Marie Callender’s Chicken Pot Pie: Made From Scratch?
I grew up eating frozen Chicken Pot Pie. As a child of a working mom in the 70s and 80s, Swanson Chicken Pot Pies were one of her go-to solutions for getting a meal on the table after a long day of work. While I’m not exactly sure what was in those Swanson Chicken Pot […]
Quaker Breakfast Flats … A Healthy Breakfast or a Breakfast Cookie?
Breakfast can be one of the hardest meals of the day, especially if you’re not a morning person. Yes, that “not a morning person” comment needs a big arrow pointing at me. 🙂 So marketing healthy, convenient breakfast foods is literally a goldmine for food companies. But are most of these products really healthy? Let’s take a […]
Winning at All Costs. The Problem with Taste Tests
Many people think that choosing a taste test winning brand makes a lot of sense. After all, don’t we all want better tasting food? But after learning what it takes to be crowned a winner, you may want to think twice before choosing foods that have “won” a taste test. Why are taste tests so popular in the […]
Leggo My Eggo?
Leggo My Eggo! I think more than any other commercial of my youth, those three little words were burned into my memory. Why? I’m not exactly sure. Perhaps it’s that two of the three words are totally made up. Or maybe it’s because the ad’s underlying premise of a father taking food from his son caught my attention. […]
Is Organic Food Better For You?
Organic foods are growing like gangbusters, but are they really better for you? Is organic worth the higher cost? There are certainly plenty of opinions on both sides of this debate. In fact, people can get pretty vocal on this topic with responses ranging from some swearing by organic to others calling it a huge […]
Are Muffins Healthy?
Muffins and I go way back. When I was just a little kid my mom would take us shopping and for lunch at our local department store, Jordan Marsh. To be honest I don’t remember much more except for the amazing, Jordan Marsh blueberry muffins you could get with your meal. They were so good mom sometimes would buy […]
A REAL Whole Grains Guide and How to Cook 8 Great Grains
In a recent post, I touched upon the benefits of REAL whole grains over their processed counterparts and shared a recipe for batch-cooking brown rice to help streamline meal prep. Today I thought I’d dig a little deeper into the world of whole grains, expanding beyond basic brown rice and sharing Part One of my REAL Whole Grains Guide. Understanding whole grains […]
What’s In Your Biscuit?
It’s probably not that surprising that biscuits aren’t the healthiest food around. Even traditional, homemade recipes feature white flour and plenty of fat—sometimes even fake fats like shortening. But what happens when you mix Big Food and a big biscuit? Unfortunately it’s a real dietary disaster! And while food companies continue to try to market their biscuits as “fresh” or “homemade,” […]
Red Velvet: The Latest Fashion Trend in Food
I discovered red velvet cake many years ago when I lived in the South. As a displaced yankee living in North Carolina I looked on with horror when it was served and couldn’t help but ask, “what makes this cake so red?” … only to be further stunned by the nonchalant reply, “a bottle of red food coloring.” Even […]
The Evolution of Cheese: Real Progress or Profits At All Cost?
“What is cheese?” Seems like a pretty easy question, right? Unfortunately it may be much more difficult to answer than you might think since over the years a lot of changes have happened to what’s called cheese. Although the exact origins of cheese are unknown, the process is believed to date back more than 4,000 years ago. Like […]
Frozen Sauced Vegetables: Friend or Foe?
When I worked at General Mills I had the chance to do some channel marketing for the Green Giant brand. This involved coming up with retailer-specific plans for how to grow the brand at customers like Wal-Mart or Costco. What always amazed me, though, was how the ingredient label of even vegetables could be so complicated! Although […]
The Top 17 Health Claims Big Food Uses To Keep You Buying More and More
It’s Weight Loss Season (again)! If you’ve watched any TV the past couple weeks you’ve seen it happen before your eyes! The ads for diet plans and diet aids are streaming before us. And after months of pushing indulgence the food industry is now promoting health … or at least its version of health. As […]