I ever learned about while in school. It was then that I decided to clean up some of my knowledge shortcomings.

I do get secondhand embarrassed for the folks who seem not to have mastered even middle school language skills. It's my opinion that young people (and some of them not so young) are educated by their social media use and have forgotten skills they were taught in school. I have heard content creators string together words in ways that make my brain cringe. Sometimes, they are so confident in their use of bad grammar that I question if they said anything incorrectly!

Anyway.

The other thing I notice about these videos is that it's weird in the first place that someone's content is just them reacting to another content creator. What gets weirder is when the situation multiplies... That's happened more than once. I will be watching YouTuber 1 responding to a video of TikTokker1 who happens to be playing the content of TikTokker 2. It can be like wandering into a digital hall of mirrors.

 Of course, while I'm doing all this criticizing, I am subscribed to at least half a dozen of these reaction channels. Sometimes, I do chores while watching them on the television. That's much better than seeing the videos on a smaller computer screen.

One of my favorite things while watching these reaction videos is to keep another tab open on a search site. I will pause the video to go over and Google topics like "Who is Billy Carson and why is he so annoying?" Once, feeling like a complete idiot, I Googled "Was there really a nuclear emergency warning recently?" Yeah, I really did that.

Not all Tokkers are full of crap. Some of them do talk about interesting things. I've seen a couple of Toks (again, is that a thing?) showing feel-good content. One was about a homeless kid who got his life together and is now helping others. 

Not all Tokkers are full of crap but a lot of them are sure full of themselves. They like to create new conspiracy theories or inflate old ones. Some of them are just pure entertainers who have a cool schtick. One guy is so personable that I enjoy watching him talk his nonsense. 

After all the videos (Toks?) I've watched, I still don't understand the pointy-finger madness...

I point to look... smart???

One day, I'm going to find a reaction video full of Toks that are totally believable. In the meantime, it's going to be my guilty pleasure to hear Tokkers go on ranting about their collective consciousness or some special vibration they follow, and so on. It's not always a bad way to spend some sick time.

Peace

--Free

P.S.: Well, y'all, I hope this post is fairly error-free. It's been a rough weekend. Peace!

**UPDATE #2** My Personal Food Revolution (and Good Chop)

UPDATE #2 I'm just going to let this sit here and amaze everyone...

This is the SOURCE LINK

**UPDATE**

First, I have to say that I am not the only one feeling revolutionary over here! LOL. I just discovered a site called Food Revolution. As it happens, it is not my cup of tea since it seems to be profit-driven. However, it's nice to know there are other Hueys out there...

Not too many days after writing this post the first time, I came across a couple of videos that I want to share. I'd seen one a while back and had forgotten. Both of these videos help strengthen my resolve to eat better.

I can only show trailer cuts for this one. 

You can see more on the YouTube channel here. The full video can be found at conspryre.TV.

Watching that one makes me wonder if I didn't develop my sarcoidosis because of the foods I was eating. I also wonder if changing my diet will help my condition. I am slowly working toward better/cleaner eating habits so I can't wait to see!

This is the one I'd seen a while back. I watch the creators' channel all the time. 

That one also made me mad. The creators have content over at Conspyre also and I saw this video. Had to add to my list of rant-worthy things...

So if I was on a path before - to eat better, even if doing so means eating less because of budget constraints - I am even more determined. I have been feeling too sick, too fat, too unhealthy for too long. As Fannie Lou Hamer put it: I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.

*********

I posted not long ago that "We Need a Food Revolution". The truth is, every man is his own revolutionary. I believe I need to be more careful about what I eat and drink and put on my hair and skin. I believe that my health has been much more impacted by past decisions than I realized. 

Sometimes, when I think about this weird autoimmune disease I struggle with, I wonder if it came from things I was eating and drinking. I wonder if years of eating processed foods and drinking beverages with substitute sugars, artificial flavorings, and food coloring just caught up with me. Maybe. Probably.

I am pretty sure that if my lifelong dietary habits were not the cause of the sarcoidosis, it certainly didn't help. Maybe if I'd had a better diet all along, my body could handle the sarcoidosis better.

At any rate, I decided that it's never too late to start doing better. So I started a few months back. My biggest frustration for me has been researching ingredients. The sarcoidosis stilts my brain power sometimes so researching anything is a huge challenge. 

I started with the most common things I tend to consume: meat, eggs, bread, coffee, and juice.

Meat:

I am almost ready to give up on all meat. Everything has antibiotics, or are GMO, or are... maybe not even meat at all...

I decided to stick mainly with seafood and eggs for protein. That doesn't mean I gave up bacon or pork sausage, but I do limit those things and I do try to be more careful about sourcing. This is why I am so glad that I found Good Chop (which, my health insurance offers a discount for).

Good Chop is where I can get meat and seafood that is safer and healthier. I don't have to worry about the ingredients. This is what I love about the meat and seafood:

• wild-caught or US-farm-raised seafood
• US-born/bred meat
• no additives, hormones, antibiotics
• grass-fed beef
• pork that is "fed a 100% vegetarian diet (aside from milk protein)"
• chicken that is fed a vegetarian diet
• seafood that is "MSC- or ASC-certified"

In other words, this is meat and seafood the way it should be. When you think about the fact that it is a bit more expensive (not really), it's better to think about what healthcare costs. At least, that's my attitude.

Bread, desserts, beverages:

Bread is my lifelong love. When I was younger, I could live on a bag of Wonderbread and peanut butter. That's when I had a working metabolism! In recent years, I started baking my own bread to control the ingredients. That was great until I started having slight issues. Suddenly, I would bloat if I ate more than a slice of bread. I'd bloat and put on 10 pounds (or so it seemed!). So, I was ready to dang near give it up. But then...

... I randomly heard about bread made with French flour. What I heard was that Americans found it to be less problematic for their diet. Apparently, it didn't cause the uncomfortable bloating. Better yet, it didn't cause as much weight gain. WHAT?

Of course, I needed to see if this was true. I scoured the internet for more information. Then I tried to find some of this flour to use in my own baking. At some point, I will do a post about French flour and its use. For now, just know that there is truth (for me) in the rumors about the bloating and weight gain.

(When I do the post about my trial runs baking with French flour, I'll go into more detail. For now, let me just say that I do prefer the taste and texture of the bread I baked using the flour.)

I'm not as big on dessert as I used to be. I do love the occasional Rhodes cinnamon roll (I am learning to make my own version using French flour), and I like some plain vanilla bean ice cream every now and then. Mostly, these days, I stick to Greek yogurt with honey. I can't wait to learn to make the cinnamon rolls though!

When I want ice cream and don't want to drag out the Ninja Creami, I will buy the Premium vanilla ice cream from Aldi. It has really good ingredients, is affordable, and tastes like sweet clouds of joy.

As for beverages, I do like water and sometimes, I jazz it up by drinking a cold Pellegrino water. When I want a soda - which happens about once or twice every couple of months, I will opt for a "Mexican Coke" (made with cane sugar) or one of the other sodas that use cane sugar and not high fructose corn syrup or some other "bad" sweetener. There is a brand I can find at my corner store called Spring Grove. The brand is from Minnesota (don't ya know?) and is pretty tasty. They are not as expensive as some cane sugar sodas. 

The one thing I am still in pursuit of is a coffee creamer that is healthier than the sweet types I love... I will have to keep working on that!

In General:

When I shop now, my goal is to avoid GMOs, antibiotics, lab-grown products, and basically anything unnatural. This is a time when even vegetarians will have to watch where their plant-based foods come from.

When I look at ingredients in consumables, I am really trying to avoid fake sugar, "bad" sugars, colorings, and weird flavorings. 

As for my personal budget, when I looked at what the GoodChop box cost me, I realized that because I only get one every 8 weeks (and can skip when I want or need to), I am not spending any more than I was at the grocery stores. Here's what one order looked like.  

This is under $110 including S&H 
(with the discount)

That box will last me for-ever - or at least almost forever. I do know that I am going to need longer than 8 weeks in between boxes.

At any rate, I know that we can't change everything in life all at once, but we have to start somewhere. If you are interested, I suggest you research ingredients. Also, shop around when you do find products you like. Here are some tips from my personal experience:

• I got my T55 French flour from Amazon but I do plan to visit the supplier's store (they are a state over from me) to buy some in bulk since the flour there is sometimes up to 40% cheaper that way. See if you have a store near you. I have been using the Francine brand. The T45 flour is a bit cheaper (and I can add some wheat gluten to raise the protein levels).  Someone told me that Italian flour is just as good, but I find it costs more than the French brands. BTW, I will explain the different numbers of flour when I do the post on French flour.
• Aldi's Simply Nature brand has non-GMO juice that is 100% juice not from concentrate. Best of all, they were affordable - under $5 for 34-ounce bottles. Walmart (and sometimes elsewhere but for a higher price) carries the Antioxidant Solutions brand juice that is as good as the Simply Nature brand. I got a quart of blueberry juice for about $5. Both brands have various flavors or flavor combos.
• For condiments, I use Simply Ketchup and recently found a sweet and sour sauce that I like. It has no HFCS, artificial flavors, or dyes. And it's affordable.
• Some sodas that don't use HFCS are Stewarts, Spring Grove, "Mexican" Coke, and Pepsi, this Malta beverage (?), Jarrito tends to have a lot of colorants but this one is a bit better, IBC Black Cherry Cola (if you like that) isn't awful-sounding, and Reed's ginger beer sounds amazing...  BTW, Jones soda used to be all cane sugar but now they use "invert cane sugar" and I am avoiding that until I know more. I don't like that Jones shows "Cane Sugar" in big letters but the fine print shows invert sugar. and it also has a "modified food starch". Again, what???
• If you can't find a product to your liking, look for copycat recipes with healthier ingredients. That's what I did with aioli sauce when I was making pizza. 
• Just read the ingredients. If you don't know what an ingredient is, look for a definition.
• Find a list of sneaky names for ingredients. Salt and sugar have all kinds of names for them. 
• Watch for your personal health. What's "healthy" for one person might not be for another. For instance, there are many healthy things that I have to watch out for. One example is greens (collards and spinach for two). I can't have all the collards or spinach I want because I have CKD.

This is my first loaf of bread made with T55 flour:

My SIL says it was "like manna"

Anyway, I hope this was somewhat interesting and perhaps helpful. I am NOT a professional and have no training in diet, nutrition, or medicine of any kind. Do your own research. Talk with your care team. And just try to be a little healthier today than you were yesterday.

Peace

--Free

P.S.: Forgive any sloppiness with grammar or typing. It's been a rough week and I threw this post together as quick as I could before I get too tired. - Peace

DISCLAIMER: I was not and will not be compensated in any way for anything mentioned in this post. I have no medical trainer nor am I qualified in any way to advise on diet and nutrition. This post is about my personal experiences.