What We Thought of Diet-to-Go Meals

Diet-to-Go is a meal delivery service that specializes in calorie- and portion-controlled meals. Diet-to-Go offers dietitian-designed, chef-created meals that are fully prepared. Certain meals can be enjoyed cold while others are ready to eat after 2–3 minutes in the microwave.

We found the meals to be hit and miss. Some meals were delicious, others struggled with mushier-than-ideal vegetable sides. Diet-to-Go is not our favorite meal delivery service, but experienced keto eaters in particular may find it suits their needs for speedy meals on busy days. What some meals lack in taste and texture, they make up with convenience.

Keep reading for our tasting notes on the meals we tried and our overall experience.

MEAL DELIVERY SERVICE REVIEW SCORECARD

One Healthline tester scored Diet-to-Go across 10 categories and allotted points from 0 to 5. The scores below reflect the average rating for each category.

• Overall: 3.7
• Sign-up, delivery, and cancelation processes: 4
• Meal variety: 5
• Nutrition: 4
• Sustainability: 2.5
• Ingredient quality and freshness: 3
• Ease of preparation: 4.5
• Taste: 2
• Affordability: 3

Learn more about how we test meal kits.

Diet-to-Go pros

Diet-to-Go offers a meal delivery service that’s convenient and appealing to people who don’t have the time to cook or prepare meals for themselves.

The company ships nationwide and delivers ready-to-eat meals to your doorstep. It’s less expensive than other meal delivery services that advertise their meals as weight-loss-friendly.

Diet-to-Go menus include:

• Balance: This is Diet-to-Go’s most popular menu. The Balance menu is calorie controlled and lower in sodium, carbs, and fat.
• Balance Diabetes: This menu is promoted for those with prediabetes and diabetes. The meals are lower in sodium and fat, and contain fewer than 45 grams of carbs per meal.
• Keto-Carb30: Diet-to-Go’s keto menu is designed to deliver no more than 30 net carbs per day. The term net carbs refers to the carbs remaining after subtracting the fiber content from the total carbs.
• Vegetarian: This menu is free of meat, fish, and poultry but contains eggs, soy, and beans for protein.
• Mediterranean: This menu is focused on whole foods like vegetables, fruits, nuts, beans, grains, fish, and lean meats.

Diet-to-Go cons

Diet-to-Go has a few significant downsides to be aware of from a nutritional standpoint.

The Balance menu offers two options — a 1,200 calorie menu for women and a 1,600 calorie menu for men, both of which are considered very low calorie diets and will likely result in weight loss.

However, research shows that drastically cutting calories rarely results in weight loss that can be maintained long term.

This is because a low calorie intake triggers metabolic adaptations, including increased appetite and a reduction in the number of calories you burn at rest, that make it harder to maintain lost weight over time.

In fact, research shows that most people who follow low calorie diets gain back a significant amount of weight after they stop the program. Plus, these diets are often difficult to stick to because of their limited calorie content and restrictive nature.

For this reason, to promote long-term, sustainable weight loss, many experienced healthcare professionals recommend healthful dietary patterns that reduce calories in smaller amounts.

In addition to the potentially inappropriate calorie content of their meals, there are several other downsides to Diet-to-Go.

Diet-to-Go doesn’t offer gluten-free, vegan, or kosher meals at this time. Though Diet-to-Go is unsuitable for people with severe food allergies, the site does have a form that you can fill out regarding your dietary restrictions.

Lastly, even though Diet-to-Go is marketed as an affordable option, it may be out of many people’s price range. With shipping, the total average weekly cost for 21 meals is $162.97. With budgeting and planning, you can save money by grocery shopping and preparing meals at home rather than spending money on a meal delivery service.

Our editor Kristin Currin-Sheehan tried the Diet-to-Go Keto plan for one week.

The TL;DR

Proteins were fresh and good, but vegetables and eggs tended to be mushy or lack the ideal texture compared with a home-cooked meal.

This service could be a good option for someone who needs help maintaining a keto diet and doesn’t love to cook. But if you’re used to a certain quality of home-cooked meals, ready-made microwavable meals may not live up to your standards. You may want to explore meal kits instead (Sunbasket and Green Chef are two of our favorites for keto in particular and overall).

In more detail

“For someone who home-cooks most meals, I wasn’t thrilled about microwaving every meal, the texture of the cut vegetables, and the over-peppering and under-flavoring of the vegetables. I was most disappointed in the texture and lack of flavor on the egg dishes.

“I was most surprised, however, about the phenomenal texture and flavoring on the collard greens under the herbed tilapia! It tasted like home-cooked southern greens, and it was hard to believe no turkey leg or ham hock was used in the flavoring.

“The meals weren’t entirely filling, especially without carbs, so I added ingredients like carb-free tortillas or buns. Also because I found some vegetable sides to be quite peppery, I added salt or garlic to balance it out.

“The meat proteins were fresh and actually stayed fresh past the week of trial (I couldn’t get through all the meals in 1 week).

“I wish the vegetables were more al dente. I found the green beans, which were a common side, to be very mushy. Overall, the course-cut vegetables, with the exception of the artichoke, were mushy, tasted frozen or canned, and were heavily peppered.”

Tasting notes on the meals

• Chicken Italiano: The chicken was chalky, asparagus was stringy, and meatballs seemed dense and processed.
• Western Egg Bites: The sausage was flavorful and moist and the salsa was good, but the eggs tasted powdered like airplane food.
• Greek Mushroom: It was the best tasting of the meals we tried. The mushroom was rubbery, but the spinach and cheese masked the graininess of the eggs.
• Pork BBQ Ribs, Barbeque Sauce, Cheddar Caulifower Mash: The ribs were also rubbery but flavorful, and potatoes were cheesy.
• Cheese and Veggie Egg Bites, Celery Root Hash Browns, Hot Sauce: The egg bites were spongy, and the taste was more veggies than egg. The consistency of hash browns was more like oatmeal than potatoes — and a little too heavy on the pepper
• Chicken and Bacon Cheddar Melt: The chicken had pretty good texture and flavor, but the green beans were stringy and salty.
• Hamburger Pizza with Seasoned Squash: The hamburger pizza was delicious! Texture was great and flavorful, but the squash and onions were mushy and over-peppered.
• Herbed Tilapia, Collard Green Mix, Artichoke Medley, Broccoli Florets: The texture of the fish was ideal as was the broccoli and artichoke. The flavor was very impressive for the collard greens, but the fish was too peppery, which seemed to be a common occurrence with Diet-to-Go.

Diet-to-Go sign-up process

We found the sign-up process was easy. (Side note: If you choose to cancel, you do have to call and cannot do it online. The process of calling was still very quick and pleasant.) Customers start by picking a meal plan.

Customers choose from a 5- or 7-day plan that includes two or three meals per day. The two-meal-per-day plan doesn’t include breakfast. Diet-to-Go’s most popular Balance menu contains 1,200 calories per day for women and 1,600 calories per day for men. On average, the Keto-Carb30 plan provides just 1,300 calories per day — this is the plan we tested.

Daily calorie info for the Balance Diabetes and vegetarian menus aren’t posted on the Diet-to-Go website.

Once you pick a meal plan and enter your address and payment information, you can customize your menu to include dishes that suit your preferences. Meals are delivered weekly, and you have the option of canceling or pausing your subscription at any time (but again, this must be done by calling).

Once signed up, we did not find that the “My Diet-To-Go” tab was very intuitive. You can’ t go back and see your order history. You also can’t see which particular menu items were sent to you, nor can you mark them as favorites upon returning to this tab. Three items sent to us weren’t on any weeks’ menus. We also requested substitutes that were not honored.

Delivery days and times depend on where you live. Diet-to-Go ships nationwide and also offers a fresh local pickup service for customers living in the Washington metropolitan area, as well as Baltimore, New Jersey, and Los Angeles.

Diet-to-Go meals can last 7 days in the fridge or 30 days in the freezer.

According to the company’s website, Diet-to-Go offers customers support from registered dietitians, health coaches, and nutritionists by phone or email.

Diet-to-Go prices

According to the service’s website, Diet-to-Go is a more affordable meal delivery option than other popular plans like BistroMD.

The average cost per meal is $6.80, and the average weekly cost for 21 meals comes out to $142.99.

Keep in mind that there’s a weekly shipping cost of $19.98 for all mail order plans.

As mentioned above, Diet-to-Go offers five menus — Balance, Balance Diabetes, Keto-Carb30, Vegetarian, and Mediterranean. Many of the dishes on the various menus overlap. For example, chicken fajitas are offered as a dinner option on the Balance, Balance Diabetes, Keto-Carb30, and Mediterranean menus.

Here are daily sample menus for each plan.

Balance

• Breakfast: waffles with peaches and apples in syrup
• Lunch: Greek chicken with quinoa
• Dinner: herbed baked salmon

Balance Diabetes

• Breakfast: whole wheat bagel with peanut butter
• Lunch: chicken black bean wrap
• Dinner: chicken Parmesan

Keto-Carb30

• Breakfast: salmon and leek frittata
• Lunch: andouille sausage
• Dinner: chicken meatloaf

Vegetarian

• Breakfast: peach pecan oatmeal bar
• Lunch: Moroccan lentil salad
• Dinner: eggplant Parmesan

Mediterranean

• Breakfast: cinnamon walnut cereal
• Lunch: moroccan lentil salad
• Dinner: Sante Fe chicken burger

While Diet-to-Go may be a suitable option for those looking for an affordable method to achieve quick weight loss without the need to prepare meals, it’s important to understand that any low calorie diet program is not a good choice for sustainable and healthy weight loss.

When trying to lose weight or manage blood sugar levels, it’s much more helpful to develop a personalized dietary pattern that works for your specific needs.

Although this method usually takes more time, effort, and planning than signing up for a meal delivery service, it’s much more likely to help you reach a moderate body weight that you can maintain for life.

The best way to understand your nutritional needs is to work with a qualified healthcare professional like a registered dietitian. They can help you determine your calorie needs, as well as your macro- and micronutrient needs.

If you want to try out Diet-to-Go, it would be best used as a short-term dietary intervention or for filler meals rather than a long-term, full-time solution to weight loss and weight maintenance.