Review: three advantages of the factor meal subscription – and three disadvantages

My husband and I subscribe to the Factor meal service for a few months. Thanks to a sign-up special that gave out about $150 in credits for the first five orders, our first order of eight meals came to $62.95. Without discounts, it comes to $103.92, which works out to $12.99 per meal – perhaps more expensive than home cooking or fast food, depending on what’s being eaten, but definitely less expensive than most restaurant meals.

It was largely an enjoyable experience, but not without its problems. From an aesthetic point of view, I strongly recommend that you put the contents on a real plate when having a Factor meal at home. It’s more attractive than eating from the plastic box. On the other hand, the Factor meals were perfect for my husband to just grab one from the fridge and take to work for lunch. If you have a busy lifestyle and would benefit from a meal subscription service, here are the pros and cons of Factor.

Benefits of the Factor Meal Subscription Service

• Good meal ideas and pleasant flavors: Most of Factor’s meals were quite tasty and a good combination of dishes. The Vegan Mushroom Marsala with onion risotto and garlicky green beans is excellent. It’s remarkable how much flavor and texture packs into this 390-calorie meal. It won’t win any beauty contest either on the tray or on the plate, but it is certainly tasty.
• No preparation means ideal for quick meals or take-away lunches: Unlike some other meal subscription services that come as kits that you prepare and assemble at home, Factor only deals in heat-and-eat meals. This has made it super convenient for my husband to grab a box from the refrigerator and take it with him to work. I also make it a point to provide him with this if I have to leave town for a week. Most can be microwaved within two to three minutes.
• Usually healthy: Most Factor meals are reasonable in calories and sodium, and fairly high in fiber. By some recent health problems that require constant vigilance, I need to look at sodium and fiber content when ordering meals, and my nutritionist recommended Factor among a few other services. The aforementioned Vegan Mushroom Marsala is low in calories and contains 5 grams of fiber. That particular meal is a bit high in sodium: 890 milligrams, or 36.5% of the recommended daily intake. Other meals aren’t quite as high – and they’re all a lot less than many of the freshly prepared meals from the other service I use, Home chefwhich has meals with a whopping 1,800 milligrams of sodium.Another example of a Factor meal that I’ve ordered more than once: the Jalapeño-Lime-Cheddar Chicken with Spicy Coriander Cauliflower “Rice” has a slightly lower 720 milligrams of sodium with 3 grams of dietary fiber at 660 calories.

Disadvantages of the Factor Meal Subscription Service

• Unreliable deliveries: This is the first negative point – and it’s a biggie. I have only been a subscriber for two months and have twice not received my orders on the scheduled delivery date. The first time was the first order. It showed up the next morning, which wasn’t a big deal, and Factor gave me a $10 credit for the inconvenience. However, my order from last week did not show up for two days. This was a big problem because we depended on those meals for lunch. We weren’t planning on cooking in the evening either, but we turned around and made a big batch of spaghetti so we had something to eat while we waited for the order.
  
  Factor’s customer service refunded the order in full – which was good because when it arrived I checked the temperature of one meal at the top of the box and one at the bottom of the box. The top meal was 65° F and the bottom was 55° F. These started to creep into the temperature temperature danger zones for food. The problem had something to do with the third party delivery service. Factor ended up switching to UPS for my delivery – and it still arrived late. If this happens again I will probably cancel my membership and try to find a comparable service.
• No freshly prepared ingredients: The same thing that makes Factor such a great choice for lunches and other quick meals is also a drawback for dinners. When it comes to dinner, I want to eat fresh vegetables, not reheated vegetables.
• Warming up can be annoying: In the time it takes for the main dish on the large side of the tray to reach the right temperature, the side dishes in the smaller compartments turn into lava. The only solution I can think of is to microwave the contents until the side dishes reach 165°F, peel off the plastic wrap from the top, place them on a plate, and then continue heating the main dish to the correct temperature .

Favorite factor meals and more

Here are some other meals we enjoy besides the Vegan Mushroom Marsala And Jalapeño-Lime-Cheddar Chicken with Spicy Coriander Cauliflower “Rice” listed above.

• Ground Beef & Thyme Cottage Pie with Parmesan-Buttered Zucchini: This has all the appeal of the comfort food classic and none of the guilt. It has 570 calories, 5 grams of fiber and 910 milligrams of sodium, which is a bit high. The time flavor really comes through and even the zucchini is well seasoned, although I still like to mix it with everything else.
• Creamy whole grain mustard chop with stewed cabbage and browned butter carrots: Factor usually does very well with carrots, and in this case these are a great bonus, along with this considerably sized chop. The cabbage complements the pork chop and provides a lot of fiber to the meal. It comes out to 5 grams. There are only 560 calories and 900 milligrams of sodium – again, a bit high.
• Blackened salmon with smoked Gouda cauliflower “Grits” and broccoli: Subscription meals can be a bit boring when it comes to seasoning, so the little kick of the blackening flavor of the salmon is very welcome. It’s rare that I make my own cauliflower grits, but these Gouda-infused varieties have made me a fan. The broccoli is mainly there to ensure that you get your grains. This meal weighs in at 620 calories, 6 g of fiber, and 870 mg of sodium.
• Ginger Tofu Grain Bowl With Thai Peanut Sauce: This is my new favorite thing, and it’s perfect for summer. This is a fresh mix of five-spice seasoned tofu cubes, edamame, roasted red and green cabbage and shredded carrot on top of quinoa and topped with chili peanuts. The peanut sauce comes with it and is tasty, but the salad hardly needs it. Bonus: It’s meant to be eaten cold. You don’t even have to heat it, although I suppose you could. Oddly enough, you won’t find the grain bowl selections among the meal choices. These are listed under the add-ons under “Lunch-To-Go”. Especially during the warm months, I think these should be part of the regular meal choices.
• Cayenne Cleanse Wellness Shots: These small two-ounce bottles contain a mix of apple juice, ginger juice, lemon juice and cayenne pepper. I have my doubts about the ‘wellness’ claim. One offers 4% of the daily recommended amount of vitamin C, but apart from that it is difficult to say whether there are any other benefits. I ordered them because they sounded good, and I was tempted by the kick of ginger and cayenne pepper. I gave one to my husband, we drank them, and they were just as fun and enjoyable as I had hoped. That said, they are also expensive. A six-pack costs $23.99, so that’s about $4 each. Factor also offers protein shakes and the like, but I usually focus on the meals.

Least favorite factor meals

We’ve enjoyed the vast majority of the meals we’ve ordered, but there have been a few misses – and both are breakfast dishes.

• All-Spiced Gravy & Bacon Scramble. The dish achieved its goal of being reminiscent of biscuits and gravy minus the biscuits (good for carb cutters). The flavor was great, but the dish uses runny whole eggs, so the texture was both soft and strangely lumpy from the bits of sausage and gravy. I’m not sure I would order this again. It clocked in at 510 calories, 780 milligrams of sodium and 2 grams of fiber.
• Pancakes and sausage with cinnamon butter and maple syrup: This included chicken sausage breakfast patties, and aside from being a bit dense, these had a good sage flavor and were enjoyable. The pancakes, however, were an abomination, and not even the cinnamon butter and real maple syrup could save them. All Factor meals are gluten-free, so the pancakes are made with rice flour. The texture was unpleasantly gummy. Never again. Factor must return it to the food laboratory.

For me, the advantages of Factor outweigh the disadvantages. I will remain a customer for the foreseeable future unless they make another large delivery. I hope they don’t, because I’d like to keep it.

Factor regularly offers me free sample boxes and discount offers to share with others. If you are interested in a sample box (first come, first served and subject to availability), then you are welcome to email me.

Phaedra Cook has been writing about the Houston restaurant and bar scene since 2010. She was a regular contributor My table magazine (now closed) and was the chief restaurant critic for the Houston Press for two years, after which he was eventually promoted to food editor. Cook founded Houston Food Finder in November 2016 and has been editor and publisher ever since.

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