The garlic-herb salmon with risotto was probably the best of the family meals I tried. The sliced asparagus was less visible when doused in garlic butter, but still tasty and slightly crisp. The salmon was soft and delicate. And the sweet pea risotto had no choice but to be delicious. There was a lot of cheese, butter, and the lemonade was a feast of fat and acid.
The chicken porridge was also a mountain of cheese and salt. It reminded me, happily, of the many family meals I had as a child in the 1980s: chicken coated in cheese, garlic bread, crusts filled with ricotta and topped with more cheese. The big difference is that there is no way my mother would cook this without vegetables.
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Toval program through Matthew Korfhage
And nutrition is where Toval gets a little stuck. The nutrition information on this chicken avocado dish betrays 2,300 milligrams of sodium per serving, which is the equivalent of an adult’s daily allowance. This is also similar to Stouffer’s beef lasagna portions. Tovala’s diet also contained nearly 10 times as much cholesterol as Stouffer’s.
Many other diets followed suit, loading up on fat and salt to make meals palatable. The net effect is that it’s more like fine dining than most people prepare at home. Whether this is a good or bad quality is up to you.
Only one of the seven dishes I tried failed miserably: I reported a teriyaki chicken dinner to my editor as a possible cultural crime against Japan. The meal was sweet soy drenching chicken colored and steamed, with an implausible side of thick egg rolls and some loose, unsced broccoli. It looked like “Japanese” food that you would find in a mall in the 1990s. But again, this was a rare major mistake.
The most dangerous issue, in meals designed for the whole family, is the relative content of high fat, cholesterol and sodium. Many with the income and inclination to eat hearty, low-effort meals like those from Tovala are probably parents with children, or people in the retirement bracket. Everyone has their own reason for wanting more nutrition, less fat and salt.
By the end of several weeks of recipe testing, I’ll admit I felt a little relieved. I was grateful to feel my veins slowly opening again. Tovala’s style of cooking makes a lot of sense to me, as a good way to split the difference between prepared meals and raw food. And the company has proven that it can cook well. It would be nice if they also cooked a diet that felt sustainable.
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