by Marianne Plunkert
Overall rating: 4
Meal Description and Cooking Instructions
As was the case with the banana-nut breakfast muffin that was a breakfast entrée in Week 1, this blueberry muffin came wrapped in cellophane and enclosed in a cardboard box. There were no heating instructions, and no nutritional information was supplied on the packaging. The blueberry muffin was similar in size to the banana-nut muffin, too—about 2 ½ inches in diameter.
The menu plan for the week indicated that I was to add a non-fat dairy product to complete the meal. I elected to add an ounce of reduced-fat cream cheese to my plate. (Low-fat cheese is on the eDiets’ list of permitted dairy products.)
Blueberry Muffin
My General Impressions
Although the “meal” I saw on my plate hardly looked like it would be sufficient to tide me over until lunch, I recalled thinking the same thing about last week’s banana-nut muffin breakfast. Much to my surprise, it had kept me sated until noon. Nevertheless, I was still doubtful that this would do the same, even though the two muffins were about the same size. I’m happy to report it did.
I cut the muffin in half and spread some of my cream cheese on each half. The muffin was moist enough without it and had a good flavor, so the cream cheese merely enhanced the dining experience. It was the “icing on the cake,” so to speak.
Nutritional Content
I had to log on to the eDiets website to find information on the nutritional content of this breakfast entrée since none was supplied on the muffin packaging. I wasn’t overly thrilled with what I discovered.
This rather small muffin has 170 calories, 72 of which are fat calories. That’s over 42%. Even more distressing to me is that it contains 12 grams of sugar—over half of what the American Heart Association recommends as the average daily sugar intake for women—and only 1 gram of fiber. There are 24 grams of total carbs and a measly 3 grams of protein.
It doesn’t offer much in the way of nutrition at all. According to the information I found, it supplies only 2% of the daily average recommended dose of Vitamin C and no other vitamins or minerals.
The blueberries used in making the muffin represent the only fruit component—not close to a serving of that food group. My ounce of cream cheese equals 1 serving of dairy. The meal offers nothing from the vegetable group, and 3 grams of protein aren’t even ¼ of what is considered a serving from that section of the food pyramid.
Food Rating/Quality
The blueberry muffin was moist and flavorful enough, but I can give it only a “4” on a scale of 1 to 5. Like eDiets’ banana-nut muffin, its blueberry muffin is no different from those served at the free continental breakfasts offered by some hotel chains, and I suspect it may be a prepackaged item that eDiets purchases in bulk.
With its high fat and sugar content and almost zilch nutritional value, it is not a breakfast item I will choose to eat again if I can avoid it. And happily, I can, because eDiets does make it easy enough to substitute another entrée for any that don’t strike your fancy.
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