Healthy Choice Fresh Mixers Ziti and Meat Sauce

by Amber
(Owatonna Minnesota, USA)

This is my first time seeing Healthy Choice Fresh Mixers in my grocery store. I thought it looked like a decent portion size, and contained only 6g of fat and 340 calories. It was a little more expensive than my usual frozen meals, but it was new, so I grabbed it.

I brought it to work to test it out. First observation= the outer safety seal is tough to get off. I had to go get a scissor and pry it from the container.

This meal comes with a main bowl, a removable meat sauce bowl, and a strainer lid. you are to remove the meat sauce, fill the bowl with water to the fill line, and heat for 3.5 minutes. This is already taking just as long as my usual frozen dinners, and I still have more steps to follow.

When the pasta is done, you heat the meat sauce for 30 seconds and strain the pasta with the snap on strainer. the handles weren't very big, so boiling water ended up scaling my fingertips.

When I poured on the meat sauce, it had the foul smell of the red sauce on NutriSystem meals. (The reason why I quit NutriSystem!)

After you have the meal assembled, you need to mix in the sauce. So maybe 10 minutes after I decided to eat, I finally had a meal that was not even appetizing. I pushed forward, and found the sauce to be rather spicy for my bland "Meat & potatoes" pallet.

The positives: You get plenty of food for a diet meal; and you could probably re-use the strainer bowl for something- maybe a sandbox toy.

The negatives: The price, the taste, the preparation.

Would I buy this product again? No. I will save a dollar and go back to the wide variety of frozen meals that take half as long to make and taste great.