by Marianne Plunkert
Overall rating: 3.5/5
Meal Description and Cooking Instructions
The breakfast entrée for Day 4 looked enticing when I peeled back the film on the plastic container. A thin slice of Canadian bacon and a half slice of pumpernickle bread lay atop a mound of scrambled eggs (whites only) and about 1/8 cup of diced sweet potatoes laced with onion.
The instructions said to remove the bread, microwave the remaining items on high for 20 to 30 seconds, and assemble the sandwich. As I was building the sandwich, however, I noticed that both the egg mound and the potatoes were still cold, so I nuked them for another 15 seconds. When they still seemed fairly cold to the touch, I heated them for another 30 seconds.
The Canadian bacon and cheese were more than enough for the half slice of bread to handle, so I left the potatoes as a side dish, along with a bowl of plain, low-fat yogurt–my choice for the meal’s dieter-supplied non-fat dairy product.
Canadian Bacon and Egg Sandwich
My General Impressions
The plate before me looked very attractive, and I was eager to dig in. Unfortunately, this was a case of “looks can be deceiving;” this time in a bad way.
The pumpernickel bread was moist and tasted fresh. So did the Canadian bacon, but the egg mound was still cold when I cut into it. And even with some sautéed onions I spied among the the sweet potato morsels, that dish was flavorless, and I’m normally a sweet potato lover.
Nutritional Content
Only 25 of the total 170 calories in this entrée are from fat. The meal also provides 17grams of protein. Both the sugar and fiber content are relatively low at 2 grams each, and total carbohydrates are 19 grams.
It is extremely high in Vitamin A, supplying 70% of the recommended daily average intake. It contains much lower percentages of Vitamin C and iron (2% each) and calcium (4%).
The non-fat yogurt that I provided as an accompaniment to the meal, along with milk that was used in the preparation of the entrée, provided me with more than one serving of dairy. The sweet potato/onion side dish offered a serving from the vegetable section of the food pyramid, but the meal contained no fruits.
Food Rating/Quality
This is one of two of the worst eDiets meals I’ve consumed thus far. Still, I am giving it a 3.5 out of 5 rating, which is higher than I’ve rated some other diet meals I’ve reviewed—more specifically, meals supplied by Diet-to-Go and BistroMD .
Perhaps the fact that the meal contains less than 15% fat—25 calories out of a total of 170—might be considered a redeeming quality by some, but I’m not among those people. I’ve tasted enough diet-type foods to know that a meal can be both low-fat and delicious. Just read some of my other entries in this eDiets review if you don’t believe me.
Although microwave times do vary, as mentioned in the heating instructions on every package of eDiets food, the egg dish was still cold in the middle after I had cooked the eggs and potatoes twice as long as the instructions recommended. And, unfortunately, the egg mound was appropriately warm on the outside when I finally constructed the sandwich, but it remained cold in the middle—which is unacceptable.
The sweet potato dish only bore a faint resemblance to sweet potatoes in my mind, although I will credit the fact that the potatoes were cooked to a good texture. The bread and Canadian bacon were, however, moist and fresh-tasting, and the meal looked quite appealing to the eye.
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