Cooking is out of the question for some people – sometimes you just don’t have enough time, or maybe you’re not skilled enough to do it without fear of setting your house on fire. Or, you may simply enjoy cooked food to an extent that your own skills fail to satisfy. Whatever the reason is, Bistro MD seems like a nice solution to this type of problem – while also caring for your weight and health a great deal!
Product Selection and Prices
We realize this isn’t exactly a regular online store we’re talking about here, so we can’t really talk of a “product selection” per se. In this case though, the menu is really impressive – whatever your taste buds may enjoy, you’ll likely find it here. Not only that, but all the meals list their ingredients down to the last pinch of salt, so that you know what you’re buying exactly.
It will cost you a bit more than usual to eat here regularly though – if you decide to substitute this type of service for your entire set of regular meals, expect to have to pay at least twice as much as you normally do. This isn’t an exaggeration, either – the gourmet foods offered here simply cost more, and that’s understandable. Considering the foods are actually carefully tailored to help you lose weight though, you should really know that you’re paying for quality in this case.
Design and Navigation
A pleasantly styled website, it’s very easy to navigate and find the foods you’re after. You’re given simple, yet powerful tools to build your perfect menu of choice, plus you can always see examples of other items similar to the ones you’ve chosen that may interest you. We actually found out some pretty tasty-looking meals just browsing around the website!
Visually, it’s really nice as well, with calm, soothing colors complementing the light-colored design.
Ordering and Customer Support
Ordering can be somewhat of a trouble, depending on where you live – we are talking about food here, after all. It does come in a neat, insulating package though, which helps keep the meals fresh before they get to you. One thing we were slightly disappointed with is that every meal requires pre-heating – they could’ve picked some foods that go better without requiring you to heat them, but we can understand that staying healthy is more important than picking tasty foods.
Final Thoughts
If you’ve decided you want to alleviate your weight problems but don’t have enough time to prepare your own meals, you’ll probably find Bistro MD to be of great help. If you’re prepared to pay the higher prices and wait for your food to be delivered on a scheduled basis, you should find all you need in their store. Just make sure you don’t get too sucked into using the service and actually learn to cook yourself eventually – otherwise you’ll sooner or later get bored with the selection (although it is impressive), and will have to resort to unhealthy foods again.
December 9th, 2011 at 4:11 am
With all the hype and endorsements from high-profile individuals, when I received an offer to receive the meal plan ‘for life’ without shipping charges I decided to try the plan since I often skip meals due to lack of time or general distractions. I thought that if I had the meals and that more were coming behind each delivery it would be more likely that I would eat three full meals a day. I had looked at the plan before, but the price was prohibitive. I had used other food services before, so when I clicked through the promotional email to sign up I expected a section in the enrollment for preferences, but there was none. When I received the first order of 15 meals there were 9 that I could not eat. Big waste of money. I was able to change the profile that was otherwise not part of the sign-up process, hoping for a better outcome in week two. The evening before the food was to arrive I received an email that indicated that I was being charged $25 for shipping. I immediately sent a return email regarding the shipping charges. By mid morning the next day I call since I had not heard back. I was told that despite the fact that I may have clicked through on a lifetime free shipping promotion my actual registration was for only the first week. Somewhere down the line there appears to have been an electronic fork in the road of which I was not aware or warned about and ended up not getting the offer received. The company told me to produce the email that I was referring to, though it acknowledged that this was, in fact, a current promotion – as though I made this up. Of course, I don’t have old deleted emails. After a long series of holds and absurd excuses I was told that the shipping might be refunded if the company could verify something somewhere. When I told them that I would reject the food upon delivery it agreed to waive the charge this one time. I told them that I had no interest in continuing with the food if this was not a long-term program. I made it clear that I would refuse the food and hung-up. I received a call back during which I was told that the company would adjust my plan to free shipping, but said that any breaks in service would cancel this promotion – as if people don’t go out of town for business or pleasure; as if people don’t go on vacation or into the hospital, maybe even visit family. So, it was obvious that the company issued this promotion just before the holiday season knowing that most people would have cause to interrupt service in the short term. Another serious bait and switch. This is a company that purports to address the needs of human beings, yet expects human beings to act like anything but – have no cause to suspend service for family or business reasons, etc. Disrespect. In the end I accepted the food and though my preferences clearly stated no spicy foods and no berries, half of the items were either or both. Out of the 15 meals only 8 are usable. So, the company ignores preferences, disrespects its customers and purports to be a company that concerns itself with the challenges of human beings without listening to the humans that subscribe or treating their customers like fully functional social beings. Sad. This company will get not one more cent from me. Caveat emptor!