Eating Smart
A Movable Feast New take-out and meal-delivery services make it easy to have healthy dinners fixed elsewhere and put on your table fast.
— By Mark Ferri

WITH ALL THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF LIFE, GETTING a healthy meal on the table can be a major challenge. And no wonder: The typical home-cooked meal takes up to 1½ hours to prepare, plus 2 hours per week of grocery shopping. That’s why there’s been a boom in on-the-move food services. Online supermarkets were a $2.4 billion business in 2004 and are expected to take in $6.5 billion by 2008. Downside: You still have to cook. Now there’s a movement toward services that go well beyond your local burger franchise by sparing you planning and prep time and providing balanced, healthy meals that, in some cases, are brought to your door. Here’s the lowdown on some of the most popular options and how costs compare with the $3-per-person average for a home-cooked meal.

MEAL-ASSEMBLY KITCHENS Services like My Girlfriend’s Kitchen (www.mgfk.com), Dinner by Design (www.dinnerbydesignkitchen.com), and Super Suppers (www.supersuppers.com) plan up to 2 weeks’ worth of meals, and chop, mix, and assemble ingredients into pans and bags. You just stroll into your local franchise—more than 1,000 exist in North America—at a designated time and spend less than 2 hours putting together the meals. (Go online first and select the entrées.) At home, store the food in the freezer, then follow instructions on the day you’ll eat it. Most go straight from the freezer into a slow cooker or oven. “I call it halfway homemade,” says Cynthia Sass, RD, a spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association. You still have to cook the pasta or rice that comes with many meals, and prepare supplemental sides or salads, but the services save time and provide meals that are nutritionally better than most restaurant fare.
Time saved per week: about 6½ hours
Meal cost per person: about $4

SUPERMARKET TAKEOUT Salad bars and ready-to-eat sections in supermarkets benefit more than just busy families: Profits from the take-out aisle grew 10% each year between 2000 and 2005, industry analysts say. Increasingly elaborate offerings may include soup, roasted chicken, pizza, panini, and sushi—sometimes made to order. Salad bars alone offer exceptionally healthy eating—an easy way to get the recommended five daily servings of produce in one sitting—especially if you don’t go overboard on items like croutons and creamy dressings, which have marginal nutritional value and can be high in calories, sodium, and fat. To save money on salads, which are usually sold by weight, go easy on dense or heavy items like eggs and watermelon.
Time saved per week: about 10 hours
Meal cost per person: $2.50 to $8

CHEFS ON CALL The idea of a personal chef isn’t as rarefied as it sounds: There are enough on-demand culinary services like Personal Chef to Go (www.personalcheftogo.com) and DineWise (www.dinewise.com) that they have their own professional association. The “someone else cooks” category is well stocked with gifted (and sometimes not-so-gifted) amateurs and professionals who don’t like long restaurant hours but still want to serve an appreciative clientele. Dishes aren’t made to order. Instead, you choose meals from daily or weekly menus. But you’ll enjoy the luxury of having meals delivered to your home, where you stockpile them in the fridge or freezer. It’s best to go with services that provide a nutritional breakdown of their offerings so you can track calories, fat, and sodium. To find a chef service in your area, visit www.personalchef.com or www.superpages.com.
Time saved per week: about 12 hours
Meal cost per person: $6 to $8