Review: Diet-to-Go Meal Plan

Microwaved dinners have a deservedly bad rap. But reading the ingredients list on each nukeable tray from the Diet-to-Go delivery meal plan is nonetheless an oddly wholesome endeavor. The first three ingredients in my jambalaya platter were all different kinds of meat: andouille sausage, shrimp, and chicken. Then came tomatoes, then the Cajun trinity of bell pepper, celery, and onion. The most complicated word in the whole recipe, by far, was “Worcestershire.”

Diet-to-Go hardly has the name recognition of Jenny Craig nor even nouveau ready-to-eat upstarts like fast-expanding Clean Eatz. It's also not a scratch-made home meal kit like Martha Stewart–branded Marley Spoon. But at least in Northern Virginia in 1991, Diet-to-Go was among the earlier home meal delivery plans to offer the wholesome prospect of someone else planning and making and sending you all your meals, to help you lose weight or stay healthy or both.

Photograph: Matthew Korfhage

The idea is that Diet-to-Go will meet most or all of your food needs for the week by mailing hefty boxes full of prepared meals that need only be popped into a microwave or a toaster oven. The meals arrive stacked in their little microwaveable containers, ready to be heated and eaten. Whether they've ever been frozen depends on where you are and what time of year.

The meals, which look a lot like TV dinners, are nonetheless made of things that are wholly recognizable food you might cook for yourself. While the ingredient list for a Lean Cuisine or Jenny Craig meal tends to contain the requisite food-scientist cocktail of gums, rosins, extracts, and modified starches (not to mention the occasional “wood-like material,” in Lean’s case), the meals from Diet-to-Go are mostly just veggies, herbs, spices, and protein. There also isn't a lot of sodium or added fats. The website touts near-laboratory cleanliness in the company's kitchens. To drive this home, the cooks apparently wear lab coats.

Photograph: Matthew Korfhage

The food falls into the broad category of “better than expected.” Maybe Diet-to-Go's jambalaya would not have been recognizable to Paul Prudhomme as his home cuisine. But it was tasty enough nonetheless: meaty and stewy with tomatoes, earthily spicy without too much bite except from a peppery andouille. The plentiful shrimp did not carry the rubberiness one fears from reheated foods. The hydration and texture of the rice were also as good as I could expect from any meal that arrived in microwave-safe, recyclable CPET plastic.

The plans vary, but in general, you're looking at anywhere from $130 a week for a 10-meal plan to $225 for a full complement of all 21 meals you'll eat in a week—a lot for home cooking or freezer fare, but far less than DoorDash.

Have Plan, Will Follow

Diet-to-Go's “Balance” option, its most popular plan, remains stolidly traditional on the weight-loss front, offering old-fashioned calorie-restricted meal planning that has fallen somewhat out of fashion in this modern era of fad diets and hedonistic anti-glutenism. Men get 1,600 calories a day. Women get 1,200. Each of these calorie counts falls significantly below metabolic needs to maintain homeostasis for adults, which is the whole point: It's a diet.

The site touts the usual array of success stories from people who've lost 53 or 60 or 85 pounds. There's also an Atkins-style keto option, and Diet-to-Go is one of few plans to design insulin-gentle meals specifically for diabetics or pre-diabetics. The Mediterranean plan I tried isn't specifically listed as calorie-restricted, but meals still hovered mostly below 500 calories. In general, if you follow the service's meal plan for every meal and don't supplement with your own food, you'll be hungry. It's how diets used to work, or not work, depending on your experience.

Nutritionwise, meal after meal, everything hovered within USDA guidelines. Calories from fat hovered south of 30 percent for each meal. Sodium, added up over three meals, did not breach the lid. In broad strokes, it's healthy food, as long as it's all you eat.

But in practice, you'll probably also eat or snack on other stuff even if you're using the meal program to regulate your weight. Or at least, I certainly did. The meals are a perfectly hearty lunch but a small dinner. You'll be tempted to eat trash late at night if you, like me, are a trashmonster.

Photograph: Matthew Korfhage

Good Meats, Soggy Carrots

When judged as healthy microwaved meals, Diet-to-Go's meals fared very well versus any supermarket competition. But, of course, they can't stack up to fresh-cooked food.

Meals I tried from Diet-to-Go tended to follow a very specific pattern. The meats often held better than expected. Starches fared best, especially a diced-apple pancake roll-up breakfast that needed no extra syrupy sweetness; a hearty chicken-and-almond stuffed “Italian potato” served with couscous; or a hammy, cheesy Monte Cristo laden with jam and served with quite pleasant plantains.

But it was a shame about the carrots. And the peas. And the green beans.

Photograph: Matthew Korfhage

At least where I was, in Portland, Oregon, the nine meals I tried arrived in their box a little frozen, amid ice packs, and needed a little time to thaw in the fridge. Diet-to-Go sports multiple distribution hubs on the East Coast and has main kitchens around San Francisco and DC. So if you're somewhere other than California or the mid-Atlantic, your food may need some chilling en route to your doorstep.

No matter how flash you freeze a thing, the nearly guaranteed universal effect of freezing and unfreezing foods, especially amid uncertain temperatures during shipping, is added moisture. The veggies, in particular, suffered from this, incurring the usual sogginess, limpness, or occasional rubberiness that is the lot of many frozen vegetables. And since most of these veggies are also not loaded with salt or fats or even pepper, there's nowhere to hide.

A “fajita” burrito, while healthier than other microwave burritos, was still very much a microwaved burrito. If you've had one, you've had this. (I actually kinda like microwave burritos, but like I said, I'm a terrible person.)

Often I fared better by going off-script, using an oven-safe dish and the reheat function on a toaster oven or air fryer to gain a little crispness and browning. (The Ninja Crispi, my favorite leftovers solution, could also be your best friend with this meal plan.) Only a few recipes, such as a tuna melt and Monte Cristo, recommended toaster ovens as an option. But pretty much all of the recipes would benefit from it. Otherwise, a microwave-safe steamer dish was a far better option than the included plastic trays in terms of getting the best from the texture of the veggies.

Photograph: Matthew Korfhage

Which is to say, a little bit of culinary thought is required to have a good time with Diet-to-Go, even on a meal plan designed to conserve all effort. Plans rotate through a five-week cycle, after which, presumably, meals may begin to repeat.

Among the cost, the calorie restrictions, and a certain sameness to the veggie offerings in particular, Diet-to-Go marks itself as a workable but perhaps not long-lasting plan: the sort of thing you do for a little while to make your life easier or get your eating habits in order. Maybe you, too, can be among the weight-loss success stories on the company’s website—but I don't know that I'd make an enduring lifestyle out of it.