meals on wheels vs light n easy

[davidc4430]

ive been getting meals on wheels for many years and although they are fine for a pre prepared frozen meal for a while ive thought they are pretty ordinary.

my meals are/were delivered once a week on a friday lunch time so i had to be home.

my delivery comprised 1 hot meal and 6 frozen meals with deserts.

they would not let me order just the meals so every week i got 7 deserts i threw away, i dont like thawed out deserts. in fact i hardly ever eat desert, if i do its fresh fruit.

the aluminium packs often looked like they had been used for footy practice, all squished and unsealed in places.

but the meals were mostly ok.

some time back i was regularly getting some really nice meals, roast lamb, roast beef, roast pork, chicken snitzel, fish in batter.

but lately its all stews with the occasional fish, roast meal thrown in.

and allways with pumpkin which i dont like.

i dont get any choice as to my meals, its not until they are delivered i find out what i get.

i have no problem with the volunteers delivering the meals they are allways friendly.

so a friend said she was getting 'ligh n easy' meals and said she found them very good.

so i took the plunge and ordered some from light n easy as you can order just one time or regularly there are no ongoing contracts, you order and pay.

i recieved my first order today and i'm impressed by the paching!

they come in a lage polysteyrene box wuth a dry ice bag inside to keep them cold, the box is sealed with tape.

the meals are in perfect order ready to go into my freezer. not damaged at all!

online when ordering i get to choose what meals i want from a huge range! no pot luck here.

if i wanted i could order 7 of the same meal! not that i ever wood with such a large choice.

the delivery is left at my door if i'm not home. not possible with MOW.

so now i'm ready for the taste test, fingers crossed they are as good as they look.

btw, yes MOW is cheaper but when i dont have to buy deserts it works out cheaper.

i only buy main meals.

[davidc4430]

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@springyzone wrote:

There isn't much of a price difference between MOW & L&E by the looks of it. I'd stick with the L&E.

I was amazed that you got absolutely no say as to what you might receive with MOW.

There are so many food allergies these days plus most people do have some food preferences. My mother never touched chicken, for example.

I wouldn't have thought it would be that hard to offer people eg 5-10 different meal choices each fortnight and perhaps change a couple of things on the menu every now and again. Then let people choose.

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oh, yes, you do when you sign up for MOW tell them if you have any allergies (id forgotten that as i have no allergies)

but i dont gat a choice of what i get, i cant request the really nice meals (and MOW sometimes do make really nice meals)

MOW do not have any menue to choose from.

where when you go on the L&E site i had a hard time choosing from so many, i ended up choosing ones i felt would be my favorites.

might as well go there first.

had MOW still been putting in say 3 or 4 of the 7 meals as what i consider their best meals i most likely wouldnt be changing.

in my case it was simply they have become same same all the time.

i dont know if they are struggling price wise, i had another price increase letter just a week ago.  another reason i decided to try L&E even though they are a little dearer. its getting the choice that makes the difference for me.

[lyndal1838]

I can understand your attitude but if a person has medical issues the nutritional breakdown is important.

I am diabetic and there are a few of the meals I could not eat.....mostly those that are swimming in gravy.  If I have a choice of 2 meals I would choose the one with the lower sugar content.

[les3579]

I was getting MOW  for awhile but found their meals very bland   I chose which meals I wanted   I then went to Liteneasy but found they were a bit too expensice

[maranock]

My mother does deliveries of MOW and I sometimes see what she is delivering, they are so bad that I would rather starve. My father loves the 'man size' meals from the supermarket when my mother isn't home to cook. I wish there was a bigger range in them as I also eat them on occasion and enjoy them.

[zanadoo_56]

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@lyndal1838 wrote:

I can understand your attitude but if a person has medical issues the nutritional breakdown is important.

I am diabetic and there are a few of the meals I could not eat.....mostly those that are swimming in gravy.  If I have a choice of 2 meals I would choose the one with the lower sugar content.

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Of course.

Luckily my health (bad as it is) mostly means sacrificing my sweet tooth and laying off anything with artificial sweeteners as well.  Most of the ready meals would be considered pretty good against that standard.  Plus there's not much actual food in the containers compared to takeaways etc.

[imastawka]

Hubby likes the frozen Man Size Meals for when I'm not home.

https://www.woolworths.com.au/shop/search/products?searchTerm=man%20sized%20meals

[davidc4430]

ok, had my first L&E meal for dinner, i chose the 'chicken & cashew'

took 8 minutes to microwave (i allways convectioned the MOW, took 25 minutes)

removed the top and it looked good.

i cant bring myself to eat out of the packaging so put it on a plate.

was really very nice, slightly larger than a MOW and plenty for my dinner.

id give it a 9 out of 10 remembering i have been eating MOW for over 5 years.

it was fresh, vegies were just right, chicken was tender and no nasty bits.

this one will be on my re-order list.

BTW, the clock on my camera is out by 1 hour lol

need to find the instruction book to reset it.

[zanadoo_56]

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@maranock wrote:

My mother does deliveries of MOW and I sometimes see what she is delivering, they are so bad that I would rather starve. My father loves the 'man size' meals from the supermarket when my mother isn't home to cook. I wish there was a bigger range in them as I also eat them on occasion and enjoy them.

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They sound like hospital food. 🙂  The biggest challenge with hospital food is guessing what the meal actually is, based on what it is called and what it looks like.

What it is called and what it tastes like are also often vastly different....and that's without such joys as soups that look like almost solid jelly gloop with bits in it, undercooked main meal veggies, lamb ribs that are off cuts of lamb pressed into a sort of meat rib shape, steamed chicken (no skin of course) so dry that you ask for gravy and the amount put on the chicken is so small it immediately congeals on the plate and nothing can scrape it off the plate, corned beef where you get lots of gristle, chicken and corn soup where it's a milky watery liquid with a couple of bits of chicken and if you're lucky, five corn kernels.  Mind you, occasionally you might get a soup so full of bits and pieces of veggies etc....but barely any liquid.  About the only thing they could get right was tomato soup, which sadly we didn't get often enough.

Desserts are also a challenge.  A lot of them (no matter what they are called) are a square slab of coloured something that owes a lot to gelatin.  One dessert I got was green coloured.  Green suggests mint or kiwi fruit....but the flavour was undetectable.  I was asked what flavour it was.  My answer: green flavoured.

After a while you automatically translate your meal options into reality....and discover quite often there is nothing on the list that you want to eat.  For a while I opted for party pies until they were hard to get, and I thank God for cheese or mixed sandwiches (while carefully avoiding or gamely attempting to chew the stale edges as it seems cling wrap is stingly rationed).

I wasn't on any special diet while in hospital  (a few times I got the pureed meals by mistake though) but I sure lost weight.  Who wouldn't when the food was so awful?

[maranock]

Sounds like nursing home food.

[zanadoo_56]

Rats...it's got broccoli in it. 

Keep the pics coming.  It's the only way to see what the meals are really like. -)