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Grocery costs are getting more and more expensive, with costs for basic foods like bread and eggs seeing 40% increases in some cases. If you’ve been a reader for a while now, you’ve heard me call American refrigerators classist.

“Considering it’s been a kitchen mainstay since, oh, 1930 or so, the refrigerator still doesn’t seem to cater to people who are busy and don’t have a huge food budget.

The freezer is so petite! It’s giving me ‘I’m for special occasions’ vibes, but frozen vegetables are often more affordable and still pack the nutrients you need. And freezing meals like soups, stews, pastas, and breads is a great way to meal prep for the more distant future.

For most of us, the most convenient food items will live in your pantry and freezer. That is, unless you don’t have any dependents or roommates, have healthy work hours, decent disposable grocery income, and the will to cook on an expiration date-deadline.”

It is important to consume fruits and vegetables to reduce the risk of many diseases and to just generally optimize your health. And there’s nothing quite like unpacking a grocery haul of beautiful, fresh produce. A more affordable, time-saving way to eat fresh is to eat ugly.

There are a bunch of produce delivery services that will send you “ugly” produce for a slight discount. It’s purely aesthetic; these fruits and veggies still pack the nutrients you want and taste good! Plus, the delivery saves you time and energy you’d spend at the store.

We reviewed five of the most popular produce delivery services, many of which send food that is too misshapen or oddly colored for traditional retailers. We looked at things like customer experience, ease of delivery, packaging, variety, and quality. We ate the produce every day for nearly a month.

And our top pick is Imperfect Foods. I personally love Imperfect. It’s an environmentally conscious service that ships “ugly” produce, and I’ve also discovered a lot of cool new brands through the site, like my now beloved Olipop. It costs $44 and up a week and you can get weekly or biweekly deliveries.

We had a few other favorites, too. (And some that you should skip.)

I still think fridges could stand a better design to cater to those of us who don’t have endless windows of time to cook beautiful, fresh meals. But I also appreciate that there are produce delivery services trying to make up for the fact that grocery costs are increasingly inaccessible, and that most of us really don’t care if that carrot has a weird little knob jutting out of the center.

I hope we continue to see more affordable, healthy, inclusive meal delivery services pop up in response to growing grocery costs.

Melanie, editor at Nessie Sightings

These performance overgrips (tape you wrap around a tennis handle for traction and sweat absorption) are amazing. They’re from Bageled NYC so they are aptly flavor-themed: egg, lox, cream cheese

I really want to try this small-batch tahini sauce slash dip from Sunny Fine Foods (described as “fluffy” and “creamy” and making all my dip dreams come true)

A lovely little print if you often worry whether people are mad at you / go over every little thing you said at a social engagement and wonder how each microscopic thing was received

Ina makes intimate wellness products, like this balancing cleanser for your most sensitive skin (not going to beat around the bush, this is to wash around your vulva). Developed and tested by a gyno

These pieces of jewelry are designed to help keep hearing aids in place (no piercings required!)

This targeted me on Instagram but I like the concept! It’s Crooked Coffee’s craft lovers box, which includes a medium and dark roast and a kit to teach you how to crochet a penguin. It wants you to log off

One of our readers, MenoLabs community manager Natasha Rao, is hosting a live shopping event tomorrow for two probiotics designed to help with menopause symptoms

A necessary interrogation on all of the startups popping up that want us to continuously monitor our blood sugar

Is this a breakthrough for Alzheimer’s treatment?

If you’re going to try a light therapy device, make sure it’s FDA-cleared for safety

Free the pill

“Like a nightmare version of the Food Network, the rage-bait chef genre is both distinctive and diverse”

If you’ve wanted to try those battle ropes in the middle of your gym but felt intimidated, this guide is for you

What it’s like to attend a $3,000 wellness festival

I genuinely enjoy the experience of coffee outside of just the perk of perking up. The taste, the ritual, it’s meditative for me. But too much caffeine gives me anxiety or makes my tummy hurt. An obvious solution: decaf coffee. Or as decaf coffee brand Velty calls it, uncaf coffee. And like most wellness beverages in the market today, it’s got some brain and gut-friendly ingredients packed in, like inulin and lion’s mane mushrooms. You can try it for yourself and get 15% off your order with the code THENESS15 (and if you do, report back!)

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We write for people looking for approachable health and wellness finds and insights. All products and services are independently selected to provide recommendations you can trust. We may receive commission on purchases made from some of our links, but that’s not why we’re here. We just want to help you find good stuff.