Lucerne Eating Right Frozen Dinner – Nutritious, but Not Tasty

It was a beautiful summer day today. The kids are out from school and we spent a nice afternoon in the pool and enjoying the sunshine. Not in the mood to cook and heat up the house, we decided to purchase something quick from the store for dinner. I spied the Lucerne Eating Right Microwaveable meals in my grocery store’s freezer section. Anyone who shops at a Safeway or Genuardi’s is familiar with the Lucerne brand name. Usually of high quality and very comparable to brand name products, I decided to take a chance and purchased four of the Lucerne Eating Right microwaveable dinners.

The selling points behind the Lucerne Eating Right brand are that they are low calorie, low fat and high in protein. They may be low calorie and low in fat, but they are also low in flavor. I chose the Lucerne Eating Right Cheese Ravioli dinner.

Preparation was simple enough. Remove from outside box, pierce film several times to vent and microwave on high four to five minutes to heat. I followed the instructions and waited for the microwave to make it’s familiar sound. When the five minutes were over, I removed the tray and peeled back the plastic cover. I put my fork in the tray and moved the cheese raviolis around the sauce. There were six small raviolis in the tray with a pinch of mozzarella cheese on them. The package describes the contents as ravioli in a red sauce. Well, the sauce was red alright. The consistency was more like soup than sauce. The taste was quite odd as well. There was little flavor throughout, although I did get a hint of pepper on the third or fourth bite. It was a strange surprise since I mixed the sauce thoroughly before starting to eat. There was very little ricotta cheese in each ravioli, so it was basically eating the dough without the cheese. Overall, I was extremely disappointed and hungry when I finished my Lucerne Eating Right Cheese Ravioli dinner.

My husband chose a Mediterranean Chicken dinner and my daughters both at the Lucerne Eating Right Macaroni and Cheese meal. My husband was not quite as disenchanted with his choice as I was with mine. My daughters both said their macaroni and cheese was “good,” when they were finished. It is not difficult to please them, however, when macaroni and cheese are involved.

The positive aspects of the Lucerne Eating Right microwaveable meals is that they do supply nutritional value without excessive calories. My meal was two hundred and eighty calories, with eight grams of fat and zero grams of Trans Fat. By consuming this product I received twenty percent of the daily recommended intake of Vitamin A, fifteen percent of Vitamin C and twenty percent of Calcium. I still would not purchase the Lucerne Eating Right microwaveable meals again.

We do not purchase microwave dinners often, but the next time we do, I will choose Healthy Choice or another brand for a quick, no fuss dinner. The Lucerne Eating Right brand gets a big thumbs down from me.