Healthy Choice - a new spin

Usually, frozen dinners aren't even an option for my weekday lunches. They're usually packed with sodium, weird fats, and indiscernable ingredients, such as the leftover meat remains which were probably sold for pennies from the McDonald's plant down the street.



Healthy Choice recently came out with a few clever new ads featuring Julia Louis Dreyfus and the buzzword for these are vegetarian and fresh. I think it's a very smart marketing ploy in an economy where people are trying to cut costs and where fast food is a very tempting-for-the-pocketbook option. Moreover, they've targeted a huge void in the frozen foods industry - vegetarian meals.



Among the 6 new healthy choice options are:

• Mediterranean Pasta - 9-grain orzo, cranberries, spinach, cinnamon sauce, and much much more. Nutritional info is available online, and you won't be disappointed.

• Pumpkin Squash Ravioli - Butternut squash, crisp asparagus, Granny smith Apples, in a butter sage sauce

• Sweet Asian Potstickers - whole grain rice, mixed vegetables, and a sweet Asian sauce
• Tomato Basil Penne - 9-grain pasta, sweet basil, and mozzarella cheese, prepared with 100% extra virgin olive oil
  

They have two other selections which seem to be vegetarian, but they don't claim as vegetarian, so I'm curious to find out why.

Having these options is a huge relief for busy weeknights when I don't have time to pack my lunch, and it's a huge cost savings. They're fulfilling enough to plug yourself through the afternoon, quick enough to eat standing up while you have an infant in one hand and a baby bottle in the other, and light enough to keep you alert through the busy workday.

Time to purge the freezer and make room! There's a new kid in town.