Lean Cuisine

I'm not much for diet food. Low fat, low calorie, whatever. Not a fan. It does taste differently. In the past I've heard, "After a while, you'll get used to the taste." Well... if it tastes bad, why would I want to get used to it.

I mean... it's like saying "Getting kicked in the nads hurts, but if you keep doing it, eventually you'll get used to it." Nope. Never going to happen, that's not something you WANT to get used to.

Not exactly apples to apples, but you get my point.

Soda is a good example of this. You have regular, yummy, rich soda like Vault, Mt. Dew, Rootbeer and Coke. Then you have the diet versions...

Totally not the same, of course, but I keep getting told, "drink them long enough and you'll get used to it." Goes back to my original point. Now... I drink a lot of liquid during the day. A lot. I'd love it if I could drink water most of the time, however I just can't drink large amounts of water like everyone else... it's too watery. (Hehe) And if it's mineral water... it's waaaaayyyy tooo salty tasting.

Now here's my point...

My wife wants me to out live her. She says she wants to die first so she won't be left on this world without me. (Makes me almost cry.) I'm like... I don't wanna be here without you either. But she gets that one I guess.

She suggested I drink 1% milk instead of the 2% I've been drinking since the dawn of time. She also wanted me to cut down the 3 gallons I used to drink a week to just one. Yes 3 gallons a week. I love milk. I was reluctant at first, but I cut down to one gallon a week, sometimes even one gallon every week and a half of the 1%. I'm cool with that.

She didn't like me having a candy dish at work, in case I raided it more than my employees. Poof, no more candy dish at work.

She wanted me to cut down on my soda intake. I'm still working on that one. I have gotten off the caffene somewhat, I would rather drink grape, orange or rootbeer soda. But when I need to stay awake for the night, to watch movies or make out, I need the boost. So I usually drink Vault (or the Wal-Mart generic Mountain Thunder, actually pretty darn good, but that's another rant for another post.)

She wanted me to eat better. That's where I began to scream, hold on there Sally. (That's not her name, but you get my point.) I've been doing a lot, don't mess with my food. She suggested Lean Cuisine. My first impression was YUCK. But like all the other times, I relented because she wants me to live long.

So for the past few weeks I've been taking Lean Cuisine dinners to work for lunch. And to be quite honest... they aren't bad at all. I'm not saying this because I'm "used" to them, right off the bat they were pretty good. Plus their selection is pretty impressive. Most are under 300 calories and have single digit fat grams. You get a pretty good amount too. The Chinese dishes are small, but the rest is a good size.

They have lots of different types of food, comfort food like chicken and stuffing, Salisbury steak with mac 'n' cheese. They have Chinese food that I actually like, pot stickers, chicken with snow peas and noodles. Pretty decent pizza and their new Bistro melts. I only have two complaints, one is that they overload the food with funky stuff like onions, peppers and mushrooms. I understand they provide flavor and color, but I'm not a fan. I end up spending most of my lunch picking them off. The other complaint is that the food is a little bland. (Of course, I just removed the onions and peppers.) No, no... a perfect example is the Chinese food stuff, they are in desperate need for soy sauce. I sprinkle a little salt 'n' pepper on the other stuff just to add a little flavor.

So yesterday I ran to the store to get something to drink... I find a Mt Dew Livewire (Orange flavor) and it's quite good... however I notice Vault has a diet version Vault Zero. Zero sugar, zero calories. Cool I love Vault. I pick one of them up as well. I mean Coke Zero isn't all that bad, so maybe Vault Zero will be good too.


Well.... it's not. It tastes artificial, fake, you really can tell the difference, and that's why I hate diet drinks. YUCK! I'm not going to get it again.

However, from a caloric standpoint, if I eat the 300 or less Lean Cuisine meals for lunch and dinner (I proposed to my wife we start eating them for dinner too.) That would be 600 or less calories for the day, add in oatmeal or cereal for breakfast and all the snacks and whatnot and our daily intake is still pretty low.

So why not have regular soda? It's not a question of balancing it all out so there are no benefits to eating Lean Cuisine, but because they are so low in calories, you can have a soda and not exceed the daily caloric intake. See what I'm getting at? I guess what I'm really trying to say is...

You can have your Vault and drink it too.

-Jeff