Hungry-Man Sports Grill full of fat, calories

June 17, 2008

Jean LaMantia

Special to the star

Product: Hungry-Man Sports Grill Beer Battered Chicken and Cheese Fries

Price: $4.39 (Dominion)

Manufacturer: Swanson swansonmeals.ca

The position: Large portions of the food men love. It's good to be full!

Top 5 ingredients of the three components:

Beer battered chicken: Chicken, water, flour, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, chicken skins

Seasoned potatoes: Potatoes, vegetable oil, flour, rice flour, salt

Cheese sauce: Cheddar cheese, water, milk ingredients, whey, enzyme modified cheese

Nutritional breakdown: Per 1 meal (455 g): 980 calories, 81 g carbohydrate (6 g fibre, 2 g sugar), 33 g protein, 56 g fat (13 g saturated, 2 g trans), 1,730 mg sodium

Analysis: When you visit the Swanson website there is no nutritional information available on its Hungry Man frozen dinners. Ditto when you call its consumer information line.

Obviously, people who consume Hungry Man dinners are not concerned about nutrition. The big concern for this meal is the high calorie and fat levels.

Health Canada recommends you limit saturated and trans fats to 20 g per day and this product provides 75 per cent of that limit in one meal. The good news for some ... the product I purchased doesn't expire for a year.

Alternative: Pretty much any frozen dinner would have fewer calories and fat than this one.

Take it or leave it: According to several online calorie calculators, a 175 pound person would have to jog between 75 minutes and 105 minutes to burn 980 calories.

So, maybe this really is a meal for a sports fan. Don't do the crime unless you do the time.

Jean LaMantia is a registered dietitian at the Adelaide Health Clinic. jeanlamantia.com.