Has anyone tried their meals? The nutrition information is shocking, to me. Lots of fat, sodium, etc.
Not sure what to think of them, I mean they are tasty, so far, but with sky high cholesterol, sodium and fats, I don’t know if it’s more nutrition harm for the sake of convenience.
I’ve never tried them but give us an example of what the meals are and the nutrition label.
Fat is not the enemy.
Sodium is not the enemy.
Cholesterol is not the enemy.
A healthy balanced diet will feature all 3 of those nutrients. The low fat diet did a doozy on the public perception of “good” and “bad” for nutrients.
Tomato cream & rosemary chicken fusilli: 630 calories, 70% saturated fat, 60% cholesterol.
Grilled pork chop & smoked cheddar cauli grits: 680 calories, 95% saturated fat, 64% total fat, 50% cholesterol.
Creamy bacon shrimp & sun-dried tomato pesto: 750 calories, 105% saturated fat, 83% total fat, 83% cholesterol.
The packaging for the really high sodium meal was tossed.
I mean, not potentially the healthiest?
We’ve got quite a few more meals. I’ll se if any more are ‘high’.
Turkey chili & zucchini: 670 calories, 99% saturated fat, 64% total fat, 62% cholesterol.
Their packaging says ‘fitness starts with food’, but it seems to me, and possibly wrongly, but I would NEED to have prime fitness to burn off this stuff?
Yeah, people got hung up on ‘low fat’, etc, and it became a mantra, and ‘Lean Cuisine’ made billions from that crazy bit of PR, and I did have a coworker trying to lose weight who was eating three of their meals and wondering why they weren’t losing weight, but there’s the idea of having something that is ‘appropriate(?)’, and not potentially damaging, long term. I’m proud of my clear arteries, and eating something with so much that is claimed to cause/contribute to a problem seems ill advised, especially for nightly meals. shrug Most of the docs I’ve had over the years are really nearly as clueless as I am regarding nutrition which is a tragedy IMO…
The absolute values for those (i.e. grams) will be much more meaningful than the %DV based on their assumed calorie and macro counts.
That said, their primary goals are easy and tasty so you’re definitely not going to be getting the healthiest options there.
Apparently…
Is there a ‘better’ option out there that would be better for an athletic lab rat?
ADDED: Years ago, like too many, my mom was on Nutrisystem, and OMG! Their ‘meals’ were crazy! Similar high sodium, high(er) fat, high cholesterol. Like things I wouldn’t expect to be high in that were just incredibly high. She lived quite a long drive away, so I couldn’t keep an eye on her, but she started gaining weight on that plan, and eventually canceled it. I don’t think you can eat your way thing. That would make as much sense as effing for virginity. The horse left the barn, it’s far more about what you do with that fuel you take in, and the idea that I’ll have to work out MORE for Factor kind of defeats the purpose, doesn’t it?
She was so frustrated not losing weight she kept saying she should just use shakes, and those are so insane! ‘Burn what you yearn’? That could be on a t-shirt somewhere, with a picture of a pizza or something…
wow thats a lot of saturated fat. and yes not all fat is bad but high sat fat is bad
Turkey chili & zuchini: Saturated fat 18g, total fat 50g, cholesterol 185mg, sodium 900mg…
Really low carbs: Total carb 16g, total sugars 7g, 0g added. Hmm… Dietary fiber: 4g.
Not going to get a sugar buzz on that dish.
Just ate a Maverick chicken chili bowl from Costco, and the salt load is high (WOW!) but the chicken was good. (I’ll definitely ride my sodium off later)
And we have 2 weeks of meals for 2, and the second slug is inbound so couldn’t be cancelled, so I figure a meal a week, it’ll take a while to get rid of this stuff. shrug
The wife said she’d take them for lunches through the week but I’m thinking maybe once a week, or less. (She’s not as active as I am)
Make it yourself?
Not enough carbs for endurance athletes.
But the drama! HAH!! Shopping (foraging?) and dragging it home, and doing all that work? Hah…
I do eat a lot of salads, but the wife has been trying to get me to be less rabbit for some reason.
Need moar carbs
I just perused the menu and these look like highly satiating dinner meals meant to taste good and leave you satisfied. Fat and salt are flavor boosters so those must taste pretty great. This is one reason I don’t do restaurants that much - I like knowing what’s going into my meals.
The thing is those meals could be made with a lot less fat and sodium and still have good taste. I’m not really into convenience meals so I don’t know what other options are out there but I’m sure there are some that would have a more preferable nutrient profile.
And I felt ‘satiated’, but at what cost. But now the wife is pissed. At me… It’s my fault, so we now have to look for ‘something else’. I was a cook at a dude ranch, and that was in my 20’s. Most of what I cooked was breakfasts, and would cook the trout customers pulled out of the ‘trout pond’, and typical ‘bar food’. To cook now would take some time to unlearn what I learned and start over. But TMI…
I may have to step out and start cooking more, but she hasn’t really liked most of the stuff I’ve done in the past.
RIDE ON!!
But, does, or has, anyone use/used a meal service like Factor that was ‘better’?
In the DC area I use Mighty Meals, which gives you the macros/calories and delivers to your home. Highly recommend.
My uneducated thoughts:
Anything that needs to be mass produced and mailed to the customer isn’t going to be “clean”
One way to salvage the meals, at least in my mind, just divide them in half and add your own portion of rice, pasta, carbs of your choice and some veggies of our choice.
One a cook, always a cook.
If you’re interested in doing the cooking yourself, I cook most of the meals in our house (I’m retired), and I try to make large portions of simple things that can be mixed and matched. It’s cheap and easy and helps with portion control. An example:
I can cook many simple grilled chicken breasts and that becomes chicken with farro and chickpeas, chicken with rice and black beans, grilled chicken salad, chicken with avocado and Swiss, chicken and pasta marinara, chicken tacos, etc. Mix in some grilled or air fryer veggies, grill some fish a couple times a week. Make a simple soup. Add a veggie omelet. Have a splurge night where you order take out. Make some simple smoothies, oats, or yogurt, with granola and fruit. That’s easily a week’s worth of healthy foods with very little effort and a good amount of variety.
I used to do stir fry, and grilled salmon, spaghetti, pasta salads, and then started a small business and immolated all my spare time. Throwing a head of lettuce in a bowl became the meal, and then frozen pizza, frozen veggies, etc. Our work days also rarely converged. It was a disaster for getting together and eating and just getting and keeping in touch. I envied a couple that cooks together at night because it makes it fun, and sustaining. Now things are going to get a lot more complicated for a bit, but now that I’m retired, I do the honey-do lists and ride, and often am riding as she gets home, which she takes personally at times. shrug The Call Of Factor was strong here. Hmm… People have suggested doing ‘components’ of a meal, and pulling it out of the fridge and making different things with it, but that’s complicated too. (A friend of hers hired a cook to come in 2 nights a week to cook for her and her husband and 4 kids. (I’d cook the kids, but…) and it works, but was costly, obviously)
There are tradeoffs for everything, but the Factor meals seem to have too many for me/us.