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Food

CrossFit's New Meal Kit Is a $200 Box of Raw Meat

Broverload? Not so, says CrossFit.
Composite image; original via Flickr user Stuart Webster.

“How do you know if one of your friends is doing CrossFit?” your one friend who doesn’t do CrossFit always asks, elbowing you in the ribs. “Don’t worry, they’ll tell you!” Whether despite or because of all of those Facebook posts about boxes, double-unders, and getting wrecked during today’s WOD, bro, CrossFit has gone decidedly mainstream, with more than 14,000 CrossFit branded gyms, and high-dollar contracts with both Reebok and CBS Sports. The newer, more accurate joke might be, “How do you know if one of your friends is doing CrossFit? Just look for the giant box of raw meat on their doormat.”

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In addition to its logoed headbands, water bottles and even infant-sized CrossFit shoes, the workout now has its own CrossFit-branded meal kit. Calling it a meal kit though might be a stretch, because it’s replaced the vegetables, seasonings, and side dishes in favor of meat, more meat, and also some additional meat. CrossFit has partnered with the longtime meat purveyors at Strauss Brands to deliver only the finest mail-order free-range chicken and grass-fed beef to people who post pictures of their torn hands online and their brotégés.

According to Free Raised Direct, Strauss’ online meat shop, the $215 CrossFit box contains five packages of chicken breasts, three pounds of ground beef and seven pounds of assorted steaks, including ribeyes, strips and tenderloin filets. As with all of Strauss’ subscription boxes, it can be shipped monthly, every other month, or every three months, depending on how quickly one can digest more than 10 pounds of animal flesh.

Broverload? Not so, CrossFit says. “Our community believes athletes must take a 360-degree approach to a healthy lifestyle," Bruce Edwards, the COO of CrossFit said in a statement. "Due to the physical intensity of our workouts, a critical component of a complementary diet is protein—it provides energy and fuels performance.”

Surprisingly, this is CrossFit’s first venture into branded food—or the “first physical manifestation of its nutrition principles,” as a real human person at the company put it—and Strauss says it will sell “CrossFit Approved meat” in select retailers later this year. (But why go to an actual store when you can do your brocery shopping online!)

“Much like CrossFit, Strauss recognizes diet as the foundational key to optimal health, which is why we start and finish our cattle on pasture grass,” Strauss CEO Randy Strauss said, making us wonder whether CrossFitters themselves are also started and finished on pasture grass.

If you’re one of the 7 or 8 people who haven’t done CrossFit yet, now’s probably a good time to get started. Mostly so you can carry that box of meat into your apartment.