Planning and cooking meals can be a pain, especially if you’ve been doing it every single day of your life for the past 50 years. There’s a lot of reasons why an older adult may not want to cook every night besides just being sick of it. Perhaps they are unable to cook like they used to or they don’t want to have a sit-down dinner after the loss of a spouse. This often leads to eating microwave dinners in front of the TV, which, while quick and easy, is not very nutritious. We recently discovered Tovala, which can be an excellent way for older adults to make quick, easy, nutritious meals by just popping a pre-made meal into the Tovala smart toaster oven.
What is Tovala?
Tovala is a smart oven along with a meal delivery service that takes all the effort out of making delicious, healthy meals.
How it works
- Choose your meals from a new menu each week and receive weekly deliveries.
- Under a minute of prep time. Unlike meal kit services like Hello Fresh or Blue Apron, there is no washing, chopping, or frying to be done.
- Scan the recipe card and the Tovala Oven does the rest! The Tovala oven is programmed to use heat and steam to cook your meal to perfection.
- Relax while your meal cooks in 20 minutes or less.
Healthy, Nutritious Meals
Tovala uses fresh, raw, real ingredients and the meals are crafted by professional chefs. Each week they offer a new menu, and you can filter the choices by Calorie Smart, Carb Conscious, Gluten Free, and Vegetarian.
Some examples of meals they are offering this week include:
Herbed Pork Chop in Mustard Cream Sauce With Mashed Potatoes and Crispy Onions
BBQ Chicken Breast with Mac & Cheese. This one is available to customize by switching out the mac & cheese for broccoli
Honey Chipotle Shrimp Tacos With Avocado Lime Slaw and Corn Nut Crumble
Cheesy Stuffed Shells in Marinara
Check out Tovala’s full menu for this week here!
The Tovala Smart Oven Goes Beyond Tovala Meals
The Tovala Smart Oven not only cooks Tovala meals, but it can also scan and cook over 850 groceries. Just scan the barcode and the Tovala Oven will cook it to perfection. For example, if you love Totino’s Pizza Rolls as much as I do, you can simply scan the barcode, pop the pizza rolls in, and click “Start.” It’s that easy!
Why Customers Love Tovala
While Tovala mostly markets to busy, career-focused singles on the go, it’s actually perfect for older adults living alone that want to eat delicious, healthy meals without any of the work.
One of Tovala’s customers states, “The product is truly revolutionary and makes cooking at home so easy. The meals taste homemade while only taking seconds to prep. It’s the ultimate cooking shortcut without any guilt!” (Tovala)
Pricing
Tovala meals start at $11.99 each and the price of the Tovala Smart Oven is $299. However, if you order 6 weeks of meals within the first 6 months, you can get a $200 discount on the oven bringing the price down to just $99!
You can choose how many meals per week you’d like delivered ranging from 4 meals to 16 meals per week. Keep in mind that most of these meals serve one person, making it a great solution for older adults living independently.
Whether it’s too much effort to shop for ingredients, prep, and cook a meal or the food at the assisted living facility sucks, getting a healthy, well-balanced meal can be difficult for older adults. Tovala is a great solution! With a variety of different meals, fresh ingredients, and their smart oven, Tovala makes meal time quick, easy, hassle-free and delicious! If you’d like to learn more about Tovla, check them out here!
CarePenguin brings peace of mind to families with elderly loved ones living alone by detecting activity in a house through water use. Family members can see this activity on the CarePenguin app and receive alerts if we detect a lack of activity, encouraging them to check in. No motion sensors, cameras, or wearables. If you’d like to try CarePenguin, sign up here!