EatingWell

Author: Kaitlyn Short

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The Good

• Healthy recipe selection
• Difficulty levels
• Search
• Recipe saving
• Meal prep

EatingWell has a huge selection of healthy recipes. Each one is complete with both nutrition facts and a nutrition profile that lists the health benefits of each dish. The Advanced Recipe Search function also allows users to search for recipes based on 12 different health and diet considerations. Users can also utilize this function to browse recipes based on difficulty level: easy, moderate, or challenging. This is one of the few recipe sites we reviewed that allow users to do this. In addition, users can narrow down search results by main ingredient, type of dish, meal/course, season/occasion, type of cuisine, and preparation/technique. The EatingWell membership lets members save their favorite recipes to their profiles, plan their weekly meals, and create shopping lists. Members can choose to create daily or weekly menus and print convenient shopping lists based on their selections. They can also use the tool to calculate calorie intake, track weight, write daily journal entries, and follow progress toward reaching personal health goals.

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The Bad

• Website ads
• Help page
• Account deletion

The EatingWell site is very busy and each page has multiple ads in the header and both sidebars, which may be distracting while browsing. However, most of the ads are relevant to the site and contain food-related products and services. The interior pages tend to feature very small, few recipe images with most of the page being text in a small font - this can make it difficult to find desired recipes or search results. While users are able to search for recipes based on ease of preparation, the difficulty level is not featured on each recipe. Even if users find a recipe through a difficulty search, there is nothing to indicate the difficulty level on the actual recipe page. This may lead to some confusion if a user clicks into multiple tabs of recipes or has searched varying levels of difficulty. EatingWell does not have a Help page for users needing assistance with the recipe, search or personal health functions. It does, however, have a Contact Us page, which gives users customer service contact information for the following topics: subscriptions, books and products, independent retailers, editorial and magazine feedback, contributors, media requests, permissions and reprints, and advertising. Another concern is that EatingWell doesn't offer a way to delete or deactivate member accounts. Unsubscribing from updates and notifications is the only option for members who change their minds about using the site - but EatingWell will still have the account information.

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The Bottom Line

EatingWell is a helpful resource for those who need tools for losing weight and improving health through diet. EatingWell has options to track and journal both calories and weight, calculate Body Mass Index, create shopping lists, and create menus to help users stay on track toward reaching their goals. It also features plenty of recipe options for people who have specific health concerns or must maintain a restricted diet.