Frozen "Healthy" Dinners as Meals- Advice

the only bad thing about them... to me lol... is that they are high in sodium. just drink a lot of water and ull be good to go. As for ur husband, just eat what he eats in moderation. im sure u arent cooking him big mac and french fries every night. "healthy food", to me, is one that is home made. I wouldnt worry to much about eating something different from what he is. just have to have self control.

You can usually fit in most foods with a little healthy adjustments, as a previous poster suggested. I would NOT be fixing two meals. He needs to compromise with you somehow or learn to cook for himself.

I eat them when I have a serious time constraint. I do see them as good or bad, I just use them in the interest of time and stay below my calorie goal.

I personally have been eating the Weight watchers Smart Ones for almost 2 weeks now and I think their great,they control portion size for you and I don't feel hungry afterwards,like someone else already said drink lots of water,I live on water and have been doing pretty good with my weight loss,so it's definitely a personal decision you have to make.

I live on them during the work week... convenient and low cal for me. I've still been losing weight and it fits my busy schedule.

I am sure some of them are good but my personal opinion try to stay away from the processed stuff. It has all sorts of additives and a ton of sodium. If you are looking for convenience try making large meals on teh weekends and freezing them in serving size containers. Then during the week you can take them out and zap them in the microwave. At least that way you know exactly what is in them because you put it there.

I eat them occasionaly and usually add vegetables to them or Ill prepare a side salad to go along with them. It is really about convenience. Another thing I do is make a huge batch of brown rice and freeze it in cup portions. I also buy a bag of tyson chicken tenderloins. Both can be made into healthy stir frys in a jiffy or baked chicken with brown rice. Just add veggies to both as desired. Ive also mixed brown rice with the brocoli and cheese steamers and thats makes a quick easy and filling meal. Just some ideas!

- JoAnna

I have a cookbook that I love. It is Taste of Home's comfort foods cookbook. It has "traditional" recipes made healthy and includes the calorie count. My husband and kids have no idea they are eating healthy options. I do eat a Healthy Choice like meal once or twice a week at work on my busiest days, but they don't really fill me up and they are loaded with sodium.

Frozen dinners have been a staple for me in the past but after a while you'll get sick of them. Since you are already cooking, I would try to find ways to modify the meals you are cooking for your husband so that you can have some too. A few tricks that I've used on my husband that significantly lowered the fat content of the food are using skim milk and parkay butter spray in place of regular butter and milk. Plus, figuring out trade offs that you can both live with will help you out tons in the future when you are trying to maintain your weight. An example, today I am maklng cinnamon toast using whole wheat bread, truvia (natural sweetener with zero calories), zero cal parkay butter spray and of course cunnamon. I wonder if anyone will even notice the difference?

I don't think any processed food is great for any length of time. I do keep a few in my freezer for emergencies. I live on my own, so although I don't have a partner to feed I do batch cooking at the weekend and fill the freezer up which usually ends up lasting me a couple of weeks and my shopping bill has reduced dramatically.
I do a batch of Chilli con carne (with 450g turkey mince, not beef) and place into four freezer bags. I also do a batch of Cottage pie, again with turkey mince and full of veg and place this in 6 containers and freeze, I also do a homemade bolognaise sauce. So every night when I get home from work I only have to heat up what I have taken out the freezer the night before and probably just cook rice, pasta or mashed potatoes to go with my meal.
This helps me to stay on track as I know exactly what I'm having each day and doesn't leave me time to crave or think about having something I'm not suppose to xx

Like most have said, frozen meals have their place. I used to eat them a lot more, but I'm focusing more on clean eating now. I do keep them around for a quick meal when I need it. I also make large meals whenever I cook and freeze in portion size containers. Also, when I make very time consuming things like lasagna, I always make 2 and freeze a whole one for later.

Depends where you're buying them, and which brand you choose. Here in the UK we're fortunate enough to have excellent quality meals, in terms of quality and nutritional value.

Tesco for instance guarantee that none of their ready cooked meals contain ingredients you won't find in an average kitchen and that they don't contain artificial colourings or flavourings (or preservatives I think), nor are they high in sodium. Waitrose and Marks & Spencer meals (particularly their "fuller for longer" range) are also excellent, but expensive.

However when in Canada recently I was shocked at the poor quality overall and nutrition in particular in brands like lean cuisine, and ended up cooking a load of meals myself in advance, rather than relying on them.

They do have preservatives in them (which is where the "clean eaters" will come in and say "They are JUNK!"). Other people say they don't fill them up (they do for me).

I guess I'm one of those but to me it is also about the "cooking" process. 60-80% of the nutritional value of food is lost when you heat it up/cook it.

Tesco do a range of "Steam Meals" which are frozen, so there are no preservatives, and which are steamed in their special container in the microwave straight from the freezer. No idea whether this sort of thing is available in the US, but the technology's there.

You'd think there was a clear market for healthy (and I mean really healthy, not just low calorie) meals in America, I'm surprised nobody is doing this.

The meals I choose are a mixture, but some of them are definitely erring towards clean eating.