As well as failing to post for a month I have come to confess that this week I have been eating ready meals instead of home cooking. In a bid to beat the post-Christmas bulge we have been eating Tesco Light Choices Ready meals which do claim to be healthy.
Looking back at my meals for the last week I can see that the calorie content is indeed low and I have been making sure to eat breakfast but as expected the salt and fat content can still be quite high considering the portion size.
Tonight's meal is a pasta bake, looks smells and tastes yummy so full marks there.
Is it really a healthy meal? I like to look at daily allowances here rather than grams and in theory I believe that a meals which uses 23% of your daily calorie allowance should ideally be similar for fats and salts etc. this meals actually only accounts for 15% of your allowance of fat but as most of it seems to be saturates (34% of allowance) may not be as good as you think at first glance. It also contains 2.2g of Salt which is 37% of your daily allowance.
Chicken Tikka Masala and Rice
Last week I also had a Chicken Tikka and Rice and I have to say I was very impressed with the nutritional values. At 459 Calories with 11% of your daily allowance of Fat (only 13% GDA for saturates) and 1.4g of Salt this has to be one of the healthier meals available.
Very impressive for a curry and it also tasted like a nice curry and wasn't swimming in oil!
The healthiest meal we had all week has to be the chicken breasts in tomato and basil sauce. At 150 calories per breast and less than 5% of your GDA for fat & saturates this lived up to its light choices branding.
The pack itself isn't a full meal like the others but is definitely the main event. I served these with half a baked potato and salad.
Still to try is the Chicken and Broccoli Pie, 33% GDA of salt but otherwise good, and the Braised Beef with Mash, again the salt GDA was above the the calorie GDA but good on the fats. So far All of the meals have been tasty and I understand that removing salt can result in a quite flavourless meal.
So "Yes" you will lose weight eating light choices meals when paired with healthy breakfasts and a good lunch, just be aware of salt and saturated fats!
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