Prepped

About Prepped Delivery Service

Prepped prepared meals delivery has a lot to offer family caretakers, seniors, and the elderly. Overall, we found their meals to be above average in quality, but the service is not without shortcomings, which are more of an inconvenience than a reason not to order.

We loved the pricing, with meals averaging between $10 and $15 each. We also enjoyed how the meals will fit most nutritional meal plans so family caretakers of loved ones with diabetes, low sodium, or weight loss diets can buy meals without having to measure calories, fat, and carbs.

We also loved the portion sizes. We have seen numerous meal delivery services in this price range skimp on protein portion sizes or eliminate a side dish. A properly balanced meal should have a protein, carb side, and a vegetable serving.

The menu rotates weekly which provides the excitement of new meals, but the selections are limited to about 15 lunch and dinner options per week. If your loved one is a finicky eater, you could find yourself struggling to create enough unique meals in a single order. We prefer services with more extensive menus that rotate less frequently. We enjoyed numerous meals we would love to order again, but they are not available.

We also like that there is no commitment to reordering, another caveat of meal delivery services with this type of menu selection. Also, the pictures of the meals on their website are not actual pictures of their food. They have purchased photos of clip art. Please keep this in mind when ordering. Our pictures are of the actual food we received and don’t be fooled by the fancy names of their dishes. They never live up to expectations. Either the names are being created by someone who hasn’t tried the food, or the chef is grossly incompetent in executing the dish.

We could not find a 100% Satisfaction Guarantee on the website. The quality of the food we received suggests one may not be needed, but it is a huge selling point for first-time buyers.

Some Reheating Issues

Please be careful reheating these meals! Some seniors or elderly family members can easily burn themselves if they are not careful. These meals come in bags, not trays, with each meal component in its own microwaveable and vacuumed sealed pouch. The microwave instructions say to microwave each meal component individually, 1-2 minutes, which will seem inconvenient.

After a few tries, we were able to microwave a complete meal for 2 minutes and have each meal component reheat perfectly. Some seniors and elderly may find the type size for the heating instructions a little too small to read, adding to the likelihood of an accident.

We felt the direction could be a little more complete such as advising the customer if they should poke holes in the bag. We assume the food reheats as well as it does without poking holes but be warned: If you over microwave, the pouch will blow up. We would suggest you put your food on a microwave-safe plate with a cover, just in case. When the food is reheated, the pouches are extremely hot! You or your loved one could easily get a minor burn by trying to handle the food too quickly. You have cut the pouch and poured the contents onto a plate. Be careful handling these hot pouches, which are loaded with steam.

Lastly, some meal components can have a lot of residual water that is not easy to see. We had a few meals where our plates were drowned in excess water and made the meal unappetizing. Again, please let the pouch cool completed before trying to handle it, and especially drain any excess water. Overall, we thought Prepped could do a little better job explaining and cautioning customers on how to reheat their meals. But rest assured, once you get the hang of it, these meals reheat to perfection and in record time.

Source: https://www.senior-meals.org/prepped