Thursday, April 14, 2011

Broccoli and cheese... my old friend...

I’m not sure how I feel about this, but I thought I’d ask your opinion.

I saw a commercial over the weekend for Green Giant’s frozen veggies with sauce. The commercial says they’re now endorsed by Weight Watchers and as I look, sure enough, it has the new blue box with the Points Plus values right on the box. Then I noticed how low the "points plus" values were; only 1 or 2 points plus. Hmm. I seem to remember they used to be between 4 and 6 "points" depending on the type of sauce.

Now I’m wondering if this is a good thing or a bad thing?

Sure, the veggie part of the frozen box is zero points plus and so it only make sense that the sauces would only be just a couple of points plus. So I get it. But I wonder if this isn’t encouraging bad eating habits.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love cheese on my broccoli and creamy butter sauce on my green beans and peas, so I’m thrilled that I can now eat these sauces on my veggies. But, most of these sauces are loaded with carbs, in addition to the natural carbs that are in some veggies. Not to mention the fat and sugars and salts that are in these sauces.

I’m just wondering if we’re going down the wrong road with this. Is this creating unhealthy eating habits? Is this encouraging our taste buds to crave the cheese sauces and butter sauces? But is this such a bad thing? I mean, it gets us to eat veggies, right?


I'm torn. Part of me is so happy that I can finally have cheese on my broccoli again, but another part of me is wondering if I start eating cheese sauce, am I gonna want to eat more, or will it fill a void in my diet that I've been denying for years?


What do you guys think?

3 comments:

Unknown said...

If you look at the serving sizes on the packages, it kinda explains why. One box has like 2.5 servings or something like that...even though it's such a small box.

MaryFran said...

I struggle with this one also. My view is that if it's the only way I'm going to eat the broccoli, then the green giant option is ok. :-)

Anonymous said...

Also, I think that it is nearly impossible going through a weight watchers program and denying ourselves of all of our pleasure foods. If we completely deny ourselves of every food that isn't "healthy" we will find ourselves falling back into old habits. This way, we can satisfy our cravings and still stay in our points and get in a few greens!