Auntie's NutriSystems® Challenge (Can YOU do it at home?)

Well…last week I rashly promised that I would be writing about Auntie’s Nutrisystems Challenge this week. I was an idiot to say that, but say it I did, and I’ve actually done the work needed to tell you how Nutrisystems® stacks up, both financially and diet-wise.

If you go to Nutrisystems’® website, you can’t really obtain any decent information. I selected their “NutriSystem® Nourish™ Women’s Program,” the details of which are basically nonexistent. The gist is that you “select your foods online (or on the phone) and they arrive on your doorstep.” The website does provide a listing of the foods from which you can select, like a Chinese menu – one from column A, one from column B - but all it lists is the name of the meal or snack – for example, “Blueberry Bran Muffin,” or “Teriyaki Sauce and Beef with Rice.” The listing doesn’t tell you calorie counts, weight of the dish/portion or detail other micronutrient information. The current emphasis of the program is eating “low glycemic index” foods as opposed to “high glycemic index foods,” which is the newest dieting fad to reach North American shores.

If you’re not au fait with glycemic index foods, it’s a rating of how rapidly carbohydrates break down in your system. “Low” glycemic index foods (think “good carbs”) break down slowly and encourage stable blood sugar levels; “High” glycemic index foods (think “bad carbs”) break down rapidly, cause your insulin levels to spike and purportedly, according to NutriSystems®, “cause…your body to store fat while also leaving you hungry soon after a meal.” This isn’t really hard to grasp. It’s the difference between eating oatmeal for breakfast or pounding a doughnut.

Apparently, you select all three meals – breakfast, lunch and dinner – as well as one dessert and one snack for every day in the month for 28 days (4 weeks). Notably, the desserts and snacks are lumped together in the same category, and are split about 50/50 between savories (salty) and sweets. The lunch and dinner entrees and meals seem, from their names, to be pretty typical frozen meals – Pasta Parmesan with Broccoli, Fettucini Alfredo with Vegetables and Mushrooms, Vegetable Lasagna with Basil Tomato Sauce, as examples. The breakfast foods range from frozen “meals” like “Scrambled Eggs – Smoke Flavor” to your basic granola bar (“Apple Granola Bar”). The desserts and snacks are also not exotic – everything from Almond Biscotti to Sour Cream and Onion Soy Chips. I did note that Soy Chips are predominantly featured among the savory snacks, along with pretzels, both regular and soy versions. If you sign up for “auto-delivery,” a process by which you are basically agreeing to continue to buy their food, month after month, it costs about $10.00 per day - $289.46 per 28-day month on the auto-delivery plan, or $321.62 plus $16.00 for shipping on the one-month (4 weeks) only plan. Anyway…on to Auntie’s NutriSystems® Challenge. Can you match this at home?

I selected one week’s worth of food from the menu choices, as randomly as I could manage. 7 breakfasts, lunches and dinners, along with all of the desserts and snacks. I went searching for suitable substitutes that you could easily purchase at the grocery store. Given that I only had the meals’ names, I had to do some guessing, but I think I came pretty close. As an example, I substituted Healthy Choice Chicken Broccoli Alfredo for NutriSystems’® Fettucini Alfredo with Vegetables and Mushrooms; I substituted Campbell’s Soup at Hand Creamy Broccoli Instant Soup for NutriSystems’® Cream of Broccoli Soup (a lunch selection). Every dish I chose as an alternative was simply heat and eat or unwrap and eat (like granola bars), so that the “work” was equivalent – no cooking or preparation whatsoever. I entered the price for each meal, entrée or snack, adjusted for a single serving size portion in the case of multiple-serving products (like cookies or granola bars), and then entered all of the calorie counts, as well as grams of fat, carbohydrates, etc. I then simply averaged the prices, assuming one type of meal per day, and then totaled the resulting averages.

What’s the result?

Here’s the bottom line: you can replicate the NutriSystems’® plan, with 3 meals a day plus snack plus dessert, for $6.84 per day, averaging 825.71 calories per day. A Hobbit could lose weight on 826 calories a day, and you could save $3.16 every single day, or roughly $100.00 per month, on the “do it yourself” plan. To see the meals, snacks and desserts that I picked, their prices and calories counts, etc., see the tables below, broken out by type of mea - the daily average totals are on the very last table at the bottom. Sorry that the tables are smallish, but bigger ones wouldn’t fit here on Auntie’s Blog; if you click on each table, a much larger, easily readable table will open in your browser window.

Do you want to try it yourself? It’s simple. Just visit NutriSystems’® website, select the monthly plan that best suits you (they have plans for diabetics, men, women over 60, vegetarian diets, etc.), and select 7 days’ worth of meals from their menu selections. Print out their webpage, so you don’t have to write everything down – just use checkmarks or highlighter. Surf the Icebox Diner and/or your local on-line grocery, and find comparable meals – or use the random plan I made up. (If you use the Diner, you can also check for reviews from over 1,000 other folks!). Make up your grocery list, buy only what’s on the list (along with some fruit, please!), and eat from your new meal plan. Splurge that $100.00 you save at the end of the month by getting yourself something special.

So, see you next week! Send email to Auntie with story ideas or product requests!

Lo Mein Event (Green Giant Create A Meal Lo Mein)

My much beloved and maligned Spouse – the Hubster – has a long track record of mangling the English language. It’s not malapropisms, like some comedians…it’s more a tongue-twisting that ends up creating phrases that end up living in infamy around here. We have some unique desserts – for example “puddo jelling,” which has always been a favorite of mine, followed closely by “cook and milkies.” (I defy you to read that and not think it from this point forward in time whenever confronted by a Toll House cookie.) The other day, though, he was staring forlornly at some items he had scavenged from the refrigerator, and wanted to know if I could manage to whip something up out of my “trick of books.”

Sadly, I wasn’t able to whip up something from Ye Olden Trick Of Books, but in that vein, I did find something else that will be helpful to those of you that have limited time or energy to cook. I tried one of Green Giant’s Create a Meal Stir Fry dinners (add meat and stir), and selected their “Lo Mein” version. It’s billed as “Lo Mein Noodles, Broccoli, Carrots & Mushrooms in a Flavorful Stiry-Fry Sauce, and after all is said and done, my overall opinion is: it’s not bad, and it’s a very easy way to “home-cook” a meal.

The general idea is that you take ½- ¾ pound chicken or pork, slice it into ½” strips, sauté (fry) the meat in a 12-inch skillet/frying pan for 4-5 minutes, then add water, the provided veggies and sauce…cook another 8-10 minutes and dinner is done. The 21-oz. package has additional serving suggestions printed on it (e.g., add variety by using beef sirloin instead, spice it up by adding crushed red pepper, stir in bean sprouts, etc.). I made it, and it’s extremely easy. You could make it even simpler by either buying meat already cut into strips (like fajita meat) or even using leftovers. If you use leftovers, you would just mix the meat, water, sauce and veggies together and cook the 8-10 minutes specified on the package. The bag claims about 3½ servings, and I think that’s about right – maybe 4-5 if you served it with a side of rice, assuming some of the diners were kids. The Lo Mein has 140 calories per serving (excellent!), 1 gram of fat (even better!), 28 grams of carbohydrates, and 5 grams of protein, so it even constitutes diet food. Granted, you then have to add in the caloric value of the chicken, but still - not bad.

The veggies were pretty good. The carrots were average, the broccoli was crisp and tasty, although the mushrooms seemed less prominent than I should have liked. The noodles held together surprisingly well, and the sauce was reasonably flavorful, although not quite as tasty as I would have hoped. I would recommend that you spice this up with a dash of your own stir-fry sauce, or dribble some Sesame Oil over the dish after you have prepared it. For hardier souls, the red pepper sauce (sold in specialty stores if you can’t find it in your grocery) would be a lovely addition.

This normally sells for $3.99 – which I think is a bit steep – I scored it for $2.75, and that’s a good price. I’m not sure I’d pay the four bucks, but I would buy it again on sale. I still don’t recommend it as highly as some of the other pseudo-Chinese dishes we’ve had around here, but it’s worth a try to see if you would like it better, and a product like this allows you involvement in the preparation of the final dish, unlike most frozen meals.

Still, though, for “frozen Chinese,” I definitely recommend Contessa’s products above all others that I have tried. I had their Chicken Stir-Fry again this past week, and it really is an excellent product…and as you can see from my earlier review, their Kung Pao Chicken really will “wow” your taste buds (particularly if you're an onion fan).



Next week: I’m going to be doing something a little different. You know, you cannot turn on the television, or pick up a newspaper, without being barraged by Nutrisystem advertisements. Now, what is Nutrisystem, really? Basically, it’s prepared foods (like granola bars) and frozen meals (like the ones we review here) used as a weight-loss program. You buy all of your “groceries” from Nutrisystems, you eat their food 3 times a day (plus a snack/dessert) and, purportedly, you lose weight…all for a mere $10.00 a day…$70.00 a week, $280.00 a month. Is it worth it? For that matter, can you emulate the Nutrisystems diet plan and spend less – and still lose weight?

In my next column, I’ll be posting a sample one-week menu, copying Nutrisystems’ meal plans, listing specific brands and meals, estimating what it would cost you to “copy” Nutrisystems’ diet meal plan at your own grocery store. As merely one example – Nutrisystems lists a dinner called “Basil Chicken with Tomato Sauce.” Why not try instead Stouffer's Lean Cuisine Cafe Classics Chicken with Basil Cream Sauce, costing $3.99 (regular price), currently on sale most stores for $1.99, with 270 calories?

Let’s find out if that $10.00 a day is such a great deal, or if you could save money by buying similar products yourself (and still lose weight!) in Auntie’s Nutrisystems Challenge.

Until next week….

Don't forget to join us at the Icebox Diner for over one thousand consumer reviews of over one thousand frozen meals, entrees and dinners!! Write your own reviews, and find new products to try.

Six Degrees of Chinese (Stouffer's Corner Bistro Sesame Chicken)

The subconscious is a remarkable thing. Sometimes, the things you do without actually using your frontal lobes just make you go “hunh?” I unintentionally picked up not one, not two, but three “Asian” or “Pseudo-Chinese” frozen meals during my last shopping spasm. I certainly hadn’t planned to do so, and to the best of my knowledge, I wasn’t even thinking about Chinese food…but I have been thinking about home (New York) a lot lately – the impending holidays always do that to me – and usually what that means is that somewhere in the back of my mind I am yearning for the ease and tastiness of Chinese takeout, a facet of New York living that I miss enormously, here in the desert life of Phoenix, Arizona. So, this week and next, I’ll be reviewing two very different “Chinese” frozen meals, for those of you that also don’t live in New York, or Los Angeles or San Francisco.

The allegedly Pseudo-Chinese meal I popped into the nuker on Tuesday night was Stouffer’s Corner Bistro Sesame Chicken. As you may know, I’ve been a fairly big fan of Stouffer’s Corner Bistro line – I really do love their Chicken Carbonara, Grilled Rosemary Chicken and Seafood Scampi dinners. I was less impressed with their Garlic Chicken Pasta.

Sadly, the Sesame Chicken dinner falls into that “I suffer so you don’t have to” category of dinner adventures upon which I’ve embarked. It’s not dreadful; unlike the Michelina’s Penne Pasta, which I literally couldn’t eat, I finished this meal. But it’s just…bland. Blah. BORING!!

The “breaded sesame chicken tenderloins” were mushy and flavorless, the coating having succumbed to being stuck inside a cellophane wrapper while being nuked. The noodles were equally insipid, but that’s more forgivable, because they’re noodles, after all. The carrots were actually the one bit of inspiration in this dish, julienne and crisp, providing good texture, which this dinner desperately needed. The sauce simply seemed to disappear into the ether, after providing an initial piquant tease by actually smelling like sweet and sour sauce. I honestly could not tell you what the sauce tasted like…neither sweet, sour, salty…in Stouffer’s attempt to please everyone, the sauce had been rendered so inoffensive that it ceased to exist for all intents and purposes.

Overall – just do NOT waste your money. I paid $4.59 for this meal, which serves one. If you’re in the mood for “Chinese,” you would be far better off grabbing one of Contessa’s stir-fries or Kung Pao dishes. If you’re looking for breaded or battered chicken in that Chinese dish, Contessa’s Orange Chicken is noteworthy, and you’ll get two to three servings from a Contessa dinner for only a dollar or two more than the Stouffer’s Corner Bistro Sesame Chicken.

Calories, 510; Total Fat 15g; Saturated Fat 2.5g, no Trans Fat; 75 mg. Cholesterol, 1380 mg. of Sodium, Total Carbohydrate 72g., Fiber 5 grams, Sugars 19g, and 22 grams of Protein.


SUPERPRETZEL


Superpretzel – yes, I know I told you I would review Superpretzel this week, but after trying two, I’m still undecided. I paid $2.50 for a box of 6 (regularly $2.79), so they run $0.42 - $0.46 USD per pretzel, which certainly isn’t back-breaking. They’re…okay. They’re not stupendous, and if you’re a New Yorker, they don’t compete with eating off the street. But if you’re a hot soft pretzel fan, and you aren’t surrounded by pretzel stands, they’ll probably do, and they’re cheap enough to try. They’re easy enough to prepare – take it out of the bag, dampen the top slightly, nuke for 30 seconds – voilá – hot pretzel, ready to eat. The actual size of the pretzel is probably slightly smaller than what you would expect from the picture on the carton, but it’s filling enough.

I will warn you that the instructions for salting the pretzel are a joke. Allegedly, you’re supposed to open the salt bag (contains “pretzel salt” – think rock or sea salt) and salt the pretzel before you nuke it. After several tries, I can’t get the salt to stick, not even with slightly dampening the pretzel. I think you would have to hammer the salt into the pretzel to get it to stick, which is tricky with a frozen pretzel. Overall, I found it easier to put the salt on a plate and just dip the hot pretzel into it, along with mustard or other condiments.

I wouldn’t rave about Superpretzel, but I wouldn’t turn it down, either. I don’t think I would buy it again, just because it’s not that exciting, but it isn’t bad, and if you’re a pretzel fan, it’s cheap enough to try. The kids would probably really like them, too.

Don’t forget – you can subscribe to our feed by using Feedblitz – just enter your email address into the Feedblitz box in the right-hand column!