Are Factor meals healthy? We read all 477 labels

The label below is the average of 438 dinners. The bars beside each row show the spread: the middle half of dinners as the darker band and the full range as the thin line, with the lowest and highest dinner printed at the ends. The middle half of dinners sits between 470 and 600 calories and between 30 and 39 g of protein. Sodium runs from 360 to 1,400 mg and saturated fat from 1.5 to 27 g, which is where choosing matters.

The daily values are the FDA's for a 2,000 calorie diet. The protein need is 0.8 g per kilogram of body weight for a 150 lb adult, about 54 g.

Each point is one dinner. The correlation between protein and saturated fat is 0.06 and between protein and sodium it is -0.14, both close to zero on a scale where 1 means the two rise together and 0 means no relationship. In these captured dinners, protein says little about sodium or saturated fat, so check those figures separately. The dashed lines mark 30 g of protein and the page's limit for the nutrient on the vertical axis, and the tinted corner holds the dinners that meet both. Switch the vertical axis to see sodium or fiber, and color the points by one of Factor's tags to see what the tag does and does not cover.

Across all captured dinners, using each dish's latest label: among the High Protein dinners the lowest protein is 30 g, among the Sodium Smart dinners the highest sodium is 700 mg and among the Calorie Smart dinners the highest calorie count is 550. Those are the values we observed on the dinners carrying each tag, not Factor's own definitions. Each tag describes one number and says nothing about the rest: 119 of the 299 High Protein dinners carry 10 g or more of saturated fat, and 49 of the 260 Calorie Smart dinners carry 1,000 mg or more of sodium. Use the tags for what they measure and the numbers below for the rest.

• High Protein: 299 dinners. 119 have 10 g or more saturated fat. 73 have 1,000 mg or more sodium. Among the dinners carrying it, the lowest protein is 30 g.

  Saturated fat 10 g+

  Sodium 1,000 mg+

• Sodium Smart: 84 dinners. 15 have 10 g or more saturated fat. 0 have 1,000 mg or more sodium. Among the dinners carrying it, the highest sodium is 700 mg.

  Saturated fat 10 g+

  Sodium 1,000 mg+

• Calorie Smart: 260 dinners. 67 have 10 g or more saturated fat. 49 have 1,000 mg or more sodium. Among the dinners carrying it, the highest calorie count is 550.

  Saturated fat 10 g+

  Sodium 1,000 mg+

• Keto: 43 dinners. 43 have 10 g or more saturated fat. 12 have 1,000 mg or more sodium. Among the dinners carrying it, the highest net carbs, counted as carbohydrate minus fiber, is 15 g.

  Saturated fat 10 g+

  Sodium 1,000 mg+

Each bar is the share of the tag's dinners at or above the line; the full width is every dinner that carries the tag. Heart Smart and Top Rated are not audited here, because neither names a single number to check; their dinners are still counted in every figure above.

27percent119 of 438 dinners at 1,000 mg or more

Sodium is not one of the two numbers on Factor's card; it is on the full label one click in, and it runs from 360 mg to 1,400 mg across every dinner captured. A 1,000 mg dinner is 43 percent of the day's 2,300 mg before breakfast and lunch. The menu also has plenty of room at the low end: 15 of this week's 84 dinners are at 700 mg or less.

46percent201 of 438 dinners at 10 g or more

The dinners over the line are mostly the ones with a cream sauce or cheese: 98 percent of them name dairy among their components, against 62 percent of the dinners under it. 46 of this week's 84 dinners are at 10 g or less.

• Lean and strong

  30 g or more protein and 10 g or less saturated fat.

  36of this week's 84 dinners

  Pick my box with these limits

  Opens the picker with 30 g protein or more and 10 g saturated fat or less already set.

• Low salt, high protein

  700 mg or less sodium and 30 g or more protein.

  13of this week's 84 dinners

  Pick my box with these limits

  Opens the picker with 700 mg sodium or less and 30 g protein or more already set.

• Light

  600 calories or fewer and 10 g or less saturated fat.

  42of this week's 84 dinners

  Pick my box with these limits

  Opens the picker with 600 calories or fewer and 10 g saturated fat or less already set.

Olive pomace oil, salt, garlic and onion are the base of almost the entire menu. Pomace oil is the refined grade of olive oil, made from the paste left after the first pressing, and Factor uses a blend of it with extra virgin oil. Below the base come the flavors that divide people, and the proteins. Where the picker has a rule for an item, the item also says how many of this week's dinners pass that rule, because a dislike is easier to act on as a rule than as a warning.

Shares are over the 438 dinners with a published ingredient list, across all captured dinners, and count the components Factor names on the consumer label, so an ingredient inside a component may not be counted. The weekly counts run the picker's own rule for that item over every dinner on this week's menu, so a meal counted there is one the picker keeps.

From the full statements Factor's business store published for 368 of the 384 dishes, read on Sep 26, 2026; matched by whole words.

The label on the consumer menu names the components ("grated Parmesan cheese", "chicken stock concentrate"). Factor's business store prints what is inside each one. Across the 368 statements, natamycin appears in 168, calcium propionate in 84, a phosphate in 115, xanthan gum in 285, guar gum in 179 and palm oil in 84. An artificial flavor is declared in 12, in the white truffle oil of the truffle dishes. No statement names sucralose, stevia or erythritol. These are legal, common food ingredients; they are listed here because the consumer label does not show them, and some people choose around them.

Terms were matched on whole words in the statement, so "to preserve color" does not count as a color. Statements were matched to our dishes by dish name, and the business store's recipe version was not checked against the consumer one.

• The data comes from Factor's public menu and recipe pages, the same pages any visitor sees without signing in. We check them every six hours and capture each page at least once a day. The first capture was in September 2026 and the latest menu sighting was on Oct 17, 2026: 701 versions of 477 dishes across 10 weekly menus.
• A dish is the meal you would recognize from week to week, and a version is one recipe of that dish with its own label. Each dish is described by its most recent stored version. When Factor changes a recipe, the newer label replaces the older one, so figures from different dishes may have been observed on different days.
• For each dish we keep the twelve figures Factor prints per serving (calories, protein, carbohydrate, fat, saturated fat, fiber, sugars, sodium, cholesterol, potassium, calcium and iron), the serving size, the ingredient list as the recipe page prints it, the allergens Factor lists, Factor's tags, Factor's favorites count and the weeks the dish was on the menu.
• We have no per-ingredient amounts, because Factor does not publish them. We also do not keep prices, because Factor prices by plan rather than by meal, and we do not keep Factor's photos, its menu descriptions or member ratings.
• The tags were checked against the labels: for each tag we report the lowest or highest value among the dinners that carry it, such as the lowest protein figure among High Protein dinners. That is what we observed, not Factor's definition of the tag.
• Ingredients were matched on Factor's own ingredient names and families, on whole words, so olive oil does not count as olives and coconut milk does not count as dairy.
• This week's counts cover every dinner on the Oct 27 menu, sold-out ones included; a dinner with no published figure for a limit is not counted as meeting it.
• The full ingredient statements come from Factor's business store, which prints the contents of each component. They were available for 368 of 384 dishes, dinners and add-ons, on Sep 26, 2026, and only counts are kept here.
• The daily values are the FDA's for a 2,000 calorie diet: 2,300 mg of sodium, 20 g of saturated fat and 28 g of fiber.
• Gramwise is independent of Factor, is not affiliated with it, and earns nothing from these figures.

What the terms mean

Dinner and add-on

A dinner is one of Factor's main meals, the ones its weekly menu is built from. Add-ons are everything sold beside them, such as breakfasts, salads and protein shakes. Add-ons are counted in the dish total and left out of every dinner figure.

Favorites

Factor's own favorites counts, added up across the recipe versions of a dish, using the latest count for each version. It is not a count of people.

Weeks offered

The weekly menus a dish was listed on, counted from our first capture.

Researchers and journalists can request the underlying data through our contact page.