Know What You Are Eating: Frozen Dinners

Sometimes life gets a little busy and you just want to something you can cook up quick without much prep or clean up. Frozen dinners often fit that niche, but before you just grab a frozen dinner out of the freezer isle take a look at what you might actually be eating. Chances are if you select a frozen dinner that is marketed as "diet" you'll be getting a lower calorie meal compared to those that are not, BUT what do the dinners include? Is it a balanced meal? How many calories are from fat? Take the time to compare the nutritional information on the packages before you just purchase one.

I compared two frozen dinners today. One is marketed for healthy eating the other was not. Both were similar meals. IF I was going simply by the number of calories in each dinner I would have bought the regular meal as it only contained 290 calories compared to the healthy dinner's 360. However, 120 of the calories in the regular meal came from fat as apposed the mere 90 calories in the healthy meal. The healthy meal included Breaded Chicken Breast in Marinara Sauce with Cheese, Whole grain Penne pasta, broccoli, and a caramel apple multigrain crisp.

The regular meal just included the Breaded Chicken Breast in Marinara sauce and Penne Pasta (the pasta was not whole grain). This means the 290 colories are coming from 3 main food groups, Meats (proteins) and Carbohydrates (pasta) the marinara sauce giving it a little vegetables, oh and don't forget the fats and oils!

The Healthy meal hit on all the main food groups, Meats (proteins) Carbohydrates (pasta), Vegetables (sauce & broccoli), fruit (apple crisp), Dairy (cheese), and of course some fats and oils.

Remember when dieting the key to weight loss is eating less calories than you burn in a day, but you don't want to end up malnourished or end up with other health problems from eating too much of the wrong things. Being healthy is more than just the number of the scale, there is a lot more to consider.