The low-FODMAP diet is used to control the symptoms of IBS and SIBO, but as a diet, it’s also quite restrictive. Signing up for a low-FODMAP meal delivery service is one way of making mealtime less stressful. With a handful of low-FODMAP options on the market, we’ve taken a look at Modify Health Vs. Epicured to see how they compare.Â
We compared the two low-FODMAP meal delivery services in terms of the quality of their low-FODMAP & gluten-free meals, what other dietary considerations they cater to, variety, taste, pricing, and more.
Modify Health
Pros
- Offers Both Mediterranean & Low Fodmap
- Meals Are Prepared in a Gluten-Free Facility
- Uses Organic Ingredients
- Committed To Sustainability
- Free Shipping
- Lower prices
Cons
- Less Variety
Epicured
Pros
- Good Variety of Menu Options
- Breakfast & Snack Options Are Available
- Uses Organic Ingredients
- Transparent Food Sourcing Policies
- Great Familiar Flavors & Dishes
Cons
- Shared Facility But They Do Take Extreme Measures to Avoid Cross Contamination
- Charges for Shipping
Menu Options
Modify Health
- 32 Low Fodmap/33 Mediterranean
- 6 meals
Epicured
- 43
- No minimum
When searching for a meal service, especially one that caters to a gluten-free diet or other dietary restrictions, some awesome variety is a good thing. If you’re ordering from meal delivery services once in a while or for just a couple of meals per week, then a menu featuring a wide variety of weekly meals might not be a priority. For the rest of us, it usually matters a lot.
ModifyHealth offers about 28-30 meals per week with each of its two meal plans, but there is some overlap between the two menus. You get to choose your own meals from the meal plan selected, and there are also a handful of breakfast options available.Â
Epicured offers customers the ability to choose their weekly meals from a menu of nearly fifty options. Nutritious meals are offered in categories that include mains, bowls & salads, soups, sides, breakfast, snacks, and beverages. The menu is a mixture of meals for omnivores, pescatarians, vegans, and vegetarians, so there’s something here to suit most dietary lifestyles.
Menu Winner
Epicured offers a wider meal variety each week, and we like that you can order just sides or snacks along with meals. Breakfast options are always a bonus, and we like that they offer beverages as well. Epicured is a meal delivery service that’s really a one-stop shop.
Dietary Options
Modify Health
Epicured
Both ModifyHealth and Epicured offer low-FODMAP meal plans, which instantly sets them apart from most other meal delivery services. The low-FODMAP diet is an elimination diet that focuses on eliminating known triggers of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO). The goal is to eliminate all possible triggers from your diet and then gradually reintroduce them to determine which are problem foods for you. Â
But it’s also important to understand that the low-FODMAP diet isn’t a fix-all for other chronic health conditions, including celiac disease and gluten sensitivity. By nature, the low–FODMAP diet zeroes in on certain types of fermentable carbohydrates that cause digestive distress. It’s a low-gluten diet, but not-necessarily gluten-free.
For people with gluten sensitivities or celiac disease, you really have to look beyond the low-FODMAP label and see how each meal delivery service handles meals for gluten-free diets. The same is true for people that need to follow a dairy-free diet. The low-FODMAP diet is quite restrictive when it comes to lactose, but it isn’t a completely dairy-free diet.
In addition to low-FODMAP options, both Epicured and ModifyHealth offer gluten-free meal plans.
Epicured offers two different meal plans, One for low-FODMAP meals and another that is strictly gluten-free, but they also state that every meal is low-FODMAP and gluten-free, so the entire menu of nutritionally balanced meals is suitable for people with IBS, SIBO, IBD, and both Celiac and Non-Celiac gluten sensitivity.
Epicured’s meals are prepared in a shared facility, but they take extreme care to ensure that all equipment used in the meal preparation and packaging is thoroughly sanitized before and after each use.
They also only work with ingredient purveyors that also adhere to strict standards when it comes to gluten-free ingredients. It’s safe to say that people with Celiac disease and gluten sensitivity can order meals from Epicured without fear of cross-contamination. Dairy-free meals and low-sodium options are also available by using the provided meal filters.
ModifyHealth’s meals are also all gluten-free, whether you choose their low-FODMAP or Mediterranean Diet plan. The entire facility is gluten-free, which eliminates the risk of gluten cross-contamination.
How ModifyHealth differs from Epicured is that they offer a plan with Mediterranean meals in addition to low-FODMAP and gluten-free selections. The thing to remember here is that while Mediterranean meals are gluten-free, they aren’t low-FODMAP friendly, as some of the ingredients are considered to be high-FODMAP foods. The Mediterranean plan won’t do much to help with IBS symptoms, but if it’s more than just low-FODMAP gluten-free meals you’re after, this portion of the menu is wonderful.
Dietary Options Winner
We love that both meal delivery companies offer a menu that is full of completely gluten-free meals, and they both offer great low-FODMAP options. ModifyHealth wins this category by just a small margin for their offering of meals tailored specifically toward the Mediterranean Diet. This broadens the scope of other dietary preferences they cater to and sets them apart.
Ingredients
Modify Health
- Non-GMO
grass Organic- Grass Fed
- Wild-Caught
Epicured
- Â (Not 100%)
It doesn’t matter if you’re preparing your own meals, eating at a restaurant, or ordering from meal delivery services. You want the best ingredients that you have access to and can afford. When prepared meals arrive at your doorstep, it’s a little more challenging to immediately identify if the ingredients are top-notch.
Modify Health isn’t a certified organic company, but they do use organic ingredients as much as possible. Modify Health also creates prepared meals that are free of antibiotics and hormones. They don’t include processed foods in their meal plan, and there are no artificial ingredients.Â
All of this says a lot, but what about how these fabulous ingredients taste? Overall, in our experience and based on customer reviews, the quality of Modify Health’s ingredients can be tasted in each of their single-serving meals.
Similar to Modify Health, Epicured also uses organic ingredients when possible, and they stay away from all the stuff you don’t want in your low-FODMAP diet or gluten-free meal plan. One thing that we noticed about Epicured is that they’re very transparent about where their ingredients are sourced. You can go to the Epicured website and see exactly where the beef, chicken, turkey, seafood, and other ingredients are sourced.
Ingredients Winner
When ordering food online, you don’t always know about the quality of ingredients that will show up at your door. Epicured does a wonderful job of putting minds to ease. Between opting for organic foods when possible, sourcing ingredients locally, and transparency, they’re a company you can trust when it comes to ingredient quality.
Taste & Sample Meals
Modify Health
- Kale Pesto Pasta
- Breakfast Vegetable Scramble
- Balsamic Chicken with Quinoa, Artichokes & Tomatoes
Epicured
- Sea Bass w/ Roasted Fingerling Potatoes & Broccolini
- Hearty Colorado Lamb Ragu Pasta
- Provençal Roast Beef & Macaroni Salad
Both Modify Health and Epicured offer a good variety of tastes and styles of dishes. Taste is always important, but we’d say even more so for those following low-FODMAP diets. Because low-FODMAP is an elimination diet, it can be extra challenging to follow through the initial phase with limited food choices. If the food tastes good, it makes it that much easier.
When looking at Modify Health’s menu, you’ll quickly see that they’ve made a solid effort to include meals that are well-liked by a variety of different tastes and preferences.
On Modify Health’s low-FODMAP menu, there are dishes like Tumeric Chicken with Bok Choy & Green Beans, Steak with Chimichurri and Grilled Peppers, Salsa Verde Chicken, and Kale Pesto Pasta.
When you switch over to Modify Health’s Mediterranean menu, some of the flavors seem a bit brighter. Some good choices here are the Chili Lime Chicken with Vegetables & Potatoes, Greek Chicken with Rice, Lemon Thyme Chicken with Tahini Cauliflower and Za’atar Quinoa, Blackened Salmon with Quinoa, Broccoli & Red Peppers, and Layered Vegetable Enchiladas with Black Beans.
Overall, Modify Health meals taste good, and we like how the true essence of Mediterranean-style dishes comes through their menu.
Next, we took a look at Epicured meals. The overall menu is larger than Modify Health’s, and the flavors offered are a bit more aligned with traditional comfort foods, although elevated with more modern flavors and a culinary approach. For example, Vietnamese Rice Noodles are a wonderful comfort food dish, and you can order this with beef, shrimp, or veggies. The dressing with fresh mint, lime juice, cilantro, and basil is fresh and fantastic tasting.
Chicken Fricassee, Colorado Lamb Ragu Pasta, Fish Tacos with Red Cabbage Slaw, and Turkey Meatloaf are a few more options. If you want a bit more variety in the flavors offered, look toward the sides and soups for accompaniments to go along with your meals. The Maple Glazed Carrots are a favorite, and if you like masala, the spice blend is perfect for making your own Brown Rice & Tikka Chicken at home.
Taste Winner
This was a really tough portion of this battle. Both Epicured and Modify Health offer great-tasting nutritious meals to support healthy eating, and they’re both great for following a gluten-free diet. However, Epicured’s larger variety, more familiar flavors, and the few customization options they offer make them come out on top.
Pricing
Modify Health
MEALS | PRICE PER SERVING |
Entrees | $12.95 |
Breakfast | $9.95 |
Epicured
MEALS | PRICE PER MEAL |
Entrées | $16.99 - $22.99 |
Breakfast | $8.99 - $12.99 |
Lunch | $13.49 - $16.99 |
Bowls & Salads | $14.25 - $19.99 |
Soup | $8.70 - $21.20 |
Sides | $5.25 - $12.49 |
Snacks & Desserts | $7.25 - $19.99 |
A major factor when looking at meal delivery services is cost. Low-FODMAP and gluten-free meals can sometimes cost more based on the specificity of ingredients and extra cleansing and sanitation that may be involved if the meals aren’t prepared in a dedicated gluten-free facility.
Modify Health’s low-FODMAP gluten-free meals start at $12.95 per serving. Breakfast selections cost a little less at $9.95 per serving. There’s also the nice perk of free expedited shipping, which is something that many other meal delivery services don’t offer.
In addition to the traditional Low-FODMAP meal plan, you can also choose a 6-week QuickStart Program. This includes nutritional counseling, tools & resources, plus virtual cooking instructions. You also get a decent discount on your ModifyHealth meals. This program is offered at $399 with a 100% money-back guarantee.
Modify Health’s Mediterranean meal plan and QuickStart Program cost the same as having low-FODMAP meals delivered. However, there aren’t breakfast options with the Mediterranean plan.Â
Epicured’s pricing structure is a bit different than what you might be used to from a meal delivery service. Instead of a flat rate cost per serving for all their meals, each meal is individually priced. For example, Fish Tacos cost more than $16 per serving, while Chickpea Curry costs about $13 per meal. Meals generally cost in the range of $13-$18 per serving, but there are some outliers on either side of that range.
Epicured does charge for shipping costs, but instead of a flat rate charge for everyone, shipping costs are determined by your location.
Pricing Winner
ModifyHealth is a reasonably priced low-FODMAP and gluten-free meal delivery service, with their meals being consistently priced. In our opinion, this is a better arrangement than Epicured’s fluctuating prices. With ModifyHealth, it’s easier to predict and budget how much you’ll spend on meal delivery when meal planning, and they also offer free shipping, which is a huge bonus.
Packaging & Recycling
Modify Health
Epicured
Packaging is important with any meal delivery service. You need to be confident that the food arrives to you without being compromised during shipping. The issue is that there’s often so much packaging involved that it becomes a bit of a hassle when you’re getting shipments every week.
Both Epicured and ModifyHealth offered prepared meals, so there’s generally less packaging than meal kits, where every single ingredient is packaged separately. However, with things like single-serving soups and single-serving breakfasts that are packaged for people on the go, it’s important that the packaging is safe and recyclable.
Epicured is a company that packages its single-serve meals in a box that’s lined with insulation made of a combination of mixed plastics, along with ice packs to keep everything cold. The meals are packaged in polypropylene plastic that’s freezer-safe, microwave safe, and recyclable.
Modify Health’s meals are packaged in BPA-free plastic trays and are then vacuum-sealed for freshness. All of its packaging materials are recyclable, and the company is committed to sustainability and looking for ways to improve the sustainability of its packaging.
Packaging Winner
Overall, ModifyHealth seems to use less packaging, although the margin between the two companies isn’t huge. ModifyHealth really stands out in this category for its commitment to sustainability and continually looking for ways to lessen its footprint.
Customer Service
Modify Health
- Up to 10 Weeks
- Difficult
play_circle Skip a Weekpause_circle Pausestop_circle Cancel
Epicured
- Up to 4 weeks
ModifyHealth and Epicured are pretty similar in terms of customer service. Both meal delivery services allow you to skip or cancel your subscription, and they have responsive customer service departments.
Customer service can be reached at any time at ModifyHealth by calling 1-888-7MODIFY. Their customer service team is only available Monday thru Friday, from 9 am until 5 pm EST. However, if you leave a message regarding changes to your order, they will be honored as long as they are received by 11:59 pm EST on Sunday.
Likewise, Epicured’s customer service team is available from 10 am until 5 pm EST, Monday thru Friday. However, they offer three ways to contact them. You can reach out to Epicured by phone at 917-260-8506. You can also email them or take advantage of the chat option on their website.
Customer Service Winner
This category was almost a tie. Both meal delivery services have customer service teams that are only available during the week, but both also have a reputation for good customer service. The reason we chose Epicured here is that its chat option is accessible and responsive.
Winner
ModifyHealth
Both meal delivery services are top-notch, but when looking at the finer details of Epicured Vs. ModifyHealth, it’s Modify Health that inches out to the top. ModifyHealth offers delicious low-FODMAP meals, which is important because the medical community has consistently seen patients reporting significant improvement when they’re able to stick to low-FODMAP foods.
Modify Health is one of the best gluten-free meal delivery services for prepared meals, and this spans everything from their commitment to quality to taste and customer service.
Still, both are great services, and only you know which will best fit your lifestyle and tastes.
Choose ModifyHealth if you:
- Want a gluten-free meal delivery service that offers both low-FODMAP and Mediterranean meals
- Appreciate consistent and reasonable pricing
- Like the idea of free shipping
- Appreciate really good-tasting food that doesn’t taste like you’re following a special diet
- Prefer to work with meal delivery services that are committed to sustainability
Choose Epicured if you:
- Want a variety of meals that include soups, sides, drinks, and desserts
- Prefer transparency when it comes to ingredient sourcing
- Have a flexible budget and don’t mind paying a bit more for some meals