On the run...

A quick meal to grab for lunch or dinner (or now even breakfast) is a frozen meal. Often times I am faced with the question of if frozen meals are a “healthy” meal choice or not. Frozen meals have gotten a bad rap because they are frequently found to be laden with hidden sodium and saturated fats however, if you follow a couple of my simple guidelines (that I tend to look for on the label) you might be able to decipher some good in the ugly!

Decoding the Food Label of Frozen Meals:
Sodium: keeping it under 600 mg per package (it is already challenging enough to keep our sodium under the recommended level of 1,500mg according to the American Heart Association)
Saturated Fat: stay away from them (less than 7% of your daily calories should come from saturated fats)
Trans Fat: stay away from these too (these can be hiding in your food label as “partially hydrogenated oils." Yuck, that just sounds like it would clog your arteries!)
Cholesterol: strive to keep it low! Aim to eat less than 300mg each day (cholesterol is found primarily in animal fats including cheese)
Fiber: fill up on it (look for meals that have at least 3 grams of fiber per package)

What do you eat when your in a hurry?