New Year's resolutions are easy to make but famously not so easy to stick to. If you're looking to get your healthy eating on in 2021, the key is to find or create healthy habits and plans that actually stick. It's certainly reasonable to seek a little help in doing that and a healthy meal delivery service that uses quality ingredients could be the thing to kick your new year nutrition goals into gear.
Trifecta Nutrition is one of the new healthy prepared meal delivery systems that deliver fully cooked, vacuum-sealed meals and meal prep bundles to your door so you don't have to cook. Ever. The company claims to use the "highest quality ingredients in the industry" and its healthy meal plans are geared towards athletes and those trying to stick to a low-calorie, low-carb and high protein diet. Trifecta also sells bundles of cooked meat, grains and sides for meal planning, so you can create your own meals every week.
Like
- Organic produce and ethical meats and fish
- Free delivery
Don't Like
- Too expensive for what it is
- You have to order at least five meals per week
- You can't choose what meals you get
I've reviewed a few of Trifecta's competitors including Freshly and Daily Harvest, both of which deliver healthy prepared meals. To see how Trifecta compared, I tested out a week's worth of meals.
How Trifecta works
Trifecta Nutrition delivers weekly boxes of healthy, precooked meals to your door. The meals are vacuum-sealed and shipped in cooler boxes (not frozen). Unlike meal kits, Trifecta meals require no prep or cooking at all -- only heating and eating.
Trifecta offers several meal plans, mostly geared towards people trying to keep to a diet like clean eating, keto, paleo, vegetarian or vegan. The company offers meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner, all developed by a team of dieticians so, in theory, you could eat Trifecta food for every meal if you wanted. One thing to note is Trifecta has a minimum order of five meals a week, which costs $109. Also, unlike some other prepared meal services, you don't get to pick your own meals or have much say at all in what food shows up. While you can't order individual meals, there are a la carte sides and protein bundles designed for meal planning. (More on this in a bit.)
Read more: Best healthy meal kits and meal delivery services in 2021: Sun Basket, Blue Apron, Freshly and more
Signing up for Trifecta is simple. Once you've chosen your meal plan subscription type and the number of meals you'll receive each week (five or seven), you simply plug in payment information, any dietary restrictions and choose when you want your first shipment to arrive. Trifecta delivers to all 50 states including Hawaii and Alaska.
Trifecta Nutrition pricing
| Meal plan type | Price per week (for 7 meals) |
|---|---|
| Paleo | $109 |
| Keto | $109 |
| Vegan | $114 |
| Vegetarian | $114 |
| Classic | $119 |
What Trifecta meals are like
Trifecta's meals are healthy, with lots of lean meats, vegetables and whole grains. The food is developed by a team of nutritionists and dieticians and most Trifecta meals are between 300 and 500 calories. The meals rarely contain empty carbs or calories such as potatoes, white rice or high-in-cholesterol foods such as cheese and dairy. There are some seafood meals including salmon and mahi-mahi and a lot of chicken, turkey and beef. No matter what plan you choose, you'll be getting meals that are high in protein and low in calories, which aligns well with Trifecta's fitness-friendly branding.
Trifecta also uses mostly organic produce -- though if you look at the wording carefully it's not confirmed that all produce is organic -- but the company does claim to source as much as possible from small, local, organic farms. Trifecta also maintains that all its meats are humanely raised and free-range. Its beef is grass-fed and its seafood is all wild-caught and not farmed.
Trifecta doesn't get too crazy with unusual spice and bold flavors but you'll find some interesting seasonings and sauces including a beef patty with chimichurri sauce or barbecue chicken wings with coconut collard greens. All the food that arrived in my Trifecta box seemed freshly cooked. The company vacuum seals all the meals and recommends eating them within 10 days. You could also pop some of them into the freezer (which I did) and get a much longer shelf life. I found the portion sizes for Trifecta to be spot on. I would occasionally have a few bites left and it was always enough to satisfy.
Trifecta uses only wild-caught salmon and seafood in its prepared meals.
TrifectaA la carte bundles for meal planning
One unique service that Trifecta offers is bulk portions of precooked meat, fish veggies and grains for meal planning. It's cheaper than the regular meal plans but you'll have to assemble the meals yourself and they won't be accompanied by the sauces and seasonings. For instance, one of the meal prep bundles includes 2 pounds each of chicken, beef, turkey, brown rice and sweet potato for $125 a week.
Beyond the bundles, you can order specific cooked veggies, grains fish and meats such as four 4-ounce servings of chicken per week for $15 or four 4-ounce servings of wild-caught salmon for $23 a week. These can be ordered outside of the meal plans and, in my opinion, are a much better deal.
Trifecta's a la carte bundles are perfect for healthy meal planning.
TrifectaPreparing Trifecta meals
Trifecta meals are fully cooked so all you need to do is heat them. How you do that is up to you and while most can be microwaved, I recommend heating them gently in a covered skillet or in the oven using a low temperature.
What I ate and how I liked it
- Beef patty and broccoli with chimichurri: A simple meal which I reheated in a skillet. The beef patty retained a lot of moisture and had a good, mild flavor. The chimichurri sauce was a good punch of flavor.
- Pesto salmon with quinoa and veggies: I was skeptical about seafood dishes but the salmon meals I had all tasted fresh, including this pesto salmon with veggies and quinoa.
- Chicken fajita with salsa verde black beans: This meal wasn't my favorite and I felt it lacked flavor. I like my Mexican fiery and flavorful and so had to add a good deal of hot sauce to this one.
- Turkey patty with teriyaki lentils and Brussels sprouts: This one I liked much better. Satisfying and filling but still very healthy. I would never have thought to put teriyaki on lentils but it worked well.
- Sun-dried pesto pasta with chicken breast: This is about as much of a splurge as you get with Trifecta meals. I don't love precooked and reheated pasta and this dish didn't really change my mind. The flavors were fine but the pasta was predictably mushy.
A shipment of Trifecta prepared meals.
TrifectaWhat sets Trifecta apart from other prepared meal delivery services?
When it comes to taste and flavor, Trifecta meals aren't anything to do backflips over. The brand's biggest differentiator -- and justification for the high cost -- is the quality of ingredients, and you can indeed taste it in the final product. Meats and fish are tender and flavorful which is usually a sign they came from somewhere reputable. Worth noting other brands like Daily Harvest and Sun Basket also use organic ingredients but perhaps not at such a high percentage.
Who Trifecta meal kits are good for
Trifecta meals are great if you're trying to commit to eating healthy every day but have no desire to cook. Because you have to subscribe to a minimum of five meals a week, it is indeed a big commitment. This may be good if you're really going for it in 2021 or don't trust yourself to make healthy dinner choices all week.
Trifecta is marketed towards athletes and that's for a reason: If you're training or keeping to a keto diet and looking for high-protein, low-carb meals, Trifecta will likely deliver what you need. It's also a good option for general weight loss goals. It's also one of the best prepared meal services for eating organic produce and high-quality, humanely raised meats and wild-caught seafood.
Who Trifecta meal kits are not so good for
If you're picky about what you eat, Trifecta is not the right service for you. Although most of the meals will have familiar flavors, at the end of the day you're at the mercy of what Trifecta sends you. Trifecta is also not great for eaters who have high standards for taste or crave adventurous and inventive cuisine. I don't mean that as an insult, but we're talking about precooked meals that are never going to be as good as actual home-cooked food or even freshly prepared takeout. Trifecta's recipes are also pretty standard and safe.
How much do Trifecta meals cost?
Trifecta meal plans start at $108.43 for a week. That price is for seven meals (the fewest amount of meals you can order) and nets out to about $15.40 per meal. The vegan or vegetarian meals plans are more expensive -- seven meals will cost $114 a week. One thing I found strange is that the price doesn't come down much even if you choose a meal plan with many more meals. For instance, 10 meals a week will run you $150 for a week ($15 for each meal) while 14 meals per week are $210 (still $15 per meal).
The a la carte meal planning bundles start at $119 per box and, according to Trifecta's calculations, that nets out to about $6.50 for each meal. Individual subscriptions of cooked meats, fish, veggies and grains are priced accordingly, starting at about $10 a week and going up from there.
Trifecta packaging and environmental friendliness
While the individual containers are recyclable, Trifecta does use some styrofoam in its packaging and so it would be a stretch to call it an environmentally friendly operation. I've seen worse offenders but I've also certainly seen better.
Canceling a Trifecta subscription
You can pause or cancel your subscription as long as you give the company seven days' notice. You can only pause for a maximum of four weeks so if you're not sure how long you'll need to take a break, it might be best just to cancel and resubscribe later.
The final verdict
Though I didn't find any of the meals offensive and actually many were quite good, for me personally it's hard to justify the cost of Trifecta Nutrition meals. You could get freshly made restaurant delivery every night and spend close to $15.50 on each meal, so it's hard to see why one would spend that much on precooked and packaged meals, especially considering you can't choose the food.
The possible caveat is if you're concerned about consuming as much organic produce and free-range, wild-caught meats and seafood as possible and also want to have healthy meals at the ready throughout the week. If all that is true and money isn't an issue, Trifecta may be a good choice.
I do, however, recommend Trifecta's meal planning bundles and would contend those are the best bargains that the service has to offer. Four portions of wild-salmon would cost you a whole lot more than $23 dollars at the grocery store, for instance. The other high-quality meats, fish and produce are also priced fairly for you to buy and have on hand for healthy lunches and dinners all week.
The information contained in this article is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as health or medical advice. Always consult a physician or other qualified health provider regarding any questions you may have about a medical condition or health objectives.
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