Seattle Sutton’s Healthy Eating Review: Expert-Crafted Meals

Seattle Sutton’s Healthy Eating was founded in 1985 by Seattle Sutton, a registered nurse who was looking for ways to help her patients learn how to eat properly, battle health issues, and recover from illness through food. Today it is owned and operated by René Ficek, a registered dietitian.

The company provides nutritious, pre-prepared meals that can be delivered directly to your home. The meals are designed to help customers lose weight through calorie management while teaching the basics of healthy eating through portion control and inclusion of fresh ingredients.

Unlike similar meal delivery services, Seattle Sutton’s Healthy Eating is crafted by registered dietitians who you have complimentary access to throughout the program. 

Pricing: Multiple Tiers

Seattle Sutton’s Healthy Eating offers three plans: a traditional meal plan for 1,200 or 2,000 calories, as well as a vegetarian meal plan at 1,500 calories. With each plan, you can order a full week of meals (21), weekday meals only (12), or weekend meals (9).

Shipping costs will vary depending on where you live. Those based in the Midwest benefit lower shipping costs than those living elsewhere. 

Here is the cost breakdown per plan:

• 1,200 Calorie Traditional Plan, Weekend – 9 meals: $75 + shipping
• 1,200 Calorie Traditional Plan, Weekdays – 12 meals: $100 + shipping
• 1,200 Calorie Traditional Plan, Full week – 21 meals: $155 + shipping
• 1,500 Calorie Vegetarian Plan, Weekend – 9 meals: $79 + shipping
• 1,500 Calorie Vegetarian Plan, Weekdays – 12 meals: $106 + shipping
• 1,500 Calorie Vegetarian Plan, Full week – 21 meals: $165 + shipping
• 2,000 Calorie Traditional Plan, Weekend – 9 meals: $88 + shipping
• 2,000 Calorie Traditional Plan, Weekdays – 12 meals: $117 + shipping
• 2,000 Calorie Traditional Plan, Full week – 21 meals: $185 + shipping

How It Works: Straightforward Ordering

Seattle Sutton’s Healthy Eating offers heat-and-eat meals. After choosing your plan, simply select whether you want a full week of meals, weekdays only, or weekend. You will be sent breakfast, lunch, and dinner meals for each day ordered. There is also an option to try out the program for one week, have it delivered weekly, or on weeks of your choosing.

Choosing Meals: Dozens of Options

Seattle Sutton’s Healthy Eating offers a preset menu of 105 different freshly prepared meals in a five-week rotation so you will know which meals you will be receiving on any given week. There is no option for customization of meals at checkout.

Each plan offers breakfast, lunch, and dinner options for every day of the week that falls under the plan. Depending on whether you opt to receive a week of meals, a weekend of meals, or weekdays only, you will receive the pre-selected meals on the menu. 

There are no additional add-on options beyond your pre-selected meals for the week. However, you can order as many plans as you choose. For example, if you want to follow the 1,500-calorie vegetarian plan for a week and order the 2,000-calorie traditional meal plan for your partner, you can do so.

Note that in order to reach the total calories for your plan, the company recommends that you add 2 servings of low-fat dairy per day on the 1,200-calorie plan and 3 servings for the 1,500- and 2,000-calorie plans. A serving of dairy can be replaced with another item of your choosing equal to 80-100 calories, such as a serving of fruit or 3 cups of air-popped popcorn.

What We Made 

We ordered weekend meals under the 2,000-calorie traditional meal plan and received:

Day 1

• Breakfast: Avocado egg bake
• Lunch: Fresh fruit and cottage cheese plate
• Dinner: Chicken cacciatore

Day 2

• Breakfast: Maple-nut blueberry muffin
• Lunch: Shawarma chicken wrap
• Dinner: Pasticcio with mixed green salad

Day 3

• Breakfast: Orange berry waffle
• Lunch: Spinach artichoke flatbread pizza
• Dinner: Quinoa-stuffed flounder over paella “‘rice”

Packaging: Environmentally Friendly

The meals were prepared and packaged in air-tight plastic containers with a plastic film on top and placed in a shipping box with insulated material and ice packs. According to the company’s website, the meal containers are made from recycled plastic and are curbside recyclable. Overall, there were 19 pieces of packaging. Some of the ingredients in the meal containers were wrapped in additional plastic. The shipping box was well-insulated with food safety in mind.

Customer Support: Free Access to a Dietitian

Preparation instructions, a nutrition facts label, and a full ingredient list were included with each meal delivered. Free access to a registered dietitian is available online as well as a nutrition resource library with information on popular nutrition topics written by dietitians. Customer service can be accessed via telephone for immediate assistance or by email. We reached out with a question via email and received a response the same day.

Nutrition: Experts on Staff

Seattle Sutton’s Healthy Eating crafts their meals following medically recommended dietary guidelines for good health, weight loss, and disease avoidance set forth by the American Heart Association, American Diabetes Association, National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Its menus are guided by registered dietitians—the company has two on its staff, along with a certified diabetes educator.

The meals are manufactured in a facility that also processes dairy, fish, wheat, tree nuts, peanuts, soy, and eggs, so the only major food allergen the company accommodates is shellfish.

The Cooking Process: Simple Reheating

Each meal comes with preparation instructions on the label. Some meals, such as the orange berry waffles, and fresh fruit and cottage cheese plate did not require any additional preparation. Meals like the spinach-artichoke flatbread pizza and chicken cacciatore needed to be microwaved.

Microwaving and toasting were the only reheating guidelines provided; there was no inclusion of stovetop or oven preparation. Some meals such as the quinoa stuffed sole and avocado egg bake may have tasted better had we used an oven to reheat instead of a microwave, so it would have been helpful to have those instructions. 

Flavor, Freshness, and Quality: Palate-Friendly Food

Seattle Sutton meals are crafted to meet certain nutritional and caloric standards and in our tasting panel’s opinion, were not the most flavorful. Still, the service does a good job of offering a wide range of meals each week to satisfy different palates and preferences. Our food looked and tasted fresh. Note that the company does not disclose sourcing information at the point of purchase and told us that it uses “multiple vendors depending on supply chain availability.”

Seattle Sutton’s Healthy Eating Is Good For

Seattle Sutton’s Healthy Eating’s focus is to help customers lose weight through calorie management and to learn the basics of healthy eating—we believe the company achieves this goal. It takes the guesswork out of healthy cooking and calorie management for those looking to lose or manage their weight by offering pre-prepared meals that fit your needs.

This service may be a good option for those looking to lose weight and don’t know where to start when it comes to healthy eating. However, it may not appeal to those who are less concerned with weight loss, calorie management, or prefer to cook their own meals.

The Competition: Seattle Sutton’s Healthy Eating vs. Fresh n’ Lean

Seattle Sutton’s Healthy Eating and Fresh n’ Lean both deliver pre-prepared meals to your door that are ready to heat and eat. While Seattle Sutton’s Healthy Eating only caters to vegetarian and traditional diets, Fresh n’ Lean offers food that fits into keto, Paleo, vegan, Whole30, and high-protein diets. With both services, you are sent pre-determined meals with no option to pick and choose at the point of purchase. Seattle Sutton’s Healthy Eating meals are crafted with evidence-based guidelines in mind and with the help of registered dietitians, while Fresh n’ Lean does not claim to use evidence-based resources or offer access to a healthcare professional.

Methodology

We ordered, cooked, and evaluated meals from 27 meal delivery services to get a sense of each one’s offerings, nutrition profiles, prices, and, of course, flavors. We contacted the customer service teams at each of the companies, collected data, and wrote detailed reviews about each one.

Our writers are all registered dietitians and relied on their research and its resulting data to inform their reviews.