If you don’t want to or can’t cook anymore, you can often have your warm meal delivered to your home. Older people in particular regularly order Meals on Wheels. But that is anything but healthy, as the samples examined now show.
Meals on wheels put to the test
The quality standards for the meals from Meals on Wheels are high: After all, the eaters should receive all the important nutrients – with good taste and delivered warm. But how much “good” is actually in the delivered meals?
The NDR magazine “Markt” took samples of the five most expensive dishes from well-known suppliers and had them examined in the laboratory. Measured against the quality standards for meals on wheels designed by the German Society for Nutrition (DGE), all samples were conspicuous, according to the report.
These Meals-on-Wheels meals were studied:
- Cod fillet with potatoes and vegetables from the Johanniter for 8.39 euros
- Roast leg of lamb with beans and rosemary potatoes from the country kitchen for 8.99 euros
- Matjes in sour cream with bacon beans and potatoes from Hamburg kitchen for 8.90 euros
- Green cabbage platter with sausage, smoked pork, fried potatoes, and onions from Hanse Menüdienst for 9.40 euros
- Rostbratwurst with red cabbage and mashed potatoes from Meyer Menu for 6.90 euros
Too much salt
The results of the samples show that the salt content of four of the five samples tested was too high: the front runner with 8.7 grams of salt was the matjes with bacon beans and potatoes – although it must also be said here that this result is not surprising given a salty fish. Nevertheless, only six grams of salt per day are usually recommended – and not per meal.
Too few vitamins
According to the laboratory report, vitamin C was no longer detectable in any of the samples examined. If you order meals on wheels, you should realize that the meals are kept warm for a long time – sometimes even for many hours – and that many vitamins are reduced or even completely dissolved, as the nutritionist Matthias Riedl explains in an interview with “Markt”.
Low in minerals
Calcium and magnesium are important for healthy bones, among other things, but the levels in two of the samples tested were too low. The calcium content of the cod dish (87 milligrams) was around a third lower than the DGE quality standards for meals on wheels recommend (333 milligrams).
These standards also provide for a magnesium content of 117 milligrams for a menu. According to laboratory analysis, however, the grilled sausage with mashed potatoes only contained 56 milligrams of magnesium.
