By RICHARD VIRGILIO
Eating great and healthier is easier than ever thanks to Eat Clean Delivery in Neptune City.
A few years ago, Mike Hollemans, was a successful event management expert. After a month-long work trip, he should have returned home to Belmar jazzed about all his achievements. Instead, he felt overweight at 300 pounds, tired and generally unfulfilled.
“After that trip everything clicked for me,” Hollemans said. “That was the beginning of the new beginning. I started making small changes like cooking better meals and taking care of myself and, slowly, my friends started noticing. It didn’t happen overnight but lots of little changes began to make a big difference.”
Impressed and inspired by his energy and spirit, his friends started asking him to cook for them, too. In 2015, 39 year-old Hollemans turned his passion and deep knowledge into Eat Clean Delivery – the area’s only meal delivery service balancing nutrition with decadent cuisine options at an affordable price point.
“Eat Clean Delivery isn’t anything like a diet – that was really important for me,” he said. “It’s a service, or take out shop, focusing on top-quality, fresh, great-tasting meals that just happen to be pure and have the right balance of lean protein, veggies and carbs.”
For $100 a week – no subscriptions required – Hollemans and Nutrition Specialist Beth Wisniewski of Point Pleasant deliver restaurant-style meals with a nutritious twist to enjoy at home. Comparable national subscription services start at double the price.
Choose your week’s worth of fresh, microwave-ready entrees from the online menu and order through the website, your mobile device or via phone. “I’ll take smoke signals too,” joked Hollemans.
There are multiple delicious gluten-free and vegetarian options; everything is organic, grain-fed, free range and low-sodium. Everything is made the morning it’s delivered and delivery is super-simple thank to Hollemans’ team of drivers. Eighty percent of customers get their food delivered but there’s also one-off take-out available from the storefront on W. Sylvania Avenue.
Each pre-portioned microwave-ready dish is less than 600 calories and fully fulfilling. Like the Buddah burger, Hollemans most-popular meal. The grass-fed burger is mixed with mushrooms and proprietary seasonings, served with organic lettuce, tomato and onion with sweet potato ‘fries’ and black bean and corn salsa.
“That was a juicy, delicious burger,” said Mark Gibson of Ocean Township. “That was a Top 10 burger. I really liked the fries, too. All-around, I want it again.”
For the awesome bruschetta and chicken stuffed portabella mushroom Hollemans takes a marinated and roasted mushroom cap and over-stuffs it with organic grilled diced chicken, roasted tomatoes, feta cheese and fresh basil. The tangy balsamic glaze he tops the dish melts into the cheese and roasted tomato juices to create something special at 520 calories.
“I switched out my deep fryer for a grill,” Hollemans said. “I want you to look at my menu and know anything you pick is going to be great tasting and healthy. My free time is spent trying out new ways to make classic dishes healthier and just as satisfying.”
Like his baked cheese steak or soon-to-be-famous, creamy and rich gluten-free sweet potato mac and cheese with red pepper chicken sausage and broccoli, Hollemans created a dish that some eat three times a week.
For Panthers-Broncos Superbowl fans, Hollemans created a crave-worthy plate of maple-mustard grilled chicken wings that rivals the cardiac-arrest inspiring original.
“I didn’t think it could be done – something that’s not fried that I enjoy as much as the real stuff,” said George Young visiting Asbury Park from New York City.
“I know first-hand what it’s like to want to enjoy big tastes that don’t hurt your body,” Hollemans said. “I come to this from being overweight background, not a bodybuilding background.”