MEAL PLANS using ingredients from Gisinggising.ph’s PRODUCE BOXES (easy online vegetable shopping!)

MOMspired Tribe
May 6, 2021
5 min read

This is a story about my fruitful experience buying and meal planning with produce from gisinggising.ph

But first, a little background...

Grocery shopping with my toddler

When my baby was strong enough to sit, I went grocery shopping by placing her on the seat on the shopping cart. We were a team - I handed the items to her and she’d toss them into the cart behind her.

Gone are those days (for now). Because of the pandemic, we have learned to rely more on online sellers/platforms to shop for goods.

But we’re still a team. At two and a half years old, she still sometimes helps me "Add to Cart" by swiping and clicking to pick what she wants!

Our decision to be healthier

It was only a few months ago when my household talked of wanting to be healthier. No, actually, we were DESPERATE to get healthier.

Our diet back then consisted mostly of ulam and rice, even our breakfast (usually “silog” meals like tapsilog, corned beef, bacon, daing, etc.).

Our pantries were overloaded with cookies and chips. I had a tendency to binge on bread and jams. My body would shake me out of a binge-filled week by responding with fatigue and numb or tingling nerves.

My husband had extremely painful recurring migraines that impaired his ability to work.

We felt much older and weaker than our actual ages (29, 34). I also felt guilty about not providing nourishing food for my toddler.

And then, of course, there's the need to boost our immune system to be able to fight COVID-19.

My first time buying from Gisinggising.ph

We didn't go deep in the science of nutrition (yet). Just to get started, we simply became more intentional about adding a variety of vegetables into our meals. For the past four months, I've been sourcing my produce from online pages, as well as the fruits and veggie stands in our neighborhood.

Recently. I heard about Gising Gising PH from a mommy friend. After she bought some fruits, she and the owner talked and partnered for a free webinar about healthy and accessible food.

(It's on May 22 and you can register for it here: bit.ly/MOMspiredSeriesRegForm)

She was raving about them, not just for their goods and services, but their advocacy as well.

So I decided to try ordering from them too!

Their site is pretty easy to navigate. When I hover my mouse over ‘shop the goods’, I had the option to choose ‘all produce’ or click on other categories.

You can also help send produce packs to a community pantry. I found out through a quick scroll down their facebook page (facebook.com/gisinggisingdotph) that they’ve been distributing vegetables to various communities long before community pantries began. It has really been their advocacy ever since the beginning to "Share the Goods".

Produce Boxes

Their produce boxes have pre-selected fruits and/or vegetables you can buy as a set. The quantities are shown in a chart and you can choose between ‘Smalls’ or ‘Biggie’ depending on your family size. I saw that the ‘Smalls’ had enough for my household (4 adults, 1 toddler).

Gising-Gising Box

I decided to add the Gising-Gising Box into my cart because the ingredients (okra, ampalaya, siling labuyo, siling panigang, sayote, green papaya, kangkong) were all commonly used in my household. Okra is my husband’s favorite in sinigang. My toddler is a picky eater, but she eats a lot when the food is tinola.

It’s also their “Pinoy Produce Starter Box”.

Gerilya Box

I wanted to get the Gerilya box because of the description:

“The Gerilya Box works for those who are carb conscious and are looking for better starch alternatives and protein-rich vegetables”

It was perfect for me. As I’ve said, I have a weakness for sweets and carbs. When I monitored my food intake, I found out I was eating more carbs and too little protein compared to my daily requirement.

This box contained carbs that can be alternatives (kamote, saging na saba) to the highly refined snacks my family ate.

It also had nutritious vegetables that I know my toddler eats (broccoli, cauliflower). And the corn, cabbage and potatoes could be used for another family favorite - Nilagang baka (although usually we put pechay and green beans). As for the bell pepper, it reminded me of one of my favorite dishes - my mom’s tuna white spaghetti.

Agimat Box

“The Agimat Box contains vegetables high in antioxidants and anti-inflammatory properties” such as cucumber, celery, romaine lettuce, spinach, turmeric, and others.

I did not buy it for now because I’m not really into juicing fruits and vegetables yet. I do like buying cold-pressed juices and fruit smoothies. Maybe I’ll buy this box next time so I can start making my own and replace my toddler's sugar-filled drinks.

Bahay Kubo Box

The Bahay Kubo Box is another set of veggies usually found in food like Pinakbet and this dish in Davao that I like called Law-uy.

I’ll definitely buy this for another week.

Prutas Box

Contains banana, pineapple, banana, saba, lemon, mango, avocado.

I already had saba from another box so I decided to pick fruits individually.

I headed to the 'All Produce' page. I wished there were more options for the fruits but overall, there's a wide variety of produce to choose from.

What I Bought

I decided to buy 2 produce boxes: the Gising-gising box and Gerilya box. I then added papaya, banana, carrots, calamansi and monggo.

Payment and Delivery

After Checkout, the site leads you to a page where you fill in your shipping details and then you proceed to Payment. You can pay via Paypal, credit or debit card, GCash, Cash on Delivery (COD), or Bank Deposit.

Their cut-off is at 8:00 PM and they deliver the next day (everyday except Mondays).

Easy, right?

So next up is...

Meal Planning

Instead of meal planning BEFORE buying the produce, I made the meal plan based on the produce in the boxes.

And it looked like this:

Adding the other ingredients, this is what we ate for the week:

Breakfast

Broccoli and cauliflower fritters

Fruits

Salad (we order our salad greens from another source)

Longganisa

Tapsilog

Snacks

Turon/Fried Saba

Kamote fries/ Glazed Kamote

Lunch/Dinner meals

Tuna white spaghetti w/ bell peppers

Nilagang baka

Smoked bangus + Chopsuey

Tilapia + Ampalaya with Egg

Tinolang Manok

Salmon Head Sinigang

Pompano + monggo

Let's Eat!

For breakfast, we alternate between eating salad (we tried eating salad everyday last month but it wasn't sustainable because nakakasawa rin pala, even if we change the toppings) and the silog-type meals that we were used to.

For lunch and dinner meals, I planned for just seven dishes. All the members of the household usually eat together during dinner time. On lunch time, I eat the leftovers from the night before (two of my other housemates eat lunch at work).

My toddler liked her new food! I was surprised that she ate three patties of broccoli and cauliflower fritters when usually she would only eat a little of them in their natural form. It didn't become crunchy and ended up tasting like spam or luncheon meat which she likes (yeah I let her eat processed meat). So yay for this healthier alternative! As for the glazed kamote, she was hesitant to eat it at first, but I convinced her it was actually candy and she came back for more.