Food In Real Life

FiberPlus Dark Chocolate Almond Bar

Looks: The chocolate on the bar appears to be still melted, but other than that, the box matches the bar. The bar even had those strings of caramel between the pieces when I first pulled it apart, but they fell before I could get a picture. (Sorry, I couldn’t find a lone almond to set beside the bar to get the ultimate comparison picture.) 4.5 out of 5

Taste: Oh, man. Chewy, chocolatey, with kind of a coconutty texture, if that makes sense. Definitely one of the best fiber or granola bars I’ve ever tried. I could eat these all day, but with each bar having 35% of my daily fiber needs, I imagine I’d spend all day tomorrow doing something very different. 5 out of 5

Healthy Choice Fajita Steak

Looks: The meals I don’t plate properly (usually for lack of time, but sometime for lack of dishes) are a little harder to judge, but when you take each section separately, you’ll see that this meal stacks up closely to its box. Not only does it have the first apple crisp I’ve seen with substantially size apple pieces, most of the colors and portions of the other foods are right on as well. (The poor lighting in my kitchen doesn’t do the steak justice.) 4.5 out of 5

Taste: Just so I don’t have to say this again, the apple crisp that is in essentially every Healthy Choice meal is very good – +1 point by default. I really enjoyed the steak part of this meal, but I wasn’t digging the rice or corn (due to their blandness), until I had an epiphany: bland rice and vegetables plus steak with too much southwestern sauce equals a delicious Tex-Mex casserole. They should recommend that combination on the box, because it was really good. (-1 point if you don’t like mixing foods together.) 4 out of 5

Kraft Cheesy Alfredo Macaroni & Cheese Dinner

Looks: Pretty close, eh? The only takeaway I have is that either the spoon on their box is huge, or they’re understating the size of the noodles. There’s no way I could fit the same amount of macaroni on the tablespoon I used, although I don’t know why they’d understate the size of their food. 4.5 out of 5

Taste: The first few bites were the best boxed macaroni I’ve ever had, but as I continued to eat, something about the cheese sauce made me feel a little off, so I didn’t finish the entire bowl. Might have just been me; have any of you readers tried this and felt the same way? In any case, I’m judging it by the first bites: big chewy noodles and thick creamy sauce. 4 out of 5

Healthy Choice Sweet Asian Potstickers

Reader Dena Struchtemeyer sent in this review of Healthy Choice’s Sweet Asian Potstickers:

“I recently tried Healthy Choice’s ‘Sweet Asian Potstickers’ meal. That was a mistake. Notice how the ‘sauce’ looks like sewage? Not a coincidence. By the time the meal was cooked, the rice, carrots and potstickers had become thoroughly soaked in the sauce. As a result, the entire thing tasted like a sickly-sweet soy sauce. Except that is, for the stuffing inside the potstickers. The concoction was so dry that it seemed almost shocking compared to the other soaked parts of the meal.”

“The potstickers aren’t even the same shape or color as on the box and the potsticker casing is so chewy that I almost flung half the meal across the room trying to eat it. That nice creamy on sauce on the box? It’s nonexistent. The nicely chopped green onions? They’re nonexistent too. The large chopped pieces of bell pepper? You guessed it, nonexistent. The whole thing was awful.”