eMeals Review
eMeals is a meal planning service designed for all the busy people nationwide who are juggling a bunch of tasks throughout the day, all week long, and struggling with maintaining a healthy, balanced diet. It offers a variety of meal plans designed to meet the needs of virtually anyone who wants to eat properly. It allows you to know what you are going to cook days ahead and also helps you spend less money on groceries. Find out if this service matches your needs in this eMeals review.
How eMeals Works?
eMeals is a subscription service, so you have to register before you start enjoying the benefits of having a personal meal planner. It offers two dozen meal plans created to facilitate weight management, make cooking for the family a breeze, and simply allow you to eat healthily (read more about its meal plans in the Meals And Recipes section of this eMeals review).
Once you select the meal plan that works for you and decide whether you want to cook for 1-2 or 3-6 people, you get to pick the recipes you want to try out. You get 7 meal recommendations each week, with side dishes included. Apart from the recipes that suit your plan, the service provides a detailed and well-organized shopping list with all the ingredients you need to prepare the meals. You can export the list straight to the online store of your choice and eMeals will work some money-saving magic to help you spend less on your groceries. By carefully calculating the amounts for all ingredients, the service helps you significantly reduce your grocery bills, so you get to save money and nothing will go to waste.
The subscription is flexible and you get to tailor it to your personal needs. You can switch between meal plans whenever you want and pause your subscription for 1, 2 or 3 months.
What Makes eMeals Different?
For only a couple of dollars a month, eMeals allows you to enjoy the luxury of not having to think about what to cook next. You get all your meals planned out, with the possibility of customizing your weekly menu to your desire. Plus you get shopping lists organized by store sections, so you no longer have to worry about forgetting to purchase something you need. You can edit your shopping lists by adding more items that you want to buy.
Additional convenience comes with eMeals mobile apps that allow you to take your shopping list with you to the store and access and edit it on the go. The apps are available for both Android and iOS and they can be downloaded for free after signing up for the service.
What we particularly like about eMeals is that it offers an incredibly vast range of healthy meal plans that you can switch between at any time. This service understands that the needs of its customers do not only differ immensely from one individual user to the other, but also change over time. By offering over 20 options to alternate between and offering great customization options within a single plan, it manages to satisfy the varying needs of virtually every user.
For customers interested in making their loved ones happy by gifting them stress-free meal planning, eMeals has designed lovely gift certificates. You can choose from a variety of designs for different occasions, pick between the 6-month ($49.99) or 12-month subscription ($59.99), and decide whether you want the certificate to be mailed or emailed to the recipient or you want to give the gift in person. You can choose the plan type, but the recipients get the chance to change the plan whenever they want.
Meals And Recipes
Previously in this eMeals review, we have talked about the meal plans in general and now it is time to focus on each one of them individually. The plans are divided into 5 broad categories: Healthy, Weight Management, Family Inspired, Specialty meal plans designed to suit various special dietary needs, and Partner meal plans, created in cooperation with top food brands.
Healthy meal plans include Clean Eating and Quick And Healthy plans. Both of these plans focus on quick and easy preparation and natural ingredients, with no artificial substances, empty calories or anything that is not good for you. They are created for people with an active lifestyle who want to eat clean, stay in shape, and spend little time in the kitchen.
Weight Management meal plans are created for individuals who either want to stay in shape or get into shape. They allow you to limit the intake of substances that are hard to digest and add inches to your waistline. Weight Management plans include Paleo, Low-Calorie, Low-Carb and Heart-Healthy plans. eMeals also offers the Low-Fat plan that is for some reason excluded from the categorization.
Family Inspired meal plans are created to make cooking for the family easier than ever. They allow you to save cash and time. Plus, you can get great recipes designed particularly for the little ones and recipes that allow you to spend less time cooking and more time having fun with your loved ones. The Family Inspired plans include Budget-Friendly, Classic, Kid-Friendly, 30-Minute, and Slow Cooker plans.
Specialty meal plans are carefully crafted to help you make delicious meals that are in accordance with the special dietary needs of some or all members of your family. The meal plans that fall into this category are Diabetic, Vegetarian, Vegan, Mediterranean, and Gluten-Free.
eMeals offers three Partner meal plans, created together with three famous partners after which the plans are named. These include Better Homes And Gardens, Paula Deen, Allrecipes, and EatingWell plans.
The above-mentioned plans mostly focus on dinners, but some of them do allow you to choose between breakfast, lunch, and dinner options. The service also brings you several special meal plans designed to satisfy your dietary needs throughout the day and allow you to easily plan a special event. These plans include Breakfast, Lunch, Dessert, and Occasions plans.
Pricing
With eMeals, you can choose whether you want to subscribe for three months or the whole year. With the 3-month subscription, you pay $10 per month and with the yearly subscription, the price is $5 a month. Before you decide whether you want to subscribe, you can make use of the 14-day free trial, which should give you enough time to figure out whether this service is what you expected it to be.
Keep in mind that eMeals does not provide anything but recipes and shopping lists. If you decide to order groceries, eMeals can help you save cash with smart meal planning, but the price of the groceries and the shipping costs are exclusively determined and charged by the store of your choice.
Delivery Areas
As we have mentioned before in this eMeals review, this company does not provide any physical goods. The recipes and grocery lists are available nationwide. You can also use eMeals to save money on your grocery purchases regardless of your location. The company can help you get everything you need at your favorite store. You can take your eMeals shopping list to ALDI, Kroger, Publix, Walmart, Whole Foods or any other online or brick-and-mortar store.
eMeals Pros And Cons
To make sure eMeals meets all your standards and expectations, it is important to know its biggest advantages and disadvantages. With a short overview of its pros and cons, you can easily decide if eMeals is the right company for you.
- Two dozen healthy meal plans
- Plans suitable for a variety of special dietary needs
- Handy shopping list organized by store section
- Switch between plans anytime
- Pause subscription for up to 3 months
- Affordable fixed prices for all plans
- 14-day free trial
- Available nationwide
- Only 7 meal suggestions per week
Bottom Line
eMeals is the definition of getting more for less. For as little as $5 a month, you can get more time for yourself and more money in your budget thanks to smart shopping and a healthy eating plan. You also get to easily achieve the dietary goals you have set for yourself. Individuals with dietary restrictions get to enjoy regular supplies of recipes particularly designed with their special dietary needs in mind. If you want to take a break from meal planning and let professionals do all the time-consuming work, eMeals is a rather good, budget-friendly choice.
eMeals FAQ
How can I cancel my eMeals subscription?
eMeals exclusively allows you to cancel your subscription by phone. Read our short guide on how to cancel eMeals for more details.
Is eMeals worth it?
eMeals is a meal planning service that offers good value for money. For a relatively small fee, it provides healthy recipes that suit your diet, allows you to plan your cooking days in advance, and helps you save money on groceries.
How does eMeals work?
When you sign up, eMeals lets select a meal plan based on your needs. It provides weekly recipe recommendations along with detailed shopping lists with all the ingredients you need. You can export your shopping lists to your favorite online store.
It was not for us. We wanted to be able to pick and choose individual meals each day, not just a meal plan for the week.
I didn’t expect much from emeals (tried them out with the free trial), but I was pleasantly surprised with what they provide for just 10 bucks per month. I hope they do add more recipes in the future, though.
Emeals makes my life easier, but 7 recipes per week is just not enough.
Hard to find info on how to cancel. Once I did a few searches and found contact numbers, both numbers were “down for maintenance” the first time I called. Tried back a few times and finally reached someone who cancelled my account without a problem. But the difficulty in cancelling, no online cancellation capability and hidden contact numbers were really aggravating.
The recipes were pretty good for the first 6 months (a little low on flavor, but decent), but then started getting pretty repetitive. Would have given 3-4 stars had the cancellation method not been so sketchy.
I tried emeals with their free trial with my wife to try and see if we could get some good recipes for clean eating. I tried the clean eating, lunch, breakfast, dessert, and special occasions. We didn’t like the recipes so I tried to cancel. They said I had to call in and cancelled. I kept receiving emails and didn’t think anything of it. Then many months later I thought I had better check on it. Turns out I had been charged $100. They had charged me for every single plan I had tried. It wasn’t just for a month or the 3 month ones. They charged me for a whole year. I chatted with them to see what could be done. Turns out if you don’t request a refund when you call they just cancel the next subscription so you are stuck with paying even though you called in to resolve the issue. Not impressed with the customer service. Seems like very crooked way to get people to pay for the subscriptions.
you only get 7 to choose from, that is not a big selection. Last time I checked there are 7 days in a week.
Then in order to cancel you have to call. Stay away.
I did the free trial to get an idea of what the meals were. Nothing even on the kids list was anything my family would eat. Well within the trial time I called and cancelled and they still billed me. Now I have to pay the charge on my credit card bill because the cycle has already rolled over, even if they refund me it will be on the next cycle.
I’m a diabetic and it’s really hard to find good recipes for diabetics. I’m really satisfied with eMeals and I honestly cannot believe how cheap it is, it’s worth way more, made my life a whole lot easier.
Great budget-friendly recipes, perfectly organized shopping lists, I wish I’d discovered eMeals years ago.
I’ve always hated making shopping lists, so I’m more than happy to give someone $5 a month to do it for me. Awesome service.