Hmmm.... this is one of those semi-gray areas but my answer is no.
Most of those meals do not have enough calories, or enough protein. They contain very processed carbs and loads of chemicals. You'll find that it's much cheaper to just pre-cook some chicken and brown rice or have a piece of fruit with a can of tuna instead of nuking one of those little packages.
Due to my hectic schedule, i have one of those meals each day at lunch. I eat the meat portion, add a side of either cottage cheese or yogurt and make a salad to go along with it. Works for me.
Most of the frozen meals I've seen (and I haven't bought them in ages...just a caveat) are very low in protein, high in carbs (including sugar!) and LOADED with sodium.
Check out the Recipes thread...there is a great recipe for "Rich's Mom's Moist Chicken Breasts". Make a bunch of those...with some brown rice and veggies (mixed together)...get out some Gladware or Servin' Savers...and portion out your lunches for a few days. Faster and BETTER than those frozen meals - and ya know what's in them.
Basically...it all comes down to priorities and HOW BADLY YOU WANT TO BE IN SHAPE.
I tend to use them in emergency situations. Like .. I forgot to bring my good pre-made food to work. Or, I didn't have the time to get to the grocery store to get the good stuff, so I'll grab a Healthy Choice. They tend to run lower in sodium than the other brands. Not perfect, no, but in an imperfect world with my imperfect life, they are better than grabbing Wendy's.
I don't know, I love Wendy's Plain Baked Potato and Small Chili when I'm on the go. Not perfect, I understand.
Does anyone else have some fast food, emergency meals out there? I know that Ms.Jim once posted an altered Baja Fresh salad. I tried one of McDonald's new premium salads a couple weeks ago and YUCK! The chicken breast was like the saltiest thing I ever tasted.
Couldn't resist saying UUUGGH. Wendy's chili...made of the previous day's unsold hamburgers...eww. Of course that's just my opinion.
Most fast-food chicken is quite salty, I've found. A couple times when just starting BFL, I ate Chicken McGrills - with mustard instead of mayo and extra veggies. That meat was so salty! I'd be willing to bet that those new McD's salads are equally salt laden. (Personally I miss the OLD McDonald's from when I was a kid - they still had the walk-up with the big arches around...I think the food was better tasting too).
Baja Fresh - their chicken doesn't taste nearly as salty as McD's (I've never been to BK, so can't comment on theirs). I personally try to avoid fast-food restaurants - the only one I like right now is Taco Bell and as far as I know, none of their stuff is 'clean'. (we do go there on Free Day though, for a grilled stuft chicken burrito on the way to the stables!)
Taco Bell is on my list of banned places. i ate so much Taco Bell when pregnant with my son I am surprised I did not give birth to a little talking dog!
LOL, of course McDonald's was much better. The fries were made with lard! Julia Childs once said on Oprah that her favorite food in the WHOLE world was McD's fries.... but only the old recipe, when they were made with lard.
I wasn't just referring to the fries, but to the burgers, everything just tasted better back then when they only had a few products. Now McD's seems to want to be everything to everybody - and look how they're doing now. (not that great BTW)
Well...the shortening wasn't ALL lard...it was a mixture of beef fat (okay lard) and vegetable shortenings. I have the formula in a book at home called "McDonalds - Behind the Arches" by John Love. Good read BTW. Anyway, from what I recall (haven't read the book in awhile) Fred Turner and Ray Kroc were bent on getting THE perfect french fry...and someone told them about this little place in Chicago that sold great fries. After trying them, they determined it was the shortening that was the key element, which was manufactured by a small local company run by Ken Smargon. He developed the shortening that was used for many years (until I think 1993?) in all the McDonald's restaurants...and I think he developed the new formula as well.
Ah well...McD's has never claimed to be a 'diet' chain anyways...when I was a kid, we only got to eat McD's if we had been REALLY good, like gotten a great report card. It really saddens me to see that many people these days - adults and children - just about live on the stuff...when it really should be only a 'special occasion' type of food IMO.
I've NEVER eaten ostrich, but then again we don't have a Fuddruckers around these here parts I think Jim had an ostrich dog at the fair last year though!
i agree totally. i remember piling in the station wagon with my 4 brothers to go to McDonalds. That was a rare and very special occassion. Nowadays, if you tell a kid you are cooking dinner, instead of going out to buy it, they think you are crazy.
Hey Tiki! I remember piling in OUR station wagon with my 3 sisters...to go to the only McD's around (in Belmont back then) which of course was the old fashioned walk up...
The photo shows one of the two remaining original design McD's in California...this one is in San Jose and you can see they modified it a bit to accomodate a little indoor seating - the original ones had just a window you'd walk up to and order.
ANYways...Dad would always buy the same thing...we would each get a hamburger, then split two fries (they only came in one size back then) and two shakes between the four of us. And we were sooooo happy....that just made our day! (probably cost Dad about 1.75 to feed all four of us girls).
You know, my niece and nephew never tire of hearing how cheap everything was back in the olden days. Remember when Thrifty's Drug Store had the nickel ice cream cone? Once I had a WHOLE QUARTER ALL TO MY SELF and bought a five-scoop cone. (The scoops used to be cylinder-shaped). Naturally, when I went outside, four of the scoops toppled over onto the asphalt, where my dog Mitzi licked them up! Thrifty's used to have sno-cones that cost four cents too. And I fondly remember the dime chocolate bar...memories...and non-food stuff like saving up 1.87 to buy one of those Rock Flowers dolls that came with her own record! (speaking of dolls...anyone remember that doll that had the growable hair? You'd push her tummy, and pull the hair out of the hole in her head...and make it retract by turning a knob or pushing the button again or something?)
LOL! In my only venture into the world of shoplifting, I once stuck a Hershey bar into my pants waist in the grocery store. Naturally it melted all over my stomach and my mom marched me right back into the store and made me pay for it.
OMG Karen that was a Tressy doll!! I had one, I have no idea where it went to, and it would be worth a fortune today, my cousin who got one the same Christmas that I did still has her's and I think she still has her Chatty Cathy!!
In our town here, where things always seems to be the last to arrive... I remember McD's only when I was around 17 or so...
Frozen Meals
I think Jim had an ostrich dog at the fair last year though!
and bought a five-scoop cone. (The scoops used to be cylinder-shaped). Naturally, when I went outside, four of the scoops toppled over onto the asphalt, where my dog Mitzi licked them up! 
