Subscription food delivery services are booming, but are they worth the price?

In an era when more and more families don’t eat home-cooked meals, a number of healthy delivery services have popped to fill the gap and offer people the opportunity to sit down to a nice meal together.

Read more: 8 so-called ‘health’ foods that you shouldn’t eat

Here are some popular meal kit services

There are dozens of startups getting big Silicon Valley money that do various levels of food prep with what amount to basically nutritious meals delivered to you. Some come as ingredients that are pre-measured and pre-prepped complete with cooking instructions and others offer full-fledged meals ready to eat (MREs) of the healthiest sort.

Here’s a quick rundown of what’s in the marketplace:

• Gobble – Prepares farm fresh 10-minute gourmet dinner kits with 3-step instructions delivered to your door
• Blue Apron – Provide you with all the ingredients that you need to make a delicious meal in exactly the right proportions.
• HelloFresh – Delivers great recipes and fresh ingredients to your doorstep each week. Cook quick and healthy meals designed by nutritionists and chefs.
• Plated – Delivers everything you need to create chef-designed recipes in thirty minutes or less.
• Platejoy – Ultra-personalized, fast recipes and shopping lists to prepare delicious meals tailored to your lifestyle.
• Home Chef – Weekly meal delivery service – chef prepared recipes, fresh ingredients and step-by-step instructions delivered straight to your door.

These services tend to cost $10 or so per person. So they’re not cheap, but they are often healthy. Many times people find you can get two meals out of one, so that cuts the price to $5 per person.

I plan to give this a try in my home and report back to you about what I find!

Read more: 5 cheap options for organic food