Looking to get the best culinary experience out of your frozen pizza? That’s not an oxymoron. The smell of tomato sauce and cheese is drifting down the hall from our colleagues at Consumer Reports, who compared the same pizza when cooked in a conventional oven and a microwave oven. Their goal was to figure out the optimal way to cook frozen pizzas for optimal texture and tastiness. [More]
Healthy Choice Lasagna Disappoints Hungry Office Worker
By December 7, 2012
Amanda keeps some frozen meals stashed in her office freezer for emergency healthy lunch options. Her latest Healthy Choice meal isn’t really so “healthy,” and more “icky. Not that she expects her meal to look like the expertly-styled one on the box, but she does expect it to look and taste edible. That’s an unreasonable expectation, as it turns out. [More]
Who Dares Visit A Restaurant Without Reading Online Reviews First?
By August 31, 2012
The best satire is deeply rooted in reality. That’s why an article from this week’s issue of the Onion shook us to the core. “Brave Woman Enters Restaurant Without First Looking It Up Online,” the headline blared. At Consumerist HQ, we asked each other: is there really anyone out there who is so bold and reckless that they would do such a thing? [More]
The Tasty Lies Behind Your Favorite Convenience Foods
By December 29, 2011
There are a number of criticisms you can make about frozen meals and chain takeout: poor nutrition, factory farming, and wasteful packaging. Most Americans don’t care about that, though. What they want to know is: does this meal look anything like the photo on the package? Does it taste like beef-flavored cardboard? Is the portion big enough to keep me from running to the break room vending machine by 3:00? For them, the convenience food blog Tasty Lies exists. [More]
Salt Can Shell Your Nuts, Clean Your Hands
By August 17, 2010
If anyone’s going to stand up for salt, it’s gonna be the Salt Institute. Yahoo Shine’s Green blog sifts through the organization’s 14,000 uses for sodium chloride and comes up with 46 of its favorites. Here are a few salt uses from that list you may never have considered: [More]
Taste Tests Show Frozen Diet Meals Now Shockingly Edible
By February 17, 2010
Our colleagues at Consumer Reports taste-tested frozen diet meals recently, finding them not just refreshingly frog-free, but surprisingly tasty! [More]
Our Long National Nightmare Is Over: Heinz Redesigns Ketchup Packet
By February 5, 2010
Your suffering may finally be over, fast food fiends. No more awkwardly torn ketchup packets and tomato-soaked fingers. No more dipping your fries into a dollop of ketchup on a napkin or burger wrapper. NO. Heinz has introduced the ketchup packet 2.0, and the future looks…well, remarkably like the containers of McNugget dipping sauces McDonald’s has been using since the ’80s. But it’s still an improvement. [More]
FDA: Glow In The Dark Shrimp "Not A Food Safety Issue"
By November 3, 2007
Seattle shoppers want to know why the FDA won’t investigate bioluminescent shrimp appearing at local Thriftways and Quality Food Centers.
