Need help keeping those healthy resolutions? Daily Jars is here to keep your clean eating on track year-round. (Photo by: Fred + Elliott Styling & Photography)
Imagine achieving your New Year’s body-buffing detox dreams at the hands of a health wizard with the soul of a Jewish grandma. It sounds like an impossible dream, but at least in Richmond, it’s totally doable; Liz Fishman’s Daily Jars will feed you meals and snacks free of dairy, gluten, soy, egg, corn, peanuts and cane sugar, all sourced locally and organically whenever possible. And she’ll do it with lots of love.
About a year ago, Fishman joined an elimination diet support group organized by Ashley Mannell of Richmond Integrative Psychiatric & Nutrition Services. She was interested in exploring how eating certain foods affected her, and how she could tweak her diet to make her feel her best. “After a little while, people started to say that they felt they couldn’t keep up with the cooking. You really have to make everything from scratch to do an elimination diet," says Fishman. "I thought, 'well, I’m doing OK with all this cooking, I could make some extra portions.' So next week I showed up with some jars of soup and some muffins. People were so appreciative because it made it easier for them to keep going, and I thought, 'wow, I should just keep doing this.'”
Now, she runs a healthy, fresh delivery and pick-up service that supplies vibrant meals packed inside clear glass jars, often corresponding with paleo, vegan, gluten-free, casein-free and whole30 diets. She may not have professional cooking experience, but she really does have a Jewish grandmother — one who baked 30,000 loaves of bread, which she hand-delivered to cancer patients — and a history of taking care of people through food. Having two kids with dietary restrictions and teaching elementary school gave her the drive and the empathy to help people get the diet-friendly food they need. “I find that more and more of my customers don’t have dietary restrictions, actually; they just want healthy food. I feel so good that I’m helping people take care of themselves,” she says.
What’s on the menu? You might be surprised; it’s definitely not just salad. Basil mint chicken with quinoa, spinach and grapes; a lime-laced black bean bowl with guacamole; turkey apple sausage with butternut squash; honey mustard chicken with roasted carrots; veggie meatloaf with mashed cauliflower; pumpkin pie dip and apple slices; dark chocolate-studded grain-free energy bars; cranberry lemon muffins… the list is lengthy, and it changes weekly. Place an order by Wednesday at 5 p.m., and you can pick it up on Monday morning from Ellwood Thompson's Local Market (4 N. Thompson St.) or Health InSyncs (9210 Forest Hill Ave.) or have it delivered to your house on Sunday evening or Monday morning (delivery service is only $5 if you order more than $50 worth of meals and snacks).
“I sit down with my husband and kids for dinner, open some jars and think, people all over Richmond are doing this right now, opening this same jar, eating this same food. It’s a community. It’s so cool,” Fishman laughs.
Want to be one of those people? Check out the menu and place your order at dailyjars.com, and keep up with specials and extras on the Facebook page. You get your first meal free, and this month, with coupon code "2016YourYear," orders of 10 meals or more will get a free snack pack, plus five dark chocolate energy bars.
