In MrConsumer’s mind, Stouffer’s is a respected name brand of frozen food. So it came as a big surprise when he learned that some of their meals like roast turkey, salisbury steak, and meatloaf all had the same first ingredient. How can that be?
Can you guess the first ingredient of all these meals?
*MOUSE PRINT:
How is that possible? We asked the company for an explanation, but they never responded.
So maybe the company should rename those products to various varieties of meat-flavored water:
Happy holidays. The next new Mouse Print* story will be published on Monday, January 5th.
They have some nerve calling it “Classic Meatloaf.” I’ve never seen a meatloaf receipe that requires adding water, or indeed many/most of the items on the ingredient list.
My uninformed assumption is that they’re merely infusing as much water as possible into the raw ingredients to pump up the net weight. Perhaps the fake-meat vehicle textured soy flour absorbs significant water (it “increases water binding” according to Archer-Daniels-Midland).
It should be called, “Classic Marketing”
As my former boss in a food manufacturing plant said about removing moisture from the product: “Don’t remove too much moisture; water is cheaper than (the product).”
It does seem odd, and off-putting, to have water listed first in a (ostensibly) solid food product. It also has me wondering what the measures are for the ranking of listed ingredients. The ingredients take many forms, which I guess are measured differently–water is obviously heavier than powders, salts, etc. It would be interesting to know a bit more.
For what it’s worth, Amy’s Mexican Casserole, which I tend to think is a relatively decent frozen food, also lists water first. Maybe Stouffer’s isn’t an outlier.
My thought would be water is required to make gravy and dressing, cook pasta & potatoes etc.
I’m a little more concerned with what comes after the skim milk in the meatloaf. đŸ˜›
Oats, probably just another ingredient to soak up the water and add weight.
I got three frozen dinners sitting in my freezer, guess what! Healthy Choice Beef & Broccoli showed water as the second ingredient, Lean Cuisine showed under turkey that water was the second ingredient, but Rao’s Meat Lasagna did havewater about the tenth ingredient!
I thought for sure it was going to be sugar, but I guess water is so much cheaper.
Their macaroni & cheese isn’t even super cheesy anymore! I quit buying it. It’s EXPENSIVE now too!
I find it amusing that the meatloaf lists catsup instead of ketchup.
Oh, bartender, I’ll have a meatloaf water and vodka, with a twist. Make that a double.
LOL??
No surprise her. If at least they would indicate the % of the main ingredients as they did for onions….in the first example. Industrialized foods are the worst of the worst and expensive. If you can go back to home coking ( and freezing, if necessary) everyone in America would be healthier…
Shop around the perimeter – stay out of the aisles…
Stouffers used to make the very best frozen entrées, until they were bought by Nestle. Since then, they have changed the Lasagna ingredients 3-4 times in an attempt to save a few pennies. You can tell when they make a change, even when the ingredients list looks the same, as the cooking times are different.