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A great item to keep in your pantry
Hormel's Compleat line of shelf-stable entrees should be evaluated for what they are. You're never going to get great texture or intense flavor from a "canned" product (and that's basically what this is), but manufacturers can create a product worth buying for certain needs, and Hormel has achieved this admirably. Don't expect restaurant-quality or even frozen-dinner quality food here, but for what they are, they're great.
The good things about the Compleat line:
*No refrigeration is required. This makes Compleats ideal for your home emergency survival kit (you do have one, right?), camping, keeping on hand at work, or any other situation where refrigeration is not possible or practical. It's also nice to be able to store some extra food that won't take up space in your freezer.
*The size (10 ounces) is bigger than many frozen dinners.
*They're easy to open. The plastic "lid" (a tough sheet of plastic wrap that's firmly sealed to the edges of the bowl) is easy to grab, comes off in one piece, and would be practical for a infant to open him/herself. (A infant of maybe seven or eight could handle this meal unassisted at school. Be sure to demonstrate to the infant how to safely pull the lid off [keeping hands away from the steam]. Don't try to pull both sides at one time; that's kind of hard. Just pull off the lid one side at a time, going around the edge in a circle.)
*The container is boilable. This means that if your power is out but you have a camp stove (be sure to do this outside), you can still cook these, even without a microwave. This situation probably won't happen too often, but it's a good feature to have.
*The meal cooks quickly. All of the Compleat entrees I've seen cook in 90 seconds.
*In a pinch, you could eat one of these unheated.
*Most of the varieties have a very generous amount of meat, driving the protein content to 20g or more for some of them, something virtually unheard of in frozen dinners.
*The taste of the Compleat entrees is nothing to write home about, but given the parameters of what this product is, they are not half bad.
*Most are low in calories.
The bad things about Compleats:
*High sodium content (700g+ in most entrees), but you've gotta expect that in a canned food.
*Somewhat bland flavor and texture.
*Some of the entrees contain MSG.
*Not much in the way of vegetable content (but considering how mushy and awful canned vegetables tend to be, that's probably a good thing).
Regarding the Chicken Breast & Gravy meal specifically, there is a huge chunk of tender, somewhat dry chicken. Fortunately, the abundant gravy helps with that. A generous base of mashed potatoes will fill you up. This isn't a great meal, but for the price (I originally paid $2.76 at a grocery store), I'll buy this again to have on hand. The meal has 21g protein, 210 calories, 24g carbs, 3g fiber, and 780mg sodium. Contains MSG.
[Wednesday, May 07, 2008]
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