eDiets Review #2 by Dee on February 6th, 2009 at 11:01 AM CST

Name

I had been on E-diets plan and was very happy with the food and their help. I think the company changed hands or something because around Aug 2008 everything changed. The breakfast change 100%, the snacks which used to be obviously healthy (soy nuts, etc) became cookies (what the heck?)AND you used to be able to adjust your snack to your liking now the snack was picked by e-diets(no switching)and they were bad. Many of my favorite meals disappeared. I called and after many questions where I gave obvious examples (like snacks on a diet being cookies) the lady said something like. Oh yes, I am so sorry we did have a major change here a little while back. No kidding! I said I wanted to cancel and she was more than gracious about helping me,but epicurious should re evaluate e-diets food now, and each site that lists them should do the same. I miss my old e-diets food. Even when I was on e-diets I did have one complaint. They do not give a detailed description of the 'taste' of the food or perhaps a list of ingredients. I have ulcers and spicy foods are painful to me. I saw my MD and she agreed I could go on e-diets as long as I was careful. Well because they offered no help with spices listed, at first I had to throw out meals that where spicy and keep a list of the foods I could handle. I wonder what people with allergies would do with this plan.

I had been on E-diets plan and was very happy with the food and their help. I think the company changed hands or something because around Aug 2008 everything changed.

The breakfast change 100%, the snacks which used to be obviously healthy (soy nuts, etc) became cookies (what the heck?)AND you used to be able to adjust your snack to your liking now the snack was picked by e-diets(no switching)and they were bad.

Many of my favorite meals disappeared. I called and after many questions where I gave obvious examples (like snacks on a diet being cookies) the lady said something like. Oh yes, I am so sorry we did have a major change here a little while back.

No kidding! I said I wanted to cancel and she was more than gracious about helping me,but epicurious should re evaluate e-diets food now, and each site that lists them should do the same.

I miss my old e-diets food.

Even when I was on e-diets I did have one complaint. They do not give a detailed description of the 'taste' of the food or perhaps a list of ingredients. I have ulcers and spicy foods are painful to me. I saw my MD and she agreed I could go on e-diets as long as I was careful. Well because they offered no help with spices listed, at first I had to throw out meals that where spicy and keep a list of the foods I could handle. I wonder what people with allergies would do with this plan.

eDiets Review #1 by rufus on January 22nd, 2009 at 5:29 PM CST

Name

I have been using eDiets for about 3 weeks. We chose the recipe based plan so that we could make our meals at home. So far, I've found it easy to use, consistant with portions, and it helps me to plan our meals for the week. Menu planning helps us keep the grocery bills down, for sure (we're spending less than $100/wk for 2 adults eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner at home). We've both lost about 6 lbs on the diet, and haven't felt hungry. We have not used meal delivery and I can't speak to it. I haven't had any issue with site access, and found some useful tools including a substitution list (with weights/amounts of each food and how they are interchangable). While you can't add things to the data base, I think the idea with this diet is that eDiets generates the menu, you customize it using their list of meals (which is pretty good), and then slot those meals into your week. For those that can't follow the plan or don't want something so regimented, then I wouldn't recommend it. There is alot of prep work involved for the week, but it mostly consists of chopping veggies and salad greens. I run it all through the food processor and call it a day, which makes the prep of different salads easy. This is not a "points" system a la Weight Watchers, but it is a portion and a calorie controlled menu. There are some variations on higher fat foods. I also feel that the recipies can be tweaked a bit to make them a bit more livley by grilling meats or adding additional spices or by utilizing other techniques that won't add fat or calories to your meal. There are some guidelines for eating out, but we got the idea of what we need to choose from some of the menus (ie, no fried stuff!). Common sense, for sure. Finally, there are some fitness recomendations (I was told to pick 3-4 cardio days and 2-3 strength days) and these don't cost extra. If you poke around the site, there is alot of information there. However, you've got to put forth the effort. You will need to prep your meals and pack your lunch, take the meat out of the freezer, etc. For my husband and myself, I've got to do some math to get the cooking potions correct and I regularly use a food scale. It's not nearly as miserable as it sounds, but this diet does require some effort. All in all, we're happy with it.

I have been using eDiets for about 3 weeks. We chose the recipe based plan so that we could make our meals at home. So far, I've found it easy to use, consistant with portions, and it helps me to plan our meals for the week. Menu planning helps us keep the grocery bills down, for sure (we're spending less than $100/wk for 2 adults eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner at home). We've both lost about 6 lbs on the diet, and haven't felt hungry.

We have not used meal delivery and I can't speak to it. I haven't had any issue with site access, and found some useful tools including a substitution list (with weights/amounts of each food and how they are interchangable). While you can't add things to the data base, I think the idea with this diet is that eDiets generates the menu, you customize it using their list of meals (which is pretty good), and then slot those meals into your week. For those that can't follow the plan or don't want something so regimented, then I wouldn't recommend it. There is alot of prep work involved for the week, but it mostly consists of chopping veggies and salad greens. I run it all through the food processor and call it a day, which makes the prep of different salads easy.

This is not a "points" system a la Weight Watchers, but it is a portion and a calorie controlled menu. There are some variations on higher fat foods. I also feel that the recipies can be tweaked a bit to make them a bit more livley by grilling meats or adding additional spices or by utilizing other techniques that won't add fat or calories to your meal.

There are some guidelines for eating out, but we got the idea of what we need to choose from some of the menus (ie, no fried stuff!). Common sense, for sure.

Finally, there are some fitness recomendations (I was told to pick 3-4 cardio days and 2-3 strength days) and these don't cost extra. If you poke around the site, there is alot of information there. However, you've got to put forth the effort. You will need to prep your meals and pack your lunch, take the meat out of the freezer, etc. For my husband and myself, I've got to do some math to get the cooking potions correct and I regularly use a food scale. It's not nearly as miserable as it sounds, but this diet does require some effort. All in all, we're happy with it.