Alright, you want an article? What better article to give you than a FOOD article!
Today, we will be comparing two frozen TV dinners. One is made by Swanson, the other is Banquet, both are fried chicken meals.
SWANSON Fried Chicken contains:
2 Fried Chicken 'nuggets'
1 serving of mashed potatoes
1 serving of corn
1 'Duncan Heines' brownie.
Time needed in the microwave: 4:00
BANQUET Fried Chicken contains:
1 Fried Chicken breast
1 serving of mashed potatoes
1 serving of corn
Time needed in the microwave: 4:30
That sounds like a decent meal in a reasonable amount of time, right? But what about the cost?
The Swanson is $2.99 and you get 280 grams of product, and the Banquet is $2.19 and gives you 255 grams.
That's a considerable difference, for about the same amount of food. Is one brownie worth 80 cents?
Another thing you may want to consider is the toll these meals will take on your body,
While the banquet manages to serve up 490 calories and 29 grams of fat, the Swanson will really get you with 730 calories and 23 grams of fat.
Now, the most important bit of all this isn't the cost, or the nutritional value; it's the taste.
The chicken in the Swanson is a breaded fried chicken, with no bones, and no skin, and the meat is all white. It's likely a processed meat, and it tastes like something you would get at Kentucky Fried Chicken or Dixie Lee. The potatoes and corn are standard fare, and while they're nothing special, they help complete the meal. The included brownie is also quite good, and it's just the right size. The Banquet comes with a proper fried chicken, bones, skin and all. There actually seemed to be more bone and skin on this chicken than meat, but the meat that was there didn't taste too bad. The corn, like with the Swanson meal is standard fare, but the potatoes leave much to be desired. The 4:30 they spent in the microwave didn't get them warm enough to be cooked, much less edible, and even after they had been in for an extra minute, there wasn't much of an improvement. The flavour of these potatoes is just wretched, much too sweet and tangy. The texture didn't help either, having a bite felt like eating a watered-down snot-and-gruel paste; potatoes should not have those qualities.
So here's the skinny:
SWANSON Pros:
-Chicken tastes good
-Includes an extra brownie
SWANSON Cons:
-Cost; $2.99
-A lot of calories
BANQUET Pros:
-Chicken isn't processed
-Cost; $2.19
BANQUET Cons:
-TERRIBLE potatoes
-Chicken contains more bones and skin than meat
-No brownie included
-A lot of calories, but not as much as the Swanson
So which should you get?
Neither.
If you need to have a quick meal, I recommend these two items:
