Are Lean Cuisines Good For You

From LoveToKnow Diet

When you’re trying to lose weight, it seems like an easy solution to pop a frozen diet meal in the microwave, but are Lean Cuisines good for you? In order to answer that question, it is important to assess what the meals are made of versus the requirements for healthy eating.

Healthy Foods

A healthy diet consists of a number of things including:

Five to nine servings per day of fruits and vegetables in a variety of colors to adequately eat all of your nutrients
Six to eleven daily servings of whole grains
Two to three daily servings of lean proteins and nuts
Two to three daily servings of low fat dairy
Fiber
A healthy balance of Omega-3 to Omega-6 fatty acids

Foods not conducive to a healthy diet include:

Too much sodium
Processed grains such as white flour
Refined sugar
Additives and preservatives
Trans-fats and saturated fats

Benefits of Lean Cuisine

Lean Cuisine makes frozen entrees that can help with calorie control and portion control. Certainly, these two elements are essential for a weight loss diet. Without portion and caloric control, there is a good chance you will be unable to lose weight. With Lean Cuisine, there is no need to count calories or weigh your foods in order to get a perfect portion size.

Another benefit of Lean Cuisine is convenience. Pull a Lean Cuisine out of the freezer and pop it into the microwave for a few minutes, and you have a hot meal. Another bonus--the company offers a wide variety of meals that cater to a number of different personal tastes.

Drawbacks of Lean Cuisine

While Lean Cuisine is convenient and easy, there are drawbacks to the food as well. Some of the drawbacks include:

Lean Cuisine isn’t always the best tasting meal on the planet. But you probably knew that. While frozen meals have come a long way from the TV dinners of old, they still tend to taste like a frozen meal.
They tend to be rather high in sodium. One of the ways that frozen meal manufacturers remedy the flavor inadequacies of the food is by pumping up the sodium.
They rely heavily on processed grains like white rice and white flour. As a result, they tend to be low in fiber.
If you eat strictly Lean Cuisine, you will be missing out on the benefits of fresh fruits and vegetables, which have phytochemicals and vitamin profiles not found in frozen meals.
Relying strictly on Lean Cuisine is likely to leave you both hungry and lacking in certain areas of nutrition. The small portion sizes and reliance on processed starches mean that in order for the meal’s calories to come in between 200 and 400 calories, the portions are ridiculously small. This same reliance implies a certain lack of nutrition.

Are Lean Cuisines Good For You?

Are Lean Cuisines good for you? As a convenience food, it is healthier than much of what you can get in fast foods; however, the entrees leave a lot to be desired in the health food department. Because Lean Cuisine doesn’t use preservatives, they are slightly more healthy than some frozen foods.

If it is optimum health you seek, you may be better off limiting your intake of this convenience food. Eating Lean Cuisine occasionally when you are in a time pinch probably won’t hurt you, but eating it all the time isn’t going to have you glowing with the vigor of good health.

Recommendations

If you do choose to eat Lean Cuisine, you may want to take some measures to pump up its health quotient. Here are some recommendations:

Limit Lean Cuisine meals to one or two meals per week.
Include some low-fat dairy with your meal, such as low-fat yogurt, low-fat cheese or a glass of skim milk.
Eat a piece of fresh fruit or some raw veggies with your meal – both to help increase satiation and to pump up the nutrients.
Try to limit your sodium intake for the rest of the day after eating Lean Cuisine.
If you do eat Lean Cuisine regularly, consider taking supplements that will give you adequate fiber and adequate vitamins and minerals.
Supplement with fish oil in order to ensure a healthy balance of Omega-3 fatty acids to Omega-6 fatty acids.

The Bottom Line

Many people wonder, are Lean Cuisines good for you? While they aren’t the worst thing in the world in terms of health, you may want to avoid making these frozen entrees the cornerstone of your weight loss diet. Instead, eat a wide variety of foods from all food groups and use Lean Cuisine occasionally when you need the convenience. In this way, Lean Cuisine can be part of a healthy weight loss diet.

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