The other day I had a craving for a hot dog, specifically a chili dog. I went over to the hot dog section of the grocery store, and found a couple brands of “lite” hot dogs. These lite hot dogs weren’t so lite with over 60% of the total calories coming from fat. That’s a lot!
I was doing a search on the net for info on low fat hot dogs, and found mention of some fat-free hot dogs! Now that would be great!
On my next visit to the grocery store, I revisited the hot dog section and found Park Park brand Fat Free Franks. They are made with beef, pork, and turkey. According to the package, each hot dog has only 40 calories. Wow! The calories come from the 4 grams of carbs, and the 5 grams of protein. There is no fat! Way cool!
Well, I was hungry this afternoon, so I cooked up a couple of them for lunch. The buns I used are ordinary store brand buns. Each bun has 130 calories, with only 15 of those calories coming from fat. Each bun has 25 grams of carbs, and 5 grams of protein.
So most of the calories were coming from the buns, and not the hot dogs! That’s kind of weird. Any, I cooked up two hot dogs (boiled them in water), then placed them on the buns. I squirted on some ketchup. I considered some mustard, and maybe some relish (I love a good junk dog with the works!). But I wanted to see the taste of the hot dog. So I just used the ketchup.
Well! They were good. Not as good a Zweigels Red Hots, but they were still very good. I will definately be buying more of these! Yummy!
Among the bunch of Healthy Choice Cafe Selections that I bought, I bought a small handfull of Traditional Turkey Breast meal. First, I liked the low 4 grams of fat. But they were normally $2.79, on sale for $1.69, and many of the other meals were regularly $2.69, marked down to $1.69. So I save $1.10 on these as opposed to $1.00 on most of the others. So it seemd like I was getting a better deal.
I had Healthy Choice Traditional Turkey Breast (with gravy & dressing) for lunch. I comes with vegetable medley (corn, peas and carrots…though I don’t remember any carrots…they are on the box though), and cherry crisp for dessert. The meal has 300 calories with 4 grams of fat, or 40 calories with of fat. The fat calories are about 13% or total calories. That is really good. It still counts as 6 Weight Watchers points.
It took 4 minutes of microwave time, with stirring in the middle. The turkey is pretty good. There is a little stuffing. You need to follow the directions of spooning the gravy of the stuffing, or, the stuff with be a dry block. I liked the peas and corn. That is probably the best tasting of the Healthy Choice vegetables sides. The cherry crisp was also pretty good. I will definatly be eating more of these.
When I bought the 58 Healthy Choice Cafe Selections, plus 10 more later, I didn’t think I grabbed any with more than 6 grams of fat. But this morning when I was grabbing food to take to work, I grabbed this. I was surpised to see it had 8 grams of fat. Oh well. I bought it, I am going to eat it.
So I ate the Healthy Choice Garlic Parmesan Chicken for breakfast. It included grilled chicken breast with seasoned pasta & vegetables (carrots, broccoli, red pepper), in a creamy caesar sauce. There was no dessert. It has 310 calories, with 80 calories coming from the 8 grams of fat. Thats almost 26% of the calories coming from the fat. Pretty high! This counts for 6 Weight Watchers points. It took 4 1/2 minutes of microwave time, and had to be stirred in the middle of cooking.
I like the texture. The taste was good, but not great. Considering the high percentage of fat calories, I will probably pass on this one next time.
Here is yet another Healthy Choice meal review.
I had the Healthy Choice Grilled Chicken Marinara meal for today’s lunch. It took 4 1/2 minutes of microwave time. The meal has 250 calories, 4 grams of fat for 40 calories making fat calories 16 % of total calories. There are 5 Weight Watchers points. The meal didn’t include a dessert but did have broccoli florets for the vegetable. The grilled chicken marinara was good, but seemed to be lacking in marinara sauce. There was some, but not a lot. Nowhere near what is in the picture on the front of the box. Not sure if it was production goof and it was just this meal, or if they are all like that.
The broccoli was bland like it always is in the Healthy Choice products. I sprinkled my Molly McButter on them for a bit of flavor.
Overall, it was good, but not great. With the fat calorie percentage being only 16%, I will probably eat more of these. I hope the others have more marinara sauce though!
When I bought all the Healthy Choice meals, I tried to get a variety. So bought the Chicken Broccoli Alfredo even though I didn’t have high hopes for it. I love a good Fettuccini Alfredo with broccoli. But the problem is that it is hard to make a good low fat alfredo sauce. The main ingredients of alfredo sauce are heavy cream and parmesan cheese. My favorite Chicken Alfredo is from Marie Callender’s. The Marie Callenders One-Dish Classics Fettuccini Alfredo With Garlic Bread has 55 grams of fat!!!! OUCH!!!! But it is really good and better than most restaurants serve!
But this morning I had the Healthy Choice Chicken Broccoli Alfredo (with Fettuccini Pasta) for breakfast. It comes with vegetable medley (peas and carrots), and cherry dessert with vanilla crisp. It has 300 calories, with 5 grams of fat (fat calories are 15% of total calories). Weight Watchers counts this as 6 points.
The futtuccini alfredo was okay. Not great, but I have had worse. But it doesn’t come near the Marie Callender’s. The Alfredo sauce was at least sort of creamy. Make sure you follow the directions and stir at the proper times. It was missing something. Maybe I’ll try adding a little salt and or pepper next time. The vegetables were okay. Most of the Healthy Choice vegetable sides are kind of bland. The peas are good though. I still sprinkled them with Molly McButter. The cherry dessert was good. Not my favorite Healthy Choice dessert though. But it was good anyway.
I have a handfull of these in my freezer. Not sure if I will buy more. The fat calorie percentage is good. So I might be able to get used to them.