Diet to Go and Fresh Dining are just two of the dozens of healthy gourmet food delivery companies on the rise, promising to bring fresh and nutritious meals to your door every week. The industry for chef-prepared meals is increasing in popularity as more busy people are finding less time to cook and prepare healthy meals for themselves, or simply want to enjoy the convenience of home delivery.

About Fresh Dining

Fresh Dining is based in California, and delivers to zip codes in Los Angeles and San Diego. The diets themselves are designed by LA's chefs and dietitians to create an exclusive menu designed to help people lose weight and achieve their healthy lifestyle goals. Food is prepared from fresh ingredients from the local area, and the menu changes each week. Participants can choose to upgrade their program for $10 per day to only include organic ingredients. The Fresh Start diet is a calorie-controlled program that has developed a menu based on three meals plus a snack, and dessert. Examples of menu items include:

• Florentine Spniach Frittata (breakfast)

• Smoked Turkey with French Brie (lunch)

• Lemongrass and Ginger Chicken (dinner)

• California Sushi Roll with Wasabe Mayo (snack)

• Double Fudge Brownie (dessert)

About Diet to Go

Diet to Go is based in Virginia with a variety of pickup locations in Pennsylvania and California; orders are placed online or by phone for pickup at fitness centers in specific cities, offering fresh and healthy food to customers in the local area, but also delivers nationwide. The menus are designed with four-week programs that follow the dietary guidelines of the American Heart Association, American Cancer Society, American Diabetes Association, and American Dietetic Association. The DC/Baltimore area and San Francisco are the main markets, and pickup locations can be found on the website.

Example menu items include:

• Cranapple Muffin (breakfast)

• Ravioletti Pasta Salad (lunch)

• Chicken Fajita (dinner)

• Soft Pretzel w/ Mustard (snack/lunch)

Benefits of Fresh Dining and Diet to Go

You'll find a menu of benefits along with the weekly roundup of gourmet food with these companies. Not only do they promise fresh food, even organic in most cases, but they're also balanced to be nutritionally sound. This means: • No calorie counting and portion management needed; everything is pre-packaged in individual servings sizes, or comes with directions on how many servings are in a ‘family' style pan or delivery

• Flexibility for special menus. Customized meals are available for diabetics, people with food allergies, or vegetarians and vegans

• A rotating menu that includes appetizers, entrees, snacks and desserts so you'll never get bored; menus change every week

• Access to articles and other information on each company's website, giving you food facts and nutritional guidelines from experts

• Choice of 14 Day, 31 Day, or 90 Day programs at Fresh Dining, and 7-day meal plans with Diet to Go

• Competitive pricing: compared to eating out at local restaurants, average costs for standard packages range from $45-$60 per day in California; the average cost of a day of gourmet restaurant meals can range from $50-$100 per person. Diet to Go plans range from $106.99-$130.99 for seven days of 2-3 daily meals, depending on package.