We might daydream about preparing luxurious gourmet meals for our families every night of the week and packing a healthful lunch every day. But let’s get real: For most Americans, the frozen dinner is a way of life. Across the country, thousands of workers eat frozen meals for lunch, but frozen meals also often show up in our homes for dinner, too, and with increasing frequency. On any given night, 15 percent of the dinners consumed at home by Americans are frozen and came from a box, according to NPD Group, a consumer marketing research firm that tracks how Americans eat and shop.

“The trend is clearly toward frozen or ready to eat — the trend is clearly toward not cooking, whether you’re young or old,” said Harry Balzer, a vice president for the group. “It’s about making life easier.”

So it seemed like a good idea to compare some of the leading brands by nutrition, price and taste — and to ask a nutritionist if we need to feel as guilty as we sometimes do when we grab our meals from a brightly colored box.

The health effects of eating frozen meals on a semi-regular basis depend on the dinner, said Leslie Bonci, director of sports medicine nutrition for University of Pittsburgh’s Medical Center for Sports Medicine and Department of Orthopedic Surgery. If someone chooses a Hungry Man dinner, with its beefy portions of

meat and its generous helpings of starch and dessert, well, in that case, “the fat content is enormous.”

But if a shopper can find a meal that has fewer than 20 grams of fat, it’s OK to eat that up to three or four times a week, she said. Some frozen meals skimp on vegetables and protein, though, so while they don’t cost much in calories, they aren’t always the best nutritional bet, she said.

Bonci advises looking for meals with colorful vegetables — something other than the yellow of corn and the white of mashed potatoes — and suggests supplementing a low-fat frozen meal with a salad or some lowsodium soup at lunch, to avoid getting hungry too quickly.

For full story, please see the April 26, 2006 edition of The Union-Recorder.