by Marianne Plunkert
Overall rating: 4/5
Meal Description and Cooking Instructions
Breakfast on Day 5 consisted of a smallish (2 ½”) banana-nut muffin. I was to provide a non-fat dairy product to supplement the entree. The muffin was wrapped in cellophane and came enclosed in a cardboard box. There were no heating instructions or nutritional information on any of the packaging.
I decided to spread some reduced-fat cream cheese on the muffin, which served as my non-fat dairy product. It didn’t make for a very substantial looking meal, but at this point, I was tired of plain yogurt; I don’t like cottage cheese—even the full-flavored variety–and I can only handle nonfat milk when poured over a bowl of cereal. Since low-fat cheese is one of eDiets suggested “non-fat” dairy items, the reduced-fat cream cheese seemed like it would fit the bill.
Banana-Nut Muffin
My General Impressions
I honestly didn’t think the food I viewed on the plate before me would tide me over until lunch. And I prefer saving my daily snack item for the evening, so I was a bit concerned. I decided I had better plan on drinking a lot of water in between meals in hopes of staving off hunger.
Since no heating instructions had been included, I opted to eat the muffin cold. I cut it in half and generously spread the ounce of cream cheese on both portions. The muffin was small, so there was some cream cheese left over.
The muffin itself tasted moist and fresh, even without the cream cheese, and it had a nice flavor, but it wasn’t discernibly different from muffins I’ve tasted that have been served as part of a hotel’s free continental breakfast.
Nutritional Content
Since there was no nutritional content provided on the muffin packaging, I decided to see if I could locate any on the website. I was able to discover that this little breakfast morsel is very high in fat—90 of its total 200 calories, or 45%, were fat calories.
It doesn’t pack a lot of nutritional value, either. It contains only 3 grams of protein and 1 gram of fiber. Total carbs are 26 grams, and the sugar content is 13 grams. The muffin does provide 2% of the daily recommended dose of Vitamin C.
I could find no list of ingredients and no other nutritional information.
Food Rating/Quality
Although the banana-nut muffin tasted good enough, I can only justify giving it a rating of “4” on a scale of 1 to 5. As I mentioned previously, it tasted no different from muffins I’ve been served with a free continental breakfast, and I suspect it is a prepackaged item that can be purchased in bulk. I doubt it is freshly made, but I may be wrong, and, regardless, it tasted fresh enough—albeit not right-out-of-the-oven fresh, of course.
With its high fat content and scant nutritional value, it is not a breakfast item I would choose to eat again if left to my own devices. That said, I was surprised to discover that, skimpy as the meal was, I wasn’t hungry again until lunch.
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