Maintaining a heart-healthy diet is crucial for overall well-being, but the demands of modern life often make it challenging. Meal delivery kits offer a convenient solution, providing pre-portioned ingredients and easy-to-follow recipes that can save time and reduce the stress of meal planning. This article explores some of the best heart-healthy meal delivery kits available, considering factors such as ingredient quality, menu variety, and nutritional value.
The Appeal of Meal Delivery Services
Healthy eating is a cornerstone of a healthy lifestyle, but it requires time and effort to find recipes, shop for ingredients, prepare food, and clean up afterward. “Meal kits can make eating healthy easier since it takes a lot of time out of meal planning for each week.
Top Heart-Healthy Meal Delivery Services
Several meal delivery services cater specifically to heart-healthy diets, offering a range of options to suit different needs and preferences.
Green Chef: Best for Organic and Gluten-Free Options
Green Chef stands out as the best gluten-free meal kit. Once you get started, you’ll choose from two, four or six servings per meal. Then, choose either three or four meals per week, with the option to add on more for as little as $13 per serving. Meals change weekly, offering around 80 healthy recipes to accommodate every dietary preference. “I love that these ingredients are organic. I don’t have to worry about GMOs, pesticides or antibiotics in my food. The service is CCOF-certified organic, sourcing organic fresh produce and eggs, as well as providing organic beef, chicken, and wild-caught seafood as an option.
One of Green Chef's plans of note is its Mediterranean plan, which offers heart-healthy meals featuring balanced portions of lean proteins, healthy fats, and nutrient-rich vegetables. Dishes like Baked Ricotta Chicken with Pesto Green Beans and Greek Pork Couscous Bowls exemplify this approach. These lower-fat meals support weight management and cardiovascular health.
Read also: Comprehensive Guide to the Miami Heart Institute Diet Plan
While the company acknowledges that they reserve the right to replace a given ingredient with a high-quality conventional option if the organic option doesn’t meet their quality standards, this did not happen during contributor Brittany Loggins’s testing.
Green Chef also offers a free one-on-one nutrition coaching session with your first box, a valuable resource for individuals with specific health goals.
Home Chef: Customizable and Convenient
Home Chef offers several plans that are specifically tailored toward a heart-healthy diet. You can quickly find the categories that best support good heart health. Home Chef lets you filter for low-calorie, low-carb, and vegetarian meals on the main menu. Also, Home Chef provides ample nutritional information for each of its meals, making it easy to track your macronutrients and make informed decisions about what you eat. For instance, you can easily see the calories, fat, and sodium content for each dish.
Home Chef offers a variety of meal prep options, including speedy meal kits and prepared meals. The "Customize It" feature allows you to replace proteins in meals with leaner, heart-healthy options.
Factor: Ready-to-Eat Meals for Busy Lifestyles
Factor offers entirely pre-made, heat-and-eat meals that require just a short trip to the microwave. The brand positions its meals as nutritious, dietitian-approved, and “designed to support your wellness goals.” Because the meals are completely pre-made and labeled with nutritional information, they’re a great option for anyone with hyper-specific macro goals or dietary preferences in mind.
Read also: The Ultimate Guide to Heart and Diabetes Diet
Factor stands out with its selection of convenient, heat-and-eat prepared meals. This means that you don't have to spend any time planning a menu that supports your heart healthy diet. All you have to do is heat up your meal and enjoy it. This is a big plus for those who are short on time or don't have the time to research dietary and nutritional guidelines.
Factor offers add-ons like breakfasts, snacks, and sides. There’s also a good selection of protein and meat add-ons like extra chicken, salmon, filet mignon, and shrimp. These leaner proteins contain less saturated fat and cholesterol.
BistroMD: Medically Tailored Meals for Heart Health
BistroMD was created by Dr. Caroline Cederquist, M.D., who believes that food is medicine. That belief is why you’ll find a menu loaded with gluten-free, heart-healthy, diabetic and low-sodium options. The diabetic-friendly program, which has over 100 rotating diabetic meals, is designed by a registered dietitian to help you maintain healthy blood glucose levels.
BistroMD is different from many other competitors on this list. In our tested BistroMD review, we found that its primary focus is on helping you lose weight by portion- and calorie-controlling your meals. And, as you’ll see, it even features a specific Heart Healthy diet plan, too.
The Heart Healthy plan is made up of low-sodium, doctor-designed, chef-prepared meals that put an emphasis on good cardiovascular functioning. You can choose from plenty of breakfast, lunch, and dinner options to suit a variety of different preferences and lifestyles.
Read also: Comprehensive Guide: Low Sodium Meals
Each meal is prepared, which means there’s no cooking or cleaning involved. It also covers every meal of the day.
HelloFresh: Family-Friendly and Farm-Fresh
HelloFresh offers several options that support good cardiovascular health. Its different categories include Meat & Veggies, Veggie, Fit & Wholesome, and Pescatarian. It’s simple to mix and match across any of these if you have family members who may prefer something else.
Its meals are designed by nutritionists, which is the first reason why HelloFresh is great for heart-healthy meal kits. The vast majority of HelloFresh’s meals are family-friendly and that the portion sizes are generous. This is nice to see if you have a larger family to feed while sticking to a menu of heart-healthy meals.
HelloFresh sources its ingredients directly from farms, so you can be sure that you're getting the freshest produce possible. Plus, proteins like salmon and chicken are sustainably-sourced, which are low in saturated fat and excellent sources of lean protein.
Purple Carrot: Plant-Based Power for Heart Health
Purple Carrot is an entirely plant-based meal delivery service that offers both meal kits and ready-to-eat meals. You’ll get access to a range of plant-based meals, including Spring Veggie Gnocchi and Curry-Roasted Cauliflower Bowls. Plant-based meals are good for heart health because they are typically high in fiber, antioxidants, and healthy fats, which help lower cholesterol.
Purple Carrot also offers Less Prep meal kits, which can be cooked in under 25 minutes. These come with premade sauces and pre-chopped ingredients making them an efficient choice for maintaining a heart-healthy diet with fresh, plant-based ingredients that support cardiovascular health.
Diet-to-Go: Mediterranean-Inspired Meals for Heart Health
Diet-to-Go is a smart choice for those looking to support heart health through diet, offering pre-portioned, nutritionally balanced meals with a focus on lean proteins, whole grains, and healthy fats. The Mediterranean plan is an excellent option for heart health, emphasizing olive oil, nuts, fish, whole grains, and fresh vegetables. These are all key components of a diet linked to reduced heart disease risk. Meal options include Chicken Parmesan, Crusted Tilapia, and more.
Diet-to-Go makes heart-healthy eating simple by providing ready-to-eat meals. Unlike many services that focus only on weight loss or low-carb eating, Diet-to-Go offers a variety of plans that align with long-term cardiovascular health goals.
Blue Apron: Diverse Options with Wellness in Mind
Blue Apron offers a large and varied menu, including meal kits, prepared meals, add-ons, extras, sides, and snacks. Its emphasis on high-quality ingredients ensures your meals are delicious as well as nutritious to support your heart-healthy diet.
The Wellness plan is a great choice for heart-healthy meals. This filters the main menu to highlight recipes that have been designed by nutritionists with holistic health in mind. Wellness options contain meal kits tagged as Carb-Conscious and 600 Calories or Less.
You can also update your preferences to avoid red meat. You can do this by going into Meal Preferences in your Account Settings and checking what you can eat under Dietary Selections.
Blue Apron also offers prepared meals. These Prepared & Ready meals are perfect for those who want to enjoy a healthy meal without having to cook. These fresh meals come ready to heat and eat, which saves you tons of time. Dietary options include carb-conscious, 30 g of protein, and 400 calories or less.
Nutrisystem: Weight Loss Focused for Cardiovascular Health
I like Nutrisystem for heart health since its primary focus is on weight loss. Controlling your weight is the best way to avoid cardiovascular disease and other health disorders. Nutrisystem makes that super easy with its pre-portioned prepared meals, as you’ll see in our tested review.
Nutrisystem offers a variety of heart-healthy meal plans, easy-to-follow diet programs, and personalized coaching that can help you achieve your health goals. All of these meal plans are high in fiber and protein but low in saturated and trans fats, which are linked to an increased risk of heart disease.
Considerations When Choosing a Meal Delivery Kit
When shopping for a healthy meal delivery kit, Gulbin advises looking for meals that support your personal nutritional needs. “If you are simply looking to lose weight, then a healthy meal plan would be one that provides lower-calorie meals below 500 calories,” she says. If the meal delivery service you’re considering doesn’t label meals as diabetic or keto-friendly, Gulbin says there are a few key words to look for. “For those wanting to maintain a heart-healthy diet, you should look for low sodium and lower fat meal kits, or those that are designated as Mediterranean style, which would be healthy fat, lean protein in composition,” she explains. “For those wanting to follow a diabetic-friendly meal plan, you would want to look for key words like low-sugar or low-carb.
Benefits of Using Meal Kits for Heart Health
If you choose a program that fits your particular health needs and consume the portion recommended on the recipe card provided, then Gulbin says meal kits are a healthy option. She also recommends using meal kits as a way to learn about healthy portions and basic cooking skills. According to Gulbin, meal kits can make eating healthy easier since they take a lot of time out of meal planning for each week.