Review: V on Wheels DetoxBox
Updated: Mar 6, 2020
V on Wheels is the first vegan meal delivery in New Zealand and it is based right here, in Tauranga! After meeting Mila Arena, the founder of the healthy business, we wanted to know more and were given the opportunity to try the V on Wheels detox box diet for a week.
The Detox box is super fun and so good for you. Each box includes 5 smoothies for breakfast and 5 pre-cooked meals. You can order meals whenever you feel like balancing your daily food habits or subscribe and get a new box delivered to your doorstep every Monday. No more “what to cook for dinner” nightmares! The price of the detox box is $119.
The best part about this service is that the menu changes every week! focus editors were treated to:
Dee: “It’s a massive job, distributing 5,000 magazines throughout the Bay of Plenty. It involves a lot of muscle power, walking and loads of time in the car. You can imagine that, in this heat, getting home from a road trip to Rotorua and Whakatane, the last thing I wanted to do was prepare dinner.
Thankfully, I had been given a five-day Detox Box from V on Wheels to review and, with my hubbie away on a business trip, there was only me to cater for. Talk about perfect timing! My first meal was a lime and quinoa, chickpea fresh salad with ‘sunfed’ plant based chicken – Google advised me that ‘sunfed’ meats are made from pea protein – they cook, feel and taste just like the real thing but, of course, are a lot healthier for us and the planet.
Luckily for me, this salad was big enough to last two days.
The V on Wheels five-day Detox Box consists of five ‘Just Blend’ smoothies and five scrumptious meals that can be eaten either for lunch or dinner.
The ingredients for the smoothies come in small, individually wrapped bags – all you do is add 250ml of water and blend. There was a good selection of smoothies over the five days but I’m always partial to a vegie juice so, my favourite would have to be the Clean Liver smoothie which had beetroot, raspberry, mango, ginger, chilli, chia seeds, coconut oil, lemon juice and powdered coconut water. None of the ingredients were too overpowering – a perfect balance of all these yummy things.
It was then a toss-up for the next favourite but I think the Iron Giant with apple, kumara, banana, spinach, kiwi fruit, lemon juice, pumpkin seeds, Himalayan salt and powdered coconut water won by a smidge. Coming in third was the Turmeric Sunrise which had a delightful mix of pineapple, pear, kumara, turmeric, banana, apple cider vinegar and Himalayan salt. I mean, who knew to include kumara in smoothies…I sure didn’t!
Everything was just so effortless. I whizzed up a smoothie each day, took a main meal out of the freezer and, in the evening, heated it!
After the quinoa, chickpea, ‘sunfed’ chicken salad my favourite meal was the broccoli, chickpea curry with spinach quinoa. This was delicious and, if I had the recipe, would make this again and again. Beautiful texture, tasty and very filling.
The Detox Box gave me the opportunity to try new things without the hassle. I’m not a vegan but have a number of vegan recipe books that sit on my bookshelf, unused. Apart from the ‘sunfed’ plant based chicken I got to experience vegan cheddar (couscous stuffed tomatoes with vegan cheddar) and Pumpkin Alfredo with gluten-free spaghetti. The detox has inspired me to dust off the recipe books …we’ll see whether I get any further with that!
V on Wheels is the first vegan meal delivery online store. Jump onto their website and check out their menus for the week www.vonwheels.com. You can order platters, individual dishes or the Detox Box and, if you’re looking for a sweet treat, well they have those too. All the dishes are handmade and most are gluten free. And if you want to find out how uncomplicated vegan cooking is, V on Wheels also offers classes. You’ll just need to gather at least four people together and book a week in advance.”
Kseniia: “I’m a huge fan of V on Wheels. I love Mila’s creative approach to vegan recipes and given that you can find some of her meals at No Bull Fuel Pop Up Cafe next to my go-to workout place Diego Health & Fitness in Tauranga, I normally have my lunches sorted. But I had never tried the Detox box before.
After opening the box, the first thing I noticed was that four out of five meals were frozen – so that’s how you solve an issue of having them fresh for an entire week, smart!
I also loved the size of the portions – there’s enough for two meals or, in my case, to share it with one’s hubby. By the way, he’s a devout meat-lover and normally rejects “rabbit food” or anything that’s vegan. V on Wheels was the exception, he enjoyed having it….as a garnish to his meat!
However, we both couldn’t get enough of the salad with plant based chicken (side note for those trying to reduce the amount of meat in their diet: it tastes FANTASTIC and you’ll never notice the difference!) and broccoli-chickpea curry.
These five days have definitely got me back on track with my food habits, I’ve finally stopped over-eating and am back to making smarter choices. And I’m pretty sure those hilarious videos of me blending morning smoothies made me one step closer to becoming an Instagram celebrity!
There is only one disadvantage to ordering a Detox box – I’ve completely forgotten how to cook and am still expecting to open my fridge and see a mouthwatering dish waiting for me. Thank goodness there’s a subscription option.