Homework, studying and part time jobs leave the average student tired, cranky, and most of all, hungry. Keeping in mind a student's tight budget and limited time, my advertising team and I, compared frozen and fresh meals based on taste, price, health, and convenience in the hopes of answering the age old question,
“What should I make for dinner?”
To answer this question, our team of experts Jordan Johanson, Alexa Lacroix, James Hawboldt, Sandy Klowak, and myself knew what had to be done. Blind taste test.
We bought our two frozen meals, as well as all our fresh ingredients at Real Canadian Superstore. Deciding what meals we would make was tough, but we decided on two pasta based dishes, chicken alfredo and vegetable lasagna. Our frozen entrees,
Stouffer's Skillet Sensations Chicken Alfredo and
Bassili's Best 6 Vegetable Lasagna were chosen because they were the cheapest options, with the Heart and Stroke Foundation's Health Check.
We chose our home-made recipes by comparing the ingredients in the frozen entree's to similar on-line recipe's. After much searching, we decided on these two:
Chicken alfredo
Vegetable Lasagna
Results
After holding an illicit taste test in the Atrium of Red River College's Princess St. Campus, and narrowly avoiding being sternly told to get off campus by security, the results were in.
Veggie Lasagna
Total Votes: 55
Preferred Frozen: 13 votes, 24%
Preferred Fresh: 42 votes, 76%
Chicken Alfredo
Total Votes: 49
Preferred Frozen: 26 votes,53%
Preferred Fresh: 23 votes, 47%
STUDENT FOOD PRIORITIES SURVEY
While taking our blind taste test, 80 students also ranked taste, price, health and convenience from one to four on what is most important to them when shopping for meals.
Based on the students’ number one preferences, the categories were ranked from most important to least, as follows:
1. Taste
2. Price
3. Health
4. Convenience
Taste
In our comparison between fresh and frozen foods, one of the key factors was taste. We compared the taste of a frozen chicken alfredo, and a frozen vegetable lasagna, to their fresh counterparts. As five average college students, we prepared the fresh meals ourselves.
Our taste-test results came out as expected for the vegetable lasagna, with the fresh beating out the frozen with a whopping 76 per cent preferring it over the frozen. However, our results for the chicken alfredo were much closer, with frozen beating out fresh with only 53 per cent of the vote, which was a surprise. We concluded that preference for fresh or frozen varies on personal taste and cooking ability. We also felt that the meals we made would not come out as well with one person cooking them instead of five.
My over-all recommendation for taste:
Fresh
Price
One of the main reasons that students choose frozen over fresh is the cheap price. In our survey, price was voted the second most important factor when buying food, at 30 per cent, and was generally considered more important than either health or convenience, though not as important as taste. We were surprised that price wasn't first.
The cost of an eight-serving meal of Bassili’s Best 6 Vegetable Lasagna was $11.98. It was over twice as much, at roughly $24.30, when made from scratch. The cost of the chicken alfredos were much closer: our fresh recipe for chicken alfredo, which yields four generous servings, cost roughly $19.02, while the equivalent amount of Stouffer’s Skillet Sensations Chicken Alfredo was $17.91 ($5.99 per package).
An interesting discovery from our blind taste test was that the closer in price the fresh and frozen dishes were, the less preference there was. In our lasagna dish, the much more expensive home-made version was preferred by 76 per cent of voters. For the similarly priced chicken alfredo dishes, the votes were almost evenly split, with frozen getting 53 per cent of all votes.
My over-all recommendation for price:
Frozen
Health
Both of our frozen entree's boasted the Heart and Stroke Foundation's Health Check logos. According to healthcheck.org, this logo certifies that the product contributes to an overall healthy diet based on Canada's Food Guide, according to the Heart and Stroke Foundation's registered dietitians. However both products contained potentially harmful chemicals and additives.
A surprise for us was Stouffer's Skillet Sensations Chicken Alfredo contains the additive phosphoric acid. Used as an antioxidant or flavor additive in food, the Australian government's National Pollutant Inventory (npi.gov.au) has scored this substance a 1.2 (harmful to health) on a health hazard spectrum of 0-3. While this is a fairly low level on the spectrum, it still carries some toxic and potentially cancer-causing properties.
One benefit to cooking fresh food is having control over what goes into your meal. You can choose a higher fat and sodium recipe, or a healthier alternative-- it's in your hands. Our home-made lasagna contained several types of cheeses, including part-skim ricotta, asiago, and mozzarella. Our home-made chicken alfredo contained a sauce with whipping cream and mozzarella cheese. Both recipes were high in fat, but low-fat ingredients could be substituted for the rich, high-fat ones. When cooking from scratch, you can also choose organic or home-grown veggies, thus keeping tabs on what chemicals you may or may not be consuming.
My over-all recommendation for health:
Fresh
Convenience
According to the packages, our frozen chicken alfredo takes 10-12 minutes to prepare by stove, and 10-11 minutes in the microwave, while our frozen lasagna takes 65-75 minutes in an oven and 21-25 minutes by microwave.
Cooking from scratch clearly takes much longer. Including preparation and cooking time, the lasagna would take roughly 105 minutes, and the chicken alfredo would take about 45 minutes. The alfredo requires less preparation work but requires more attention than the lasagna while cooking, making it less convenient, though still simple to make.
My over-all recommendation for convenience:
Frozen
Conclusion
Personal preference, and life style are the factors that decide whether fresh or frozen is right for you, but after buying, preparing, researching and eating both, I am choosing fresh.
