A meal service sells pictures of dinner. What you are really buying is the next week of food arriving at a door you may not be standing at. Before you choose one, compare the parts that decide whether she eats well in her own chair.
Local option: New Plan Care gives families in the St. Louis area in-home help so a parent can stay home: companionship, help with bathing and dressing, meals, and overnight care. Call (314) 405-0887.
Start with what she will actually eat
Write down her real eating pattern, not the one you wish she had. Does she eat her biggest meal at midday or skip to a small supper? Does she turn down soups, or need food cut small or softened? Are there foods she will not touch at all? Ask each service whether it can cut, soften, or swap items, and get the answer in writing. A service that says it can work with you, without naming the specific change, has not answered the question.
Check the delivery window and the fridge
Ask for the delivery window in plain terms. Is it a morning drop, a set hour, or a range of several hours? If she is alone for much of the day, that window is part of the plan. Ask what happens when a delivery is missed or the door cannot be opened, and who the service calls when that happens. Ask how much fridge and freezer space a week of meals takes, so you know whether her kitchen can hold it.
Read the reheating steps out loud
Ask for a sample week of packaging and read the reheating steps aloud as if you were standing in her kitchen. If the steps need a microwave she does not have, a multi-step oven process, or a small timer she cannot read, the meal will sit uneaten on the counter. Choose the service whose instructions match what her kitchen actually contains.
Compare the paper
Read the cancellation terms, the pause rules, and the exact definition of a change to an order. Ask whether the menu rotates with the season and how you will be told when it does. Keep the sample week, the signed page, and the contact name together in one folder, so you have something to point to when the next box is wrong.
When two or three services pass these checks, the final choice usually comes down to which food she will eat. If you want to see what else is nearby for the kitchen side of the house, the local help page is a reasonable place to start.