Real Kato Blog: Today's Frozen Meal: Stouffer's Lasagna with Meat and Sauce

I made a mistake buying this. I bought the "large size" portion after looking at the box and seeing "WOW, only 260 calories, and a surprisingly manageable 9 grams of fat!" But after I'd brought it home, I saw the "servings per container: about 3". (The actual number of servings would be 595g / 215g = 2.767, so I'll adjust the nutrition numbers accordingly below.) So no, this isn't some kind of magic diet lasagna. To make up for the mistake, I only ate half the package and gave the rest to my stepson.

Taste: Pretty dang good. I think the lesson to be learned is, fat tastes good. This could be mistaken for a home-cooked lasagna, with the caveat that the tomato sauce did have a slightly Chef-Boyardee-ish flavor. But the noodles were cooked right, the cheese got nice and crusty at the edges, and it was chock full of meaty, tomato-y flavor. And even half the package (297 grams) was a reasonable portion size for lunch. Score: 4.0/5.0

Nutrition: Let's do the math here: there are 2.767 servings in a package, and I ate half the package, so all the numbers have to be multiplied by 1.384. So we get:

calories: 360

calories from fat: 111

fat: 12.5 g

saturated fat: 6 g

cholesterol: 42 mg

sodium: 970 mg

carbohydrates: 39 g

fiber: 5.5 g

sugar: 7 g

protein: 23.5 g

vitamin A: 5%

vitamin C: 5%

calcium: 21%

iron: 8%

So the verdict is: ugh. High in fat, high in saturated fat, high in sodium. Vitamin content is poor. It does have some fiber, and it's low in calories, though, so it scores slightly higher than the Papa John's pizza from before. Score: 1.0/3.0

Packaging: I had to slit the film and cook for a total of fifteen minutes, in two stages. Not exactly convenient. Score: 1.5/2.0

Total Score: 6.5/10.0

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