Food In Real Life

FoodIRL: A Progress Report

I’ve been posting a daily food comparisons to Food In Real Life for 50 days now, and a few people have asked me, “Chris, aren’t you going to run out of food in your house to post to your blog?” To those naysayers, I simply show the following picture:

This is one of three shelving units in our basement pantry, stocked to the brim with pre-packaged food just waiting to be compared to its packaging. (Keen-eyed observers will notice 18 boxes of pop-tarts on the third shelf; you just never know when a mega-craving will hit you.) And these are just the dry goods – I haven’t even taken a picture of our freezer yet.

To those nay-sayers who will say, “Chris, are you just posting this picture in an attempt to get out of writing a full-fledged review for today?” I say, don’t you have better things to do than to keep asking me questions?

Readers: feel free to leave a comment requesting a food to be IRL’d. Odds are I have it on hand, and if I don’t, well, you can tell I’m not shy at the grocery store.

Healthy Choice Sweet & Sour Chicken

Looks: The vegetables in the chicken mixture don’t have nearly the lustrous sheen that the box depicts, and the peach “crisp” looks more like peach-applesauce. However, all the ingredients pictured on the packaging are there, and they’re mostly the correct color. 3 out of 5

Taste: Depending on which piece of chicken you try, the chicken is either crispy, chewy, soggy, or bland. The vegetables (broccoli included) add nothing, but the rice + sauce mixture is pretty tasty. The peach crisp didn’t do much for me, although it made me forget about the broccoli. I wouldn’t buy this again. 2 out of 5

Marie Callender’s Chicken Pot Pie

Clerkerist sends in this week’s reader submission and does a pretty good job of emulating the photo on the box:

This one is pretty much on target. The pie is browned and flaky. The only deviance from the package cooking directions was a little cooking spray in the pan before microwaving. Otherwise you pretty much have to serve the pie upside-down. Very tasty with crisp peas and carrots, all-white-meat chicken, and rib-sticking gravy. 5 out of 5

Wait a minute… “crisp peas and carrots, all-white-meat chicken, and rib-sticking gravy”? Clerkerist, are you an undercover Marie Callender’s rep sent here to counter the effects of my post on your disgusting cheesy chicken and rice? For shame, Marie Callender, for shame.

Healthy Choice Country Breaded Chicken

Looks: Once you account for plating the meal the way they have it on the box, the food looks pretty close to the packaging. The cherry dessert isn’t as thick as its representation, and the carrots are underrepresented in the vegetable triangle, but the rest stacks up pretty well. 4 out of 5

Taste: Disappointing. The potatoes were gluey, and the chicken tasteless (and soggy where it touched the potatoes). The cherry dessert was sickly sweet, and I certainly didn’t find any “vanilla crisp.” The vegetables sure did taste like vegetables though! (Note that scores of 1 out of 5 or lower are mainly reserved for meals I couldn’t finish or wouldn’t finish. I finished this, but wasn’t very happy about wasting an eating opportunity on it.) 2 out of 5