Frozen Meals?
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Most of them are not that good for you. Personally I don't eat them at all.
But I see from the comments a lot of folks do... to each their own, I guess. I rather cook my own food.1 -
I frozen meals help you get to your weight loss goals, there is nothing wrong with them. They are not unhealthy. Now, certain ones *can* be unhealthy such as Hungry Man, Marie Callender's, etc, but Lean Cuisines, Smart Made, Smart Ones, etc. aren't bad at all. One of those meals, generally has less sodium than a serving of canned soup.
I have been buying the Luvo frozen meals (available at Wegman's, Safeway, and other places). Kind of pricey but the food tastes a bit more "real" to me than the Lean Cuisines I was eating. It comes in box, and within in a paper bag so somewhat environmentally friendly.
Other than being higher in calories, what makes those unhealthy? I prefer Marie Callenders over most of the "healthy" ones, as those are bland to me.
OP, they're fine in moderation, like everything else. Evol is also a good lower-calorie choice.2 -
Get your Crockpot out, make up some meals and freeze your own on the weekends. When I was working, I most often had two of them going on the weekends and had a variety of things to choose from for dinners and for lunches at work.1
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I like Morningstars spicy black bean burgers. I will buy Smart Ones pizza because of the low calories but keep it at a minimum as far as eating frozen foods simply because of the sodium. I prefer eating home cooked foods.0
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Healthy Choice is pretty good on sodium. Too few calories though IMHO - you have to add something along with it. I used to complain in the supermarket "If I was sedentary enough for 250 calories to constitute a meal, I'd have enough time to cook my own damn food". I batch cook my own food now.. much cheaper and I can tailor the calorie content and macro %'s how I want.1
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If you have some time to devote to large batch cooking (like on a weekend), many dishes freeze well and can be frozen in individual portions. I freeze vegetarian chili, soups, spaghetti sauce, among other things. That way, I get the convenience of pulling a frozen meal out of the fridge, but I also control what goes into it, and it's cheaper. You can find "freezer cooking" websites of recipes that freeze well.0
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As you can see, everyone's idea of healthy is different. I, personally, would never eat them. I batch cook and freeze so I always have a variety of choices available that fit my definition of healthy. You should look at the ingredients and decide for yourself.1
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@lucys1225 Your dog is adorable!!!!!0
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My favorite frozen meals right now:
I have breakfast sandwich every morning and my evening meal most days is a Lean Cuisine with a whole bag of steam-in-bag veggies.
The frozen meals are high in sodium but I cut sodium elsewhere, for example by using unsalted butter.
Have you tried the Jimmy Dean Delights Breakfast Bowls, or the Frittattas? Both super yummy, filling, good protein. I have either a breakfast sandwich, a bowl, or two of those egg fritattas a few times a week, other days I have Chobani yogurt and granola.
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Lean Cuisines are OK. I like the Healthy Choice steamers a little more. Especially the Simply Steamers. I usually have to pair with a salad or extra veg to make them filling.
Another option is to meal prep using mostly pre-prepped foods so you can get the macros you want without all the cooking time. Gather up various prepared ingredients like:
- frozen veggies
- precooked meats (chicken, shrimp, fish, meatballs)
- frozen cooked quinoa or rice blend (or use cauliflower rice cook a batch of edamame spaghetti or other low carb pasta)
- premade sauces (marinara, alfredo, stir fry/oyster/kung pao)
Get some containers and start portioning out to fit your preferred macros/calories. Something like edamame spagetti, turkey meatballs and frozen broccoli. Or maybe stir fry veggies, cauliflower rice and chicken with kung pao sauce. Shrimp and alfredo sauce with spaghetti squash is also pretty good. I've been able to make quite a few combos with over 30 grams of protein for under 350 cals that are very filling. Take a look around your store's freezer section or deli and see what you can come up with!1 -
WinoGelato wrote: »My favorite frozen meals right now:
I have breakfast sandwich every morning and my evening meal most days is a Lean Cuisine with a whole bag of steam-in-bag veggies.
The frozen meals are high in sodium but I cut sodium elsewhere, for example by using unsalted butter.
Have you tried the Jimmy Dean Delights Breakfast Bowls, or the Frittattas? Both super yummy, filling, good protein. I have either a breakfast sandwich, a bowl, or two of those egg fritattas a few times a week, other days I have Chobani yogurt and granola.
I haven't tried those. Thanks for the suggestions.0 -
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I recently had Lean Cuisine's butternut squash-stuffed ravioli. Totally looking forward to buying more and having it again! I'm also currently in butternut squash mood in general, too.
I'm planning on trying more Lean Cuisines. Sometimes I'm too tired from work, gym and errands to cook dinner.0 -
I never prefer to eat frozen meals, it gives me feeling of the other planet where it is impossible to prepare meals with fresh food.0
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I went through just about every reasonable looking frozen meal when I started a couple years ago. Dozens. Other than Stouffers Lasagna, I did not find a single one that was edible. They are all drek.1
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My clinic recommended the realgood foods brand to me. They are mostly high protein/low carb. I'm generally not a fan of frozen dinners and I have only tried a few of them, but I thought they were pretty good.0
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Lean cuisine and smart ones are good,but as said it's the sodium issue. I feel it is sometimes better to pick a day ( i.e. Sunday) as a cooking day, then portion out your meals into ziplock/ rubbermaid type containers and put them in the freezer. This makes it easy to just grab and microwave your meals with better control over sodium and sugar1
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I agree with most of the advice here.
That said? Yes. Batch cooking a few homemade frozen meals is probably the best way to get what you want.
Some considerations:
Do you have enough freezer room?
If not, and you don’t plan on getting a larger freezer? You will also need to be buying your store bought frozen meals every few days.
If that works for you? Great. The suggestions here are good. We use many of these for my husband’s lunches regularly.
If you choose to batch cook -
Amazon has some dishes that you can prepare meals and freeze them, and they’re microwave safe and reusable. Search for “single meal prep containers”
You can put leftovers in these also, it doesn’t have to be all done in a massive cooking marathon.
You can also make a bunch of burritos ahead of time and wrap them in foil.
And a good travel container for salads - which you can make a few days ahead of time - is the trusty old mason jar.
That should be enough to get you thinking about maybe batch cooking a little bit, anyhow.1 -
I never bought frozen meals and still don't. Having said that, I found myself at 500+ lbs in 2015. I decided to change my life. I joined a commercial weight loss program where 90% of the meals were frozen. I lost over 200 lbs.
Now I cook for the most part. My point is frozen or prepared meals are not inherently unhealthy. Does not hep you any, as I do buy frozen meals from the store. They are very convenient and also tells you how many calories you are consuming.3
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