Diet Food Reviews
Banquet Fried Rice with Chicken and Egg Roll Meal
By: | Feb 3, 2007
A frozen dinner that is a healthy option doesn't have to have to be Lean Cuisine, Healthy Choice or Weight Watchers. Sometimes, a quick look at the nutrition panel of other brands will reveal a surprising find. Case in point: this Banquet Fried Rice with Chicken and Egg Roll Meal. After having seen the dietTrash that was the Banquet Corn Dog Meal, I didn't think that anything that there would be anything in the Banquet line that wouldn't be a heart attack waiting to happen - but I was wrong.
The good: Banquet Fried Rice with Chicken and Egg Roll Meal is cheap at only $1.00, tasty and only 200 calories. It was just what I expected it to be, fried rice with chopped up veggies - celery, carrots and broccoli - as well as lots of small pieces of chicken chunks. The egg roll, although not very big, was also enjoyable.
The bad:
1. The very VERY salty taste of everything. It's been 30 minutes and a few gulps of water and I still feel the salty taste in my mouth!
2. In my own defense, when I started writing this review, I was actually eating the meal and I hadn't looked at the ingredients list. Now that I have, I am thinking this may perhaps belong in the dietTrash category. The ingredients list reads like a food chemistry text book. I get the sense that this meal is very VERY processed. I was initially very happy to find a cheap, simple meal that could make a light lunch, but as I'm sitting here - feeling the salt make it's way to my tummy, I am now thinking that I don't want to eat a meal that is going to remind me of the chemicals in my food lab at work.
There is 750 mg of sodium in this meal which is 31% of the daily recommended amount - and they need to cut it down. There are only 200 calories from this meal, 7 grams of total fat and 1.5 grams of saturated fat, which are 11% and 8% of the recommended daily amount. There is no trans fat, 11 grams of protein and 47 grams of total carbohydrates, which includes 9 grams of sugars and 5 grams of dietary fiber.
The nutritional value is not too bad - except for the amount of sodium, but I am really turned off by the long, involved ingredients list. I am thinking that I might not by this meal again because it sounds like they processed the hell out of everything!
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Check again... this meal is now rated at 310 calories!
Whats up with that (over 50% increase)?
Question! Ok I had a banquet meal the other day, the turkey one, (needed the extra calories) but the sodium count was crazy high. So I used a fork to get the pieces out of the gravy and dabbed them a paper towel. That got rid of a lot of the sodium...right?
Sorry Sam: I doubt that did much - maybe 1% less.
ahh great..I thought leavin behind the pools of sauce woulda helped..oh well. such is the life of a frozen meal consumer.
I laugh that I was SO NOT IN for this one based on the cover shot.
:)
M.