Thoughts on Lean Cuisine, Weight watcher meals etc

I think those frozen meals are HORRIBLE! I used to live on them. And I NEVER lost weight and I had terrible stomach cramps most days.

Don’t just track you’re the food you eat, track the INGREDIENTS of the foods you eat.

For example, my old diet included:

Instant oatmeal: whole grain rolled oats (with oat bran), sugar, artificial flavors, salt, calcium carbonate (a source of calcium), soy lecithin, guar gum, caramel color, niacinamide, vitamin a palmitate, reduced iron, pyridoxine hydrochloride, riboflavin, thiamin mononitrate, folic acid.

Lean Cuisine: tortilla crusted alaska pollock (alaska pollock, enriched bleached flour (wheat flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), water, modified cornstarch, tortilla chips (yellow whole corn, vegetable oil {corn, soybean, and/or sunflower oil}), sugar, yellow corn flour, potassium chloride, white corn flour, salt, spices, dextrose, egg white, tomato powder, natural flavor, whey, maltodextrin, yeast, onion powder, leavening (sodium aluminum phosphate, sodium bicarbonate), soy flour, garlic powder, torula yeast, citric acid, corn oil. prefried in cottonseed and/or canola oil), blanched enriched long grain parboiled rice (water, rice, iron, niacin, thiamin mononitrate, folic acid), skim milk, corn, tomatillos, red peppers, water, chile peppers, onions, 2% or less of reduced fat cheddar cheese (cultured part-skim milk, salt, enzymes, annatto color), buttermilk powder, dehydrated sour cream (sour cream (cultured cream, nonfat milk)), modified cornstarch, salt, soybean oil, garlic puree, cultured whey, cilantro, jalapeno puree (jalapeno peppers, salt, acetic acid and calcium chloride), bleached wheat flour, sugar, potassium chloride, lactic acid, spices, calcium lactate

Quaker granola bar: whole grain rolled oats, brown rice syrup, crisp rice (rice, sugar, salt, malted barley flour), sugar, dried sweetened cranberry pieces (sugar, cranberries), semisweet chocolate chunks (sugar, chocolate liquor, cocoa butter, soy lecithin, salt, vanilla), almonds, peanuts, honey, sunflower oil, inulin, whole grain rolled barley, whole grain rolled wheat, molasses, soybean oil, water, glycerin, salt, vanilla, soy lecithin.

TOTAL ingredients: more than 100!

And that is just breakfast, lunch and a snack. Sure, my calorie intake was FINE, but my NUTRITIONAL intake was CRAP.

An example of clean eating and what my normal day looks like now:

Breakfast: Organic steel cut oatmeal, Honey, Almond milk
Snack: Almonds and raisins
Lunch: chicken, spinach, tomatoes, oil and vingar

TOTAL ingredients: 10 - See the difference???

Our bodies aren't meant to eat processed, chemicalized (is that a word?) "food". Diet sodas, fast food, convenience foods, and all that CRAP is horrible for our bodies. Eat clean and you WILL see changes!

Lean Cuisine makes a line of meals with whole wheat pasta, packaged in a white and blue box. I used to eat those several times a week because I got lazy with cooking my own meals. But when I started tracking them on MFP, I realized that while the calorie content was at just the right level for me, it had way too much sugar. Sodium levels aren't as bad as with other pre-packaged meals, though. I personally love their honey chicken and butternut squash ravioli, and I still ocassionally eat one if I'm in too much of a rush and would rather not eat out. But I don't make them a habit.

I'm sooo sick of hearing people bash these. Really, the only downside that mostly anyone can come up with is "high sodium" - however, even on days where I eat a lean cuisine, I don't go over sodium. Its about balancing your food choices. There are SO many other foods with high sodium that people don't even think twice about stuffing down. All the lean cuisines are completely preservative free. They're sensible portions, with reasonable nutrients. To eat one once in a while isn't a huge deal. Without them, I probably wouldn't have lost much of the weight that I have.

I'm a single student at school full time, with part time work. I'm not gonna cook for myself every night - the food ends up going bad! I hate when others give such a strong (and incorrect) opinion that these means are terrible - they're not.

Thank you! I totally agree. I eat one each weekday for lunch with some fruit and veggies and my daily sodium intake is within limits. I don't eat them out of laziness. I tried making my own frozen meals and I just didn't like them as well. I work on a rural military base with limited options for purchasing lunch. Sandwiches get either dried out or soggy before lunch. My husband takes supper leftovers, if there are any, for his lunch. I find Lean Cuisines to be just perfect for me and I plan on them being part of my lifestyle as long as I'm working outside the the home.

I agree with both. No one has any right to call people lazy if they don't have the time. I, too, have made my own frozen meals, but they are still time consuming & rarely have the time to do it. I have a hectic schedule as well. Not every one with a busy schedule has the EXACT SAME SCHEDULE & does the exact same things in the same exact time and yes, some people with a busy schedule can fit time to do some of this stuff, but others cannot. It is plain out rude to say someone is lazy and doesn't try. Speak for yourself only.

When I do have the time (usually on a Sat or Sun), I'll make my own frozen dinners with whole grains, veggies and other healthy stuff.

Lean Cuisine should be forced to rename their meals Apple Cranberry Protein, Protein Carbonara, Lemongrass Protein, Thai-Style Protein, etc. I'm intolerant of soy protein and ended up in the emergency room with what I thought was appendicitis, but it turned out to be chronic soy exposure from eating Lean Cuisine meals every day for lunch. If it says "chicken" in the title, it should actually be chicken in the box. Come on, USDA, FDA and the entire food science profession - you're poisoning people with this phony food. Remember ladies, Nestles' the same company that discouraged our sisters in less-developed countries from breastfeeding and marketed baby formula as a replacement. Read about the boycott on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestlé_boycott). Nestles doesn't care about our waistlines, just our wallets.