In theory, combining Weight Watchers (cost, coupons) with a meal kit delivery company like Hello Fresh ($100+ coupon!) sounds like a great way to bring convenient healthy home-cooked meals to your weekly menu. Plus, fresh food is a lot healthier than the prepared food in diets like Nutrisystem.

Or, maybe not?

Weight Watchers had previously announced that every week Hello Fresh would have at least 6 WW-friendly “Calorie Smart” meals on their menu. However, that no longer seems to be the case.

By viewing the current calorie Smart meals I can see that not only are WW points not listed, but most of these are NOT WW-friendly due to high levels of sodium and carbs.

Don’t believe me? Here’s a typical meal, Sweet Thai Roasted Broccoli Bowls (view recipe), from the Hello Fresh calorie-smart menu:

Wow, that’s a lot of sodium and carbs!

Now, let’s calculate how many points per serving are in that seemingly healthy Hello Fresh meal.

Hello Fresh WW (Weight Watchers) Points:

How can you calculate the WW points of Hello Fresh? There are 2 ways to find the number of SmartPoints in Hello Fresh meals:

1. On HelloFresh.com: View the nutrition values on the recipe and enter calories, carbs, sodium, protein, and sugar manually on the WW app
2. Hello Fresh Box: (offline) Use the WW app to take a picture of the “nutritional info” that comes with every Hello Fresh box and the app will enter the values automatically

OK, I just used the WW app to calculate Points, and here’s how many are in that healthy-looking meal:

I calculated the SmartPoints in a number of other “diet-friendly” dishes on HelloFresh.com using the WW app, and most were point bombs!

Hello Fresh? More Like Hello WW Points!

I’m currently on WW and was looking seriously at signing up for Hello Fresh for the weekly convenience of easy-to-prepare healthy meals. Instead, what I found was that Hello Fresh meals are typically high in WW PersonalPoints, and don’t fit into my daily points budget.

So, instead of joining Hello Fresh, I’ve signed up for the vegetarian meal kit service, Purple Carrot (coupons). After several deliveries, I’m very happy to tell you that we love the food and many WW zero-point ingredients.

Even though I’m not fully vegetarian, I’ve enjoyed adding proteins like grilled salmon to their meals to make the whole family happy.

So, in conclusion, if you are subscribing to both Weight Watchers and Hello Fresh, (or a similar diet like Noom) then you’ll want to consider sorting recipes by criteria like “low carb,” “vegetarian,” or “under 650 calories” to find suitable menu options.

Thanks for visiting Wonky Pie!

*Related: HelloFresh Military Discount?