Lock us down and Americans will eat it up. Literally! While in quarantine many of us ate like bears preparing for hibernation. More time at home to cook and limited access to grocery stores spawned an explosion of meal-kit delivery programs. Our lead dietitian tried several of them to assess the nutritional value of these “healthy, convenient meals”.

Overall, we found these options to be heavy in salt and fat, and low on produce portions. The meals seemed to be kept at a low price-point by substituting processed foods for fruits and vegetables. In several the produce seemed more of a garnish.

Upon closer review of each program, we often found that choices classified as “healthy” seemed to have had a very loose definition of health. For example, Marley Spoon has no information on the site as to the criteria for calling a recipe “healthy”, but does define “nutritious” as a recipe with “high nutritive value and minimally processed ingredients”. Note that this definition does not mention fat and sodium content. Using this definition, deep fried vegetables could be considered healthy!  The chart below reflects the average of a variety of eight recipes from each of the programs we looked at. Please read on and see our nutrition critique on popular brands.

Service

Average

Kcal

Average

Fat*

Average

Sodium*

Cost Range per Person

EveryPlate

 680 32 618 4.99-5.89

Dinnerly

 643 31 Not Reported 5.59-5.89

Blue Apron

 723 29 1,423 8.99-9.99

Hello Fresh

 804 38 1,593 7.99-11.99

Purple Carrot

 617.5 24.4 579 9.99-11.99

Marley Spoon

 789 43 Not Reported 10.23-11.98

Sunbasket

 526 30 511 11.49-13.49

Average

Fast Food Meal**

 830 43 1745 $6-8

* Note that for a 2,000 calorie diet the recommended amounts for the day are 65 grams of fat and 2,500 mg of sodium.

** Compared 3 combo-meals from each of the top 4 restaurants

 

Nutrition Notes

EveryPlate

Choose from menus classified as Classic, Vegetarian, Family, and Easy. Recipes did not include enough vegetables to be considered a serving. A lot of potatoes to mash, so you might get to learn a new skill? Any money saved on theses kits should be spent on fruits and vegetables to round out the meals.

Dinnerly

Choose from menus classified as Regular or Vegetarian. Probably need to add more vegetables since the recipes did not include very much. Company does not report all nutrition information on the website such as fiber and sodium. Again, you will need to purchase produce to make their options healthy.

Blue Apron

Choose from menus classified as Vegetarian, Signature, and Wellness. Blue Apron is better with vegetable offerings than Dinnerly and EveryPlate. Although, caution that one “wellness” recipe option had 1,250 mg sodium per serving.

Hello Fresh

Choose from menus with one or all of the following options: Meat and Vegetables, Veggie, Family Friendly, Fit and Wholesome, Quick and Easy, and Pescatarian. The recipes offered to you will fall in the category(s) selected. Potatoes used as the starch option often, but might need to add your own vegetables at times. This program had more than half the fat and salt in one meal (on average) than needed in your whole day!

Purple Carrot

This menu is a plant based, so there are plenty of vegetables. Choose from breakfast, lunch, or dinner entrees. Note that you will not see analog/faux meats such as Beyond Meat. This is entirely plant based, so expect whole grains and tofu. Meals have the lowest fat content, on average, of all the compared delivery programs and acceptable sodium per serving.

Marley Spoon

Choices include regular or vegetarian meal options. In partnership with Martha Stewart they offer her favorite recipes. Marley’s average meal has the highest amount of fat per serving of all the meal kit delivery programs evaluated. Sodium content is not published but expect it to be high. Our RD noted that this program does appear to have decent size servings of vegetables (most of the time). Overall, this kit is not necessarily healthy but looks decadent.

Sunbasket

As with most kits, choices include regular, vegetarian, paleo, gluten-free, Mediterranean, pescatarian, and “diabetes-friendly”. This kit’s meals generally offer lower fat, lower sodium, calorie-appropriate choices.

The Final Score:

Best Nutrition: Sunbasket and Purple Carrot

Worst Nutrition: HelloFresh and MarleySpoon

This is not a paid endorsement. The links are not affiliate links. Be Well Solutions does not make money from the products mentioned in this article. All of the above are recommendations from our staff.

Written by BWS Director of Nutrition Services- Crystal Petrello MS, RDN, LD

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