Diet Meal Delivery Plans

Overview

Always on the go with no time for (or interest in) cooking? With the click of a button or a simple phone call, you can have a variety of fresh, gourmet-style, heat and eat meals delivered right to your door by a diet meal delivery company. The $1 billion meal delivery industry offer options suitable for busy working Moms and their families, singles, dieters, diabetics, hypertensives, seniors and vegetarians. You can get a full day's worth of nutritious meals and snacks for less than the price of a restaurant dinner for two. The bonus is that there is no grocery shopping and no dishes to wash.

Background

With ever-busy lifestyles, Americans find themselves eating out more and eating more high fat, high sodium fast food. Unfortunately, waistlines and the numbers on the scale also increased. During the 1990s, prepared meal diet plans, such as Nutrisystem and Jenny Craig, offered dieters a convenient way to eat a variety of food, enjoy regular meals, and lose weight at the same time. A decade later, the booming diet meal delivery industry supplies portion controlled, pre-packaged frozen meals to millions.

Types

Popular types of meal plans include gluten-free, low carbohydrate, high protein, vegetarian, low sodium and organic meal options. Other plans are targeted to a specific diet, such as those following Barry Sear's Zone diet, the Mediterranean diet, the South Beach diet, the Atkins diet or the Pritikin diet for heart health. Many of the diet meal delivery firms serve a specific geographic area only, while others provide meal delivery services nationwide. Some plans also include email or telephone nutritional "personal coaching."

Special Health Concerns

Pre-prepared diet meal delivery plans are designed to meet the diverse needs of singles, families and dieters, as well as those with special health concerns. If you are diabetic, it is important to eat regularly spaced meals balanced with the proper ratio of carbohydrates and proteins. Delivery meals can help busy diabetics maintain healthy glucose levels. Hypertensives sensitive to sodium can order tasty low sodium meals that are seasoned with herbs and spices instead of salt. If you don't really need to lose weight but desire to reduce ingestion of fast food and "eat healthier," there are many available options.

How Diet Meal Delivery Plans Work

Orders are delivered primarily frozen, though local firms may provide fresh food options. Food is stored in vacuum sealed containers and placed in a chest filled with dry ice which is left for you. When you arrive home after school or work, your food for the following day or week is waiting. Orders are generally placed on a weekly basis for the following week. If you know that you will be going out of town for business on Thursday morning for instance, a daily delivery service allows you to place your order for Sunday through Wednesday of that week with no problem.

Considerations

Not every plan offers the flexibility to customize meals and snacks, which means you may be delivered something which isn't to your liking. Others provide the ability to "mix and match" so that you can easily eliminate anything you find distasteful or that may cause digestive upset or an allergic reaction. Options are usually available to select a five- or seven-day plan, in the event that you travel or spend the weekends with friends and family. Though convenient and time-saving, diet meal delivery services are not necessarily cheap. A February 2009 Marketdata study reports that "the average monthly cost of a diet/healthy food home delivery plan is $726." Most services require a contract for a minimum of one month.