Ode to a Frozen Diet Dinner

O frozen meal, be you Lean Cuisine, Weight Watchers or Healthy Choice. How do you lure me back when I know of your failings and shortcomings? You are like the rectangular mafia found in my grocer’s freezer: you keep pulling me back in. 

As I peel back your plastic film I know only disappointment awaits. Your composition belies the beautiful photography on your colourful container. You will not be as tasty, satisfying or resemble real food in any way.

Your lack of flavour is outdone only by your lack of nutrition. You claim to be lasagna but is that really cheese on your top layer? And if so, why does it not behave with a cheese-like manner? It melts instantly into a puddle. Its blandness suggests an unfamiliarity with any member of the dairy family. The noodles lay limp and the so-called meat sauce appears to have been spiced with stale parsley alone. You make Italians weep.

And still, you will go on sale for $2.99 each and my frozen-food-aisle memory loss will kick back in. “I should get a few for the freezer”, I’ll think, “for those nights when I’m having dinner alone and don’t feel like cooking!” I find joy in culinary creations but only when they’re made with love for others. For myself alone I reserve the major bummer I know awaits me inside your recyclable tub. Still, I open the freezer and see more experiences with you are in my future. When will I learn.

4 thoughts on “Ode to a Frozen Diet Dinner”

  1. It is with great delight that I can honestly say that I have lived 57 years and never eaten a frozen dinner. I only buy frozen veggies when local fresh vegetables are unavailable. I believe in whole organic single ingredient cooking. If that makes me a food snob, so be it. I love food and hate what the industry has done to the average person’s diet. I can only control my own eating habits and share a healthy lifestyle with my family and friends. (Most of them don’t listen either)

    1. There are frozen foods that are palatable, like you say – vegetables. Sometimes I get weak and fall into a trap I was in when I worked 18 hour days out west as a single gal with no viable cooking skills! I’ve come a long way. But every once in a while…

  2. I’m glad to know I’m not the only one who suffers from frozen-food-aisle memory loss. FFAML sufferers, unite!

    Seriously though, the PC Blue Menu ones aren’t bad. The sodium is higher than I’d like, but it prevents me from ending up in the drive-through!

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