Lean Cuisines- Good or Bad?

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AngelZealot
AngelZealot Posts: 49 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I am a very busy working mother of 3. I barely have time to brush my hair let alone prepare a healthy meal to take to work each day. What does everyone think of eating Lean Cuisines, Smart Ones, or Healthy Choice packaged meals? Pros and cons. Any suggestions for quick healhty alternatives? Thanks!

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  • Kalikel
    Kalikel Posts: 9,626 Member
    edited November 2014
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    Pros: quick, easy and tasty if you don't mind a lot of salt

    Cons: waaay too much salt, often too fatty, not very filling for all the calories

    The Lean Cuisines aren't a whole lot lower in calories than the regular Stouffer's meals and the regular ones taste better.
  • libbydoodle11
    libbydoodle11 Posts: 1,351 Member
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    I think that you could probably get away with fitting one each day into a regular diet. You have to do what works for you. Be aware of the sodium levels on each meal.
  • keithmustloseweight
    keithmustloseweight Posts: 309 Member
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    Get yourself a slow cooker / crock pot instead.
    Depends where you work though. It can be hard to keep things in a hot truck until lunchtime.
  • AngelZealot
    AngelZealot Posts: 49 Member
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    Kalikel wrote: »
    Pros: quick, easy and tasty if you don't mind a lot of salt

    Cons: waaay too much salt, often too fatty, not very filling for all the calories

    The Lean Cuisines aren't a whole lot lower in calories than the regular Stouffer's meals and the regular ones taste better.

    I never thought of trying Stouffer's. I'll have to grab a few and try them. You're right, the Lean Cuisines are not filling at all and have small portions. Leaves me unsatisfied.
  • AngelZealot
    AngelZealot Posts: 49 Member
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    GrahamSS wrote: »
    My personal opinion is that packages meals are poor quality and overpriced. I always make my lunch to take to work the evening before. Fastest is open a tin of cannellini beans finely slice an onion add teaspoon of olive oil + salt & pepper, pop in a container and top with tinned tuna or smoked mackerel. 3 minutes top. Add a wholewheat roll from the freezer and a apple or banana in the morning. Looking at 600 calories and a huge filling lunch. When I was eating at a deficit I used to halve the tin of beans and be under 500. If you do not like fish add something else. Handful of beansprouts make a good addition but I can not buy them here.

    Also make soups at the weekend, usually vegetable / lentil / bean based. Keep in the fridge at least a week. I take it in a flask as I work outdoors but if you have a microwave at work you can heat it there. Really cheap really healthy. Soup takes me an hour to make on a Sunday but less than 10 minutes of that is doing anything. I bake wholewheat bread too and portion it to 100g and keep it in the freezer for the week, but I love making bread so if you don't just buy decent rolls and freeze them immediately.

    If I do not prepare lunch the night before I can not be bothered in the morning and then buy lunch out, costs more, less satisfying and not as healthy, usually. Saying that I live in southern italy and pasta bread and a glass of wine costs les than €5 for lunch at a restaurant!

    Wow! Incredibly helpful!! Thank you!
  • curtisw2000
    curtisw2000 Posts: 3 Member
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    I have done the "Healthy Choice - Cafe Steamers" ... They are high on salt and sometimes sugar (depends on which one you get) but (as stated previously) as long as you only use them for 1 meal in a day it isn't bad. I tried these ones because the "Steamer" portion of it appealed to me. They are filling (enough) and taste alright. I have been working 12 hour days for a while now and these work if I oversleep/don't have time to make a meal.
  • Need2Exerc1se
    Need2Exerc1se Posts: 13,576 Member
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    I find them not very tasty and not filling. But they aren't "bad". I would add a small salad or steam in the bag veggies to make the meal more satisfying.
  • Torontonius
    Torontonius Posts: 245 Member
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    Processed garbage. Way too much sodium, processing wipes out a lot of the nutritional value. Make fresh food the night before, put it in tupperware. Try waking up 30-45 minutes earlier every day. There's always time, you just need to manage it appropriately.
  • CupcakeCrusoe
    CupcakeCrusoe Posts: 1,372 Member
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    I like the steamed vegetable mini boxes instead, and just add protein (chicken or tuna)
  • Running_In_Circles
    Running_In_Circles Posts: 11
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    I am always starving on LCs. I enjoy them but they don't fill me up (and I am sensitive to carbs so I ended up even hungrier an hour later to the blood sugar spike).

    I usually do leftovers of whatever we had for dinner the night before (which is fairly low on the glycemic scale) and make a basic salad with olive oil, vinegar, and Parmesan. It's boring but I enjoy it! I am trying to stabilize my energy level, so that is why I am choose this sort of eating. The meal usually runs ~500 cals or so, fwiw.
  • jstrun
    jstrun Posts: 70 Member
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    I eat a smart ones or healthy choice every day at lunch. When i started my weight loss journey I started with Weight watchers and I made everything as convenient as possible so that in the beggining i didnt give up so easily. eventually I started making more home made things but one thing that stuck was their frozen meals for lunches. I couple it usually with a salad or veggies and hummus and it keeps me statisfied until my afternoon snack.

    Yes they are loaded with sodium, yes they *can* be expensive (I stalk up my freezers when they are a $1 each) and yes they are smaller portions, but they make it easier for me to stick to my weight loss plan and that's all that matters. 1 frozen meal a day isn't going to kill me when the rest of what I eat is healthy and whole foods.

    Hope this helps!
  • wkwebby
    wkwebby Posts: 807 Member
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    Definitely get some Green Giant veggie steamer packages. If you truly want some quick meals, also add in some of the Perdue Short Cuts chicken. The chicken is precooked so you can just either eat cold on a salad, or throw them into the microwave and combine with the Green Giant veggies to give you a way healthier meal (still higher in sodium than I'd like, but it's ok with enough water). The short cuts (grilled plain chicken) are a total of 315 calories for the entire package (3.5 servings), and the veggies are also low if you don't get the flavored veggie versions.

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