Seattle Sutton’s vs. BistroMD 2023: Weight Loss Winner?

When you’re choosing the best weight-loss meal delivery service, it’s easy to get confused, frustrated, and tie yourself in knots. But it doesn’t have to be that way. In this Seattle Sutton’s vs. BistroMD comparison, I’ll give you all the details of each service, and show you why you might consider one over the other.

My colleagues and I have taken a very close look at both of these meal delivery services. I’ve found that Seattle Sutton’s and BistroMD are similar in some ways, yet very different in others. Both offer prepared weight-loss meals, but there’s more to it than that. Read on to find out everything there is to know.

Overall, Seattle Sutton’s is the best option in my opinion thanks to its lower prices than BistroMD, fresh (never frozen) meals, and availability in all 50 states.

At a Glance: Who Won Each Category?

Menu Variety

Winner: BistroMD

Hands down, BistroMD wins this category, since it offers 150 frozen options each week. While Seattle Sutton’s meals are fresh and never frozen, it only has around 12 weekly options.

Although BistroMD wins because of its abundance of options, I still like Seattle Sutton’s easy-to-navigate menu, with just a handful of choices. Weight-loss meal plans shouldn’t be complicated, and too many choices can be overwhelming.

BistroMD offers seven different “programs”, which include Men’s, Women’s, Signature, Heart Healthy, Keto Flex, Gluten Free, Diabetic Friendly, and Menopause. That’s a lot of options, and aims to ensure that you lose weight in a way that is targeted to your particular health concerns.

You can choose from four specific order combinations (within the “program” you pick), which are the Full Program for five or seven days, or the Lunches & Dinners for five or seven days. 

BistroMD’s Full Program for seven days covers seven breakfasts and lunches, six dinners, and a night “off” for you to eat whatever you fancy, known as “My Night”. The Full Program for five days includes five breakfasts, lunches, and dinners.

Lunches & Dinners for seven days includes seven lunches and dinners, and for five days you’ll get five lunches and dinners. You can change what you order on a weekly basis as you’re not locked in to one specific program or combination of meals. However, keep in mind that you’ll be signed up for auto-delivery, which you can cancel at any time.

Aside from its very large breakfast, lunch, and dinner menus, you'll also get access to a variety of snacks (unlike Seattle Sutton’s). These include shakes, nuts, desserts, energy bars, chips, and more. 

You’ll find a good range of international cuisines with BistroMD, including Italian, French, Latin American, Mediterranean, Greek, Creole/Cajun, and classic American. Most of the dishes are heavily Americanized, in order to cater to American palates. One example of a meal I really liked is the Creole/Cajun-influenced Chicken and Andouille Sausage Jambalaya pictured below.

Seattle Sutton’s, on the other hand, offers two dietary options along with three plans. You get access to either the 1200-calorie or 2000-calorie Traditional plans, which include meat, or the 1500-calorie Vegetarian plan which doesn’t. The Vegetarian plan still includes cheese, dairy, and fish. Simple is always best in my experience, and it gets this right.

All of Seattle Sutton’s meals are already prepared, so you just need to heat them in the microwave for about 2-3 minutes. You’ll find a plethora of cuisines on offer including East Indian, Moroccan, Latin American, Greek, Italian, Korean (like the Bulgogi Chicken Bowl pictured below), Thai, Polish, and a handful of classic American dishes.

The menu caters more to those who like international cuisines. If you’re looking for burgers, potatoes, and plain dishes, Seattle Sutton’s may not be the meal delivery service for you. I was impressed to see such a diverse range of meals, considering Seattle Sutton’s only offers a handful of weekly meal options.

Enjoy this Bulgogi Chicken Bowl which is a staple in Korean cuisine

You won’t find any add-ons, sides, snacks, or desserts at Seattle Sutton’s – it promises that you get everything you need in your order. This includes all the ingredients you need to make your dishes, so you won’t need to make any emergency runs to the grocery store. 

Meal Customization

Winner: BistroMD

BistroMD offers far more choices for different diets than Seattle Sutton’s. You can choose from a huge selection of diets including Men’s, Women’s, Heart Healthy, Gluten Free, Keto Flex, Diabetic Friendly, and Menopause. That’s a lot of options. 

If you don’t like some of the BistroMD meals, you can switch them for something else. You’ll be able to do this by signing in to your account dashboard. This makes it easy to get exactly what you like and avoid what you don’t.

BistroMD also offers a selection of plant-based meals as well as pescatarian options, and some meatless meals that contain dairy. To remove specific ingredients such as chicken, pork, or beef from your program, you’ll need to sign up for the Standard program, then contact customer support. Someone from the team will then be able to help you customize your menu.

The only real customization option that Seattle Sutton’s offers is choosing between the Traditional (standard omnivore) diet or a Vegetarian one. There are no other options – however, you can always change what you order from week to week. One week, you may choose the Traditional diet, and the next you may decide to go with the Vegetarian diet.

Ordering, Delivery, Unboxing

Winner: Seattle Sutton’s

Seattle Sutton’s wins this category because the site is extremely simple to navigate, doesn’t try to upsell, and you can complete your order in less than five minutes. This is in stark contrast to BistroMD, as its site can be difficult to navigate, cumbersome, and placing an order can be time-consuming.

If you need to change your order with Seattle Sutton’s, you must do so before the cutoff time. The deadlines are Friday at 10 am CST for full-week orders and weekday plans, and Tuesday at 10 am CST for weekend plans. You can cancel or change your order online, or by calling the customer service phone line.

You can’t choose your exact shipping day with Seattle Sutton’s. Shipments arrive via next-day ground shipping for customers near the midwest – and for shipments on the east or west coast, next-day air delivery is used instead. Therefore, the day on which you can expect your delivery to arrive will depend on where you live, and when you place your order. 

BistroMD allows you to make any changes to your order before Wednesday at 5 pm EST, one week before your scheduled delivery. You can do this online or by calling customer support.

Again, like Seattle Sutton’s, you can’t choose your delivery date. BistroMD states that your delivery can take up to six business days to arrive, based on the quoted ground delivery timeframe from its delivery partners. This is a lot longer than Seattle Sutton’s next-day delivery timeframe.

Seattle Sutton's packaging is eco-friendly, recyclable, and neatly labeled

BistroMD’s meals are all flash-frozen, and will arrive frozen. Seattle Sutton’s meals are fresh, and arrive chilled. Each company uses insulating boxes that allow the food inside to stay at the proper temperature for up to 48 hours. After that, it’s recommended that you get your food into the freezer or fridge, as applicable, right away.

In terms of the packaging and the overall unboxing, you’ll have a pretty similar experience with both services. Seattle Sutton’s packaging is all recyclable including the liners, delivery boxes, and containers. Any #4 plastics can also be recycled, depending on your location.

All of BistroMD’s packaging can be recycled including the boxes, meal sleeves, dry ice packs once evaporated, bags, and plastic trays. The insulating layers can also be recycled. This makes both companies’ packaging quite eco-friendly, which I really liked.

Each company offers extremely neatly labeled meals that are all separately packaged. You’ll easily be able to figure out what’s what. Each label will have nutritional info printed on it, along with best-before dates. 

In terms of storage, BistroMD’s meals will need to be kept in the freezer, then taken out the night before you want to eat them. Since you’re getting enough meals for five to seven days, you can leave the meals in the freezer until you need them.

Seattle Sutton’s meals are fresh, though you can freeze the meals in the containers provided if needed. However, anything containing fresh items such as an apple or green salad can’t be frozen. 

Meal Prep

Winner: Seattle Sutton’s

Though it’s extremely close, Seattle Sutton’s takes the win here for a very specific reason. That’s because its meals arrive fresh and not frozen. Other than that, both services offer heat-and-eat meals that you can heat up in your microwave (or oven for BistroMD’s meals). Prep times can be anywhere from 0 to 3 minutes, depending on the meal.

Some meals on offer from Seattle Sutton’s won’t require any heating, like the Maple Nut Blueberry Muffin. You can simply keep the meals in your fridge, or freeze them until you want to eat. This means that Seattle Sutton’s meals don’t last quite as long as BistroMD’s, but if you’re ordering weekly, this shouldn’t be a problem.

There are tons of snack options from BistroMD that don’t require heating either, like the Salted Caramel Pecan bars. All of its breakfast, lunch, and dinner items require heating though.

Overall, you won’t have to do any prep, cooking, or cleanup with either service. But again, though the meals from both services can be heated up quickly, you’ll first have to thaw your BistroMD meals, which can take a bit of time. It flash freezes its entrees immediately after cooking them.

The meals from both companies arrive in microwave-friendly containers and are ready to heat up. You don’t have to plate the dishes first, and the containers are also reusable and re-sealable.

Customer Support

Winner: Seattle Sutton’s

The win here has to go to Seattle Sutton’s because BistroMD doesn’t have a live chat feature. Seattle Sutton’s live chat option means it’s far easier to get in touch with the support team. You can ask the team any questions you like before you even look at the menu or place an order.

Even though the chat support was fast, the agent didn’t cover all my questions. I ended up having to start another chat session to ask some additional questions. Not a huge deal, but it added a bit of friction to an otherwise flawless support experience.

You can also contact Seattle Sutton’s via phone or email. You can contact the regular customer service or pre-sales support line, or you can request a free dietician consultation call. 

Phone lines are open Monday to Thursday from 8:00 am to 7:00 pm CST, Friday from 8:00 am to 6:00 pm, and Saturday from 8:00 am to 2:00 pm. Chat is available Monday to Friday from 9 am to 4 pm. If you want to schedule a call with a dietician, you can complete the online contact form or you can schedule a call directly on the site’s calendar. 

Since BistroMD doesn’t have live chat, I decided to give the email service a try. A BistroMD agent got back to me via email within 10 minutes, which was a nice surprise. The answer was thorough, courteous, and friendly. Usually, I don’t get a response from email support services for several hours, or even days.

You can also call BistroMD directly. Its phone line hours of operation are Monday to Friday from 8 am to 8 pm EST, and weekends from 9 am to 6 pm. There’s also a voicemail service for you to leave a message if someone can’t answer your call. I thought that was a nice touch, since someone will call you back as soon as they’re able.

Pricing

Winner: Seattle Sutton’s

BistroMD is at the pricier end of the range of weight-loss systems, which is why the overall win here has to go to Seattle Sutton’s. Pricing for Seattle Sutton’s meals starts at around Price: Missing Product seattle-suttons per serving.

For those who live close to its headquarters in the “Chicagoland” metropolitan area, shipping will be around $8 per order. The further away you live from Chicago, the higher your shipping price will be. It can be as high as $100+ if you live in Alaska or Hawaii, for example, but most orders have a very reasonable shipping fee of around $8 to $15. 

BistroMD’s meals, on the other hand, start at around $8.24 per serving. This is why we recommend taking advantage of our coupon code 40% OFF + free shipping on your first week to save some money. Shipping for all BistroMD’s orders is $19.95, no matter where you are. 

Features Comparison: Seattle Sutton’s vs. BistroMD

And The Winner Is: Seattle Sutton’s

Overall, Seattle Sutton’s doesn’t offer as many meal choices per week as BistroMD, but its pricing is significantly lower. It also offers better customer support, since it has a live chat feature. 

Seattle Sutton’s website is far easier to navigate, its meals are fresh and never frozen, and ordering your meals is as simple as it gets compared to other weight-loss meal plans.

If you want a larger menu along with extra snack options (and you don’t mind paying more), I still think BistroMD is a worthy contender. Ultimately, it’s your choice, and I really don’t think you can go wrong with either option.

FAQ

Is Seattle Sutton’s worth it for weight loss?

If you want to lose weight without the stress of meal planning and prep, Seattle Sutton’s can help you. All of your meals will be perfectly portioned and ready to heat and eat for a frictionless weight loss experience. You won’t have to weigh anything, portion anything, or keep track of any calories manually, which can be great if you’re busy, or if you’ve struggled to lose weight in the past.

How much weight do you lose on BistroMD?

There’s really no one-size-fits-all answer here as it depends on how much weight you, personally, need to lose. However, BistroMD’s meal plans are structured in a way that can help you lose as much weight as you need or want to. This could be 10 lbs, 50 lbs, or 100+ lbs. 

Is Seattle Sutton’s good for diabetics?

Yes – it’s all about increasing insulin sensitivity and reducing insulin resistance. If you struggle with Type 2 diabetes then Seattle Sutton’s can help you to lose weight, which has been proven to be the first (and most beneficial) course of action in the treatment and prevention of Type 2 diabetes.

There’s not one single specific food out there that helps (or hinders) your weight loss journey – it’s all about how many calories you’re consuming compared to how many you’re burning. Seattle Sutton’s meal plans can help you lose weight without having to think about it, and its pricing is quite reasonable compared to other weight-loss services.