FitSugar

Food Review: Healthy Asian Chicken Frozen Dinners

FitSugar — Fri, 20 May 2011 11:57:39 PDT

It's a fact: frozen dinners happen. We know life is busy and you can't always whip up a home-cooked meal. When pressed for time, microwaveable meals make for an easy option, but the frozen-food aisle can easily overwhelm your senses of judgment. With so many choices, it's hard to figure out which frozen dinner will truly be a tasty, healthy meal.

To take the guess work out of your next trip to the supermarket, we've nuked and tasted five Asian-style frozen chicken meals, from sesame chicken to a gingery stir-fry. Read on to see which meals are worth putting into your grocery cart and which ones aren't worth the time it takes to heat them up.

Flickr User danorth1

Food Review: Five-Cheese Rigatoni by Lean Cuisine

FitSugar — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 11:00:00 PDT

Though I sometimes eat Lean Cuisine products in a pinch, I'm not usually a fan of processed frozen food. A few Lean Cuisine meals arrived at the office the other day, and since I was hungry and strapped for time I thought I would try one with the words "no preservatives" stamped prominently on the box. I chose Five-Cheese Rigatoni, although I don't regularly eat pasta at lunch. The photo on the box looked appealing, like comfort food.

To see if the rigatoni met my expectations, just

The five-cheese rigatoni was actually filling, but two and a half hours a later I was suddenly hungry. The taste was fine, if a little on the sweet side, and the meal was very comforting. While I am still incredulous that a frozen meal could be preservative free, when I read over the ingredients the only one that seemed suspicious was thiamin mononitrate - a B vitamin added to the pasta. There were a couple of different types of "enzyme-modified" cheeses, where enzymes are used to enhance the flavor. Other than that all the ingredients were fairly familiar. Here's the nutritional information.

Serving Size	11.5 ounces
Calories	330
Total Fat	9 g
Saturated Fat	4 g
Cholesterol	20 mg
Sodium	690 mg
Carbs	50 g
Fiber	4 g
Sugar	10 g
Protein	12 g

While this meal was by no means stellar, it did work. Paired with fruit or a salad, the dish might be more satisfying. I so think pasta and cheese for lunch is ultimately a bad idea, and I will be looking of more protein out of my next frozen meal. Any recommendations?

Lean Cuisine Recalls Chicken Dinners

partysugar — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 03:00:27 PST

Yesterday Lean Cuisine's parent company, Nestlé Prepared Foods, recalled approximately 879,565 pounds of frozen chicken meals.

According to the US Department of Agriculture and Food Safety, the meals may contain foreign materials like small pieces of plastic.

To find out what exactly is being recalled,

9.5-ounce packages of “Lean Cuisine Pesto Chicken with Bow Tie Pasta" brand frozen meals.
Printed on each side of each package is a production code of “8280595912,” as well as a use-by date of “Best Before MAY 2010.”
10.5-ounce packages of “Lean Cuisine Chicken Mediterranean” brand frozen meals.
Printed on the side of each package is a production code of “8231595912” or “8241595912,” as well as a use-by date of “Best before SEP 2010”; a production code of “8263595912,” “8269595911” or “8274595912,” as well as a use-by date of “Best before OCT 2010”; or, a production code of “8291595912” or “8301595912,” as well as a use-by date of “Best before NOV 2010.”
12.5-ounce packages of “Lean Cuisine Chicken Tuscan” brand frozen meals.
Printed on the side of each package is a production code of “8234595911” and a use-by date of “Best before SEP 2009”; a production code of “8253595911” or “8269595912” as well as a use-by date of “Best before OCT 2009”; or, a production code of “8292595911” or “8296595911” as well as a use-by date of “Best before NOV 2009.”

Last Summer, Pizza Pockets, another brand under Nestlé, recalled a large number of frozen pepperoni Hot Pockets. I can't help but think plastic in frozen foods is an alarming trend. Let's hope the manufacturers get this problem sorted out soon. Until then, be sure to check the Lean Cuisines in your freezer.

Source

Food Recall: Lean Cuisine Chicken Meals

FitSugar — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 03:00:00 PST

Oops! Nestlé did it again. In July, Nestlé recalled some Lean Pockets for having plastic bits in them, and now the company has announced it is recalling 879,565 pounds of Lean Cuisine frozen chicken meals for the same reason. The presence of small pieces of hard plastic led some customers to complain and caused one injury. All of the affected products are chicken-based meals.

Check your freezer for the following products subject to recall, and call Nestlé Consumer Services Center at (800) 227-6188 with any questions.

Lean Cuisine Pesto Chicken With Bow Tie Pasta: Production code "8280595912" with a "Best Before" date of "May 2010."
Lean Cuisine Chicken Mediterranean: Production code "8231595912" or "8241595912" with "Best Before" date of "Sept 2010"; production code "8263595912" "8269595911" or "8274595912" with a "Best Before" date of "Oct 2010"; or, production code “8291595912” or “8301595912,” with a “Best Before" date of "Nov 2010.”
Lean Cuisine Chicken Tuscan: Production code “8234595911” and “Best Before" date of "Sept 2009”; production code “8253595911” or “8269595912” with a “Best Before" date of "Oct 2009”; or, production code of “8292595911” or “8296595911” with a “Best Before" date of "Nov 2009.”

My pal Yum isn't pleased with this news either. If you're now inspired to cook your own food, she's has recipes galore for you to browse for inspiration.

Food Review: Lean Cuisine Szechuan Shrimp Stir Fry

FitSugar — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 10:00:00 PDT

Though I sometimes eat Lean Cuisine products in a pinch, I'm not usually a fan of processed frozen food. But when these Lean Cuisine meals arrived at the office the other day, I recognized the Spa Cuisine Classics box from the 100 healthiest supermarket foods list. (The Chicken With Peanut Sauce was named best frozen dinner.) Better yet, the box proclaimed that the meal was preservative free, so I decided to try it.

I had the Szechuan Style Stir Fry With Shrimp, featuring whole-wheat noodles, baby corn, sugar snap peas, carrots, and bell peppers. After I zapped the meal in the Sugar HQ kitchen, several passersby said it looked delicious. To find out if it actually tasted good,

I'm not sure how a frozen meal can be preservative-free, but it's true: there was nothing troubling on this ingredient list, aside from "caramel color." Mostly, it was shrimp and veggies, plus soy sauce, garlic, and seasonings. Though the box promises a "spicy Asian-style sauce," this dish wasn't at all spicy but actually rather sweet and mild. I was sad to find very few snap peas in my box, but the entree redeemed itself with flavorful shrimp and tender pasta that tasted fresh.

Flavor and texture-wise, the Spa Cuisine Classic impressed. Although some co-workers said the portion looked small, it filled me up quite nicely, and with just 240 calories and 2.5 grams of fat, it was a very healthy lunch. Unfortunately, like many frozen meals, this one is very high in sodium: It contains 760 mg, or 32 percent of your daily recommended intake. But if you're looking for a healthy, fast frozen lunch or dinner, this one is better than the average microwave meal, and I appreciate the lack of strange-sounding chemicals in the ingredients.

Have you tried these? If so, what flavor do you like?

Healthy Freezer Meals Evaluated

FitSugar — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 10:15:00 PST

We all have those times when we just want to pop something in the oven, or microwave and have it come out ready, healthy, and tasty. A simple goal for the girl standing in the freezer aisle at the grocery store pondering hundreds of frozen foods, right? Wrong. Often times we get these healthy frozen meals home and heated up only to find they lack one key ingredient: taste. Lucky for us the good folks over at Epicurious have done the dirty work and evaluated healthy frozen meals to find the best of the best.

Here's their take:

The Winner: It's not just for cereal. . . Kashi, a newcomer to the frozen-dinner scene, was our favorite of the bunch. We really liked its Lemongrass Coconut Chicken, a colorful, well-balanced meal that combines a chewy, nutty whole-grain pilaf, chunks of chicken, carrots, and sugar snap peas with a sauce that had a lemongrass kick. Though Kashi's frozen dinners aren't marketed as diet meals, this one comes in a fairly large portion (10 ounces) for only 300 calories, which is comparable to a similarly sized diet meal, plus it has fiber (7 grams) to fill you up. We also liked Kashi's Chicken Pasta Pomodoro, which has toothsome multigrain pasta, veggies, and a well-spiced, not overly sweet tomato sauce.

There's more so

Runners-Up: If you're looking for the comfort of pasta with an Alfredo-style sauce, we recommend Lean Cuisine's Chicken Fettuccini Dinnertime Selects, a fairly big portion of pasta with a creamy sauce and fresh-tasting broccoli, along with a side dish of caramel apples for dessert (12 ounces, 360 calories). Also good was the cumbersomely named Weight Watchers Smart Ones Bistro Selections Chicken Fettucini [sic], which had the cheesiest-tasting sauce but no veggies (10 ounces, 340 calories).

I always loved Kashi myself, so I'm glad I'm not the only one supporting such a great brand. If you have a healthy frozen meal that you're particularly fond of, share it with us in the comments section below.

Source

Lean Cuisine Flat Bread Melts

FitSugar — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 02:00:00 PST

I am not one for processed food, let me state that up front. In a recent pinch for lunch the other day I tried a Lean Cuisine Flat Bread. I tried the chicken pesto melt because even in a pinch I have a weakness for pesto. The flat bread cooks in less than three minutes, but needs to rest, much like a steak, for 60 seconds. It tasted good though not great, but only kept me full for about two hours. There was a generous portion of chicken and I had a sweet sun dried tomato in almost every bite. The problem with many of these quick food solutions is you need other food to make them a sustaining meal, but when you are on the go chances are high you don't just happen to have a salad or some steamed broccoli stashed in your back pocket.

To see nutritional information and what the flat bread truly looks like, just

The flat bread looks very much like the image on the box, you can see there are a lot of red peppers and sun dried tomatoes.

Calories	Fat (g)	Protein (g)	Cholesterol (mg)	Sodium (mg)	Fiber (g)	Sugar (g)
330	8	22	20	630	5	6

My main problem with this meal is the amount of sodium, since it contains 25% of the recommended daily intake of sodium (2,300mg is the upper limit of healthy per day). Plus why not use whole wheat in the crust and make the bread part healthy and more than just a vehicle for toppings? I do think it is great that Lean Cuisine gets credit for not using trans fat in this one.

Carry Your Lunch in a Tote for the Cure

partysugar — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 01:15:17 PDT

With more and more people using canvas tote bags to transport goods home from the grocery store, it's only natural that this concept would carry over to brown paper bag lunches. Instead of packing your lunch in a paper or plastic baggie, pack it in a reusable tote, like the fashionable ones pictured at right.

Created by Lean Cuisine in partnership with the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation, these lunchbox bags are good for the environment and help fight breast cancer. For every purchase of one of the insulated $9.95 lunchboxes, Lean Cuisine will donate $5 to the cure. What a fabulously stylish way to promote awareness.

6 Handy Tips For Packing Work Lunches

Emily Co — Tue, 15 May 2012 09:28:28 PDT

Bringing lunch to work every day sure does save more than a few bucks and keeps you healthy at the same time. It's such an easy everyday saving trick, and it's a great option for those trying to cut costs on their daily expenses. Here are a few tips that get me through the week.

Mental Meal Plan: What do you want to eat for the rest of the week? Give it some thought before you make a trip to the grocery store to buy some ingredients. For inspiration, flip through Yum's list of delicious work lunches. While you're grocery shopping, read our savvy tricks for saving money at the supermarket.
Prep on Sunday: Buy all the ingredients you need on Sunday so that you won't have to desperately scramble around the night before. If you're planning on making one dish that you'll be eating all week (such as soup), you can either keep it refrigerated or, depending on what type of dish it is, you can also choose to freeze it in five ziploc packets that you can ration out throughout the week.
Keep It Separate: If you want to keep your lunch fresh, try to keep the pieces separate and assemble it right before you're having lunch. This works best for meals such as salads and sandwiches - soggy bread and vegetables are not appetizing!

Read on for more tips.

The Secrets of the World's Healthiest Women

Health — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 04:45:10 PST

We are pumped to share one of our favorite stories from Health.com here on our site.

From pouring on the olive oil like the Greeks to slashing stress like the Scandinavians, what we
can learn from the happiest, slimmest, longest-living cultures around the globe.

The secret to a long, healthy life in America? According to longevity researchers, it may be to act like you live somewhere else.

It seems like every year another country's lifestyle is touted as the new magic bullet to cure us of obesity, heart disease, and premature death: for an unclogged heart, herd goats and down olive oil like a Mediterranean. Avoid breast cancer and live to 100 by dining on tofu, Japanese-style. Stay as happy as Norwegians by hunting elk and foraging for cowberries.

Health.com: Weight-Loss Secrets From Around the World

The places we're usually told to emulate are known as Blue Zones or Cold Spots. Blue Zones were pinpointed by explorer Dan Buettner and a team of longevity researchers and are described in his book The Blue Zones: Lessons For Living Longer From the People Who've Lived the Longest. They're areas in Italy, Japan, Greece, California, and Costa Rica where the people have traditionally stayed healthy and active to age 100 or older.

Keep on reading for more great tips from around the globe.