Organically Speaking.

As you can imagine, I get asked a lot of questions. I've recently noticed that one of the questions I'm asked the most frequently is "How do you feel about frozen dinners?" This includes Lean Cuisine, Smart Choice, Healthy Choice, SouthBeach, basically anything that is prepackaged (not limited to frozen foods), processed, and/or frozen. Honestly, I'm not a fan. The more I read about the harmful effects of prepackaged food, the more I realize how detrimental it is to our health. Yes, they're convenient. Yes, they're easy. Are they good for you? Not really. 

1. These meals are not filling. The calorie count may look good if you're trying to cut your daily intake, but these meals are only going to cause you to become hungry again sooner than if you were to consume a well thought out and balanced meal. Because you're not full, 9 times out of 10 you're going to end up grazing on other random foods throughout the day or worse, binge eating later on. Look at the nutrition table, the carb count is almost always through the roof. And I'm talking about the fast carbs, aka the bad carbs. The carbs in most fruits and veggies are the good, slow kind which will give you energy and will more readily fill you up with natural components.

2. In order to stay "fresh" in the box, these meals are heavily laden with preservatives. Some harmful effects of consuming preservatives and additives include: 
-higher chance of breathing difficulties such as shortness of breath (can worsen asthma symptoms)
-behavioral changes, particularly in children. Increases hyperactive behavior, jittery behavior, impairs ability to concentrate.
-weakens heart tissue which can lead to heart disease.
-preservatives have the ability to transform into carcinogens when digested. This means preservatives can cause cancer. Yes, cancer.

3. High levels of sodium. For example, one serving of Stouffer’s meat lasagna has 77% of your daily recommended value of sodium. That. is. ridiculous. Look at the labels on these meals, the sodium levels are through the roof. Consuming too much sodium actually increases water retention and keeps water weight on your body. This is not going to help you lose weight. Sodium can also cause high blood pressure (hypertension), heartburn, cardiac enlargement, ulcers, edema, osteoporosis...Doctors warn about consuming too much salty foods, but a lot people fail to realize when looking at nutrition tables that sodium = salt. They forget that it has the same affect and is just as bad or worse than sprinkling actual grain salt onto your food. Sometimes they fail to check the packaging on food for sodium levels altogether. Of course you must have some sodium, just be aware of how much you're consuming.

So, back to the original question. How do I feel about frozen meals? I feel that you shouldn't eat them. These are honestly doing more harm to your body than good. Have I copped out and consumed them in a pinch? Absolutely. Am I satisfied after? Nope. I always find myself guiltily snacking about two hours later, thus completely canceling out the fact that my meal was low in calorie. When you're preparing your meal from "scratch", you shop for the individual ingredients. You're aware of all of the components going into said meal. When you buy organic or fresh ingredients, not only are you putting more natural foods into your body, you're doing your body a favor by feeding it healthy things. You have more energy, you feel better, fresh food is just an all around better choice. 

Now, I've never been one of those "I'm pretentious and I only eat organic" kind of people, but when it comes to what I'm putting into my body that I'm working so hard to keep healthy, I'm all for spending the extra money to eat as much organic food as possible. For a while, I was so excited to find substitutes for certain things like sweetener or the fake butter that I completely threw chemical awareness out the window. I'm trying my best to cut down more and more on these things. They contain the same type of preservatives and chemicals that are harmful in the frozen foods, so why cut out one poisonous product and not the others? I'm still working on changing my tastes so that I can live without so much sweetener, but it's really hard to drink coffee without something to sweeten it up. I'm still searching for more natural options, but it's not so easy. For fruits and oatmeal, you can use honey to sweeten, but I'm still looking and testing.

I hope that you've learned something from this post because I don't want to you to continue making the same mistakes I made for so long. What you put into your body is a big deal, you have to live in it. Just as cutting down on fats, carbs, and sugars is beneficial, cutting out chemicals and preservatives is just as or more important. Obviously I've talked about not eating fast food. This is important because, not only are the calorie counts of such food outrageous for what you get, but the preservatives in fast food is worse than the frozen meals. I know convenience is a big deal these days, but if you prepare your meals at the beginning of the week or on the weekend, pack things the night before, and take food with you, you can create your own form of convenience and avoid consuming the bad things. Also, spending the money all at once in the grocery store is going to equal the amount you'd spend in the drive-thru or most likely even save you money in the long run.

If you have the option, buy organic. When you buy fish, buy wild not farm-raised. When you buy chicken, buy fresh not frozen. When you buy beef, buy grass fed if possible. Sometimes you have to really dig deep to find these things and sometimes you have to pay a little more than you'd like, but think about it. Pricier and beneficial or cheap and poisonous?

(I got my info from livestrong.com, thefoodfarce.com, and flixya.com)