Thistle vs Sunbasket - Which One Wins
Seeing so many amazing pictures of plant-based food on social media makes it seem easy.
But with all the work that needs to go into cooking a healthy dinner - the prepping, buying groceries, and all the clean-up, we can only do it every now and again. On a daily basis? Forget it!
The easier solution is meal subscription services, but there are soo many to choose from. We wanted something that would offer us convenience, taste, and quality. From doing our research, Thistle and Sunbasket seemed the most popular, so we decided to put them to the test.
Here’s what we thought:
Key Similarities:
- They both offer ready-to-eat meals
- They are both subscription-based
Key Differences:
- Thistle’s meals contain 40 different superfoods which Sunbasket doesn’t
- Thistle offers 10 meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner whereas Sunbasket offers just 10 meals overall
- Thistle offers juices and wellness shots which Sunbasket doesn’t
Thistle Overview
Thistle is a ready-to-eat meal delivery service with perfectly portioned sizes that only take a few minutes to heat up. Unlike ready-to-eat meals you could pick up in the grocery store, they’re designed by chefs and nutritionists to ensure that every meal is well balanced.
Thistle offers completely plant-based meals and vegan plans with an option to add meat or seafood to your meals. Their meals also don't contain refined white sugars, artificial preservatives, artificial additives, or artificial dyes. Additionally, their ingredients are all locally sourced so you know exactly where they are harvested.
Thistle offers a wide range of breakfasts, lunches, dinners, juices, snacks, and wellness shots. They use over 40 different superfoods like turmeric, matcha, spirulina, maca, chia, and more. Thistle’s meals are also globally inspired and change every week, so you never get tired of eating the same meals.
Our editors tried the Chunky Monkey Smoothie that was sweet, creamy and slightly salty. The Caterpillar Sushi Salad for lunch had just the right amount of crunch and the Pasta Ceci Aglio e Olio with added chicken made for a hearty dinner. But the outstanding dish that we would repeatedly eat was the Thistle Pad Thai with the tangy tamarind-chili sauce - delicious!
Overall we loved the food we received but the wellness shots, juices, and snacks were the perfect mid-day fillers. Their meals start at only $11.50 per meal, which is more affordable than takeout.
Rating: Convenience: 9/10, Price: 8/10, Variety of recipes: 9.2/10. Overall rating: 9.2/10
Sunbasket Overview
Sunbasket offers Fresh and Ready meals and a meal kit. For this article, we are going to compare Thistle to the Fresh and Ready meals that are ready to eat after just a few minutes in the microwave.
Sunbasket offers meals for special diets like vegetarian, paleo, gluten-free, diabetes-friendly, pescatarian and more. They also use only sustainably sourced produce, meats and seafood. They have a weekly rotating menu which offers you a wide selection of foods. Like Thistle, Sunbasket caters for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks but offers 10 meal options in total each week.
Our editors tired the Cornmeal Crust Hand Pie, Plant-Based Sausage Scramble for breakfast, the vegetarian Green Curry Noodle Bowl for lunch, and the Maple Glazed Pork Chop Over Hoppin' John with collards and pancetta for dinner, which was good but was lacking something.
Even though their food was tasty, they left us craving more. Their snacks of nuts, seeds, crackers, bars, veggies and dips were nice but we still couldn’t get Thistle’s Watermelon Berry juice out of our minds.
We were also very confused with their statement, “Our Gluten-Free recipes are prepared in the same facility as our other meals, and may not be suitable for those diagnosed with coeliac.” We found this deceiving as a number of their recipes are gluten-free.
Sunbasket meals cost between $11.99-$12.99.
Rating: Convenience: 7/10, Price: 7.4/10, Variety of recipes: 6.8/10. Overall rating: 7.1/10
Final Thoughts
Our editors were looking for a ready-to-eat meal service that gave us quality, convenience and price. Thistle was the one that achieved this in our eyes. To start off, Thistle offers the most meals - you can get up to 10 breakfasts, lunches, and dinners every week, unlike Sunbasket which offers only 10 meals overall, which isn’t enough.
Thistle also uses 40 different superfoods which are great for our diets but most importantly, Thistle has the best food in terms of taste and quantity - we were never looking for more.
For us, Thistle is the most convenient way of improving your diet. We will definitely be keeping this subscription going.
