NutritionDoc

The American Heart Association recommends that we eat fish at least 2 times a week. If you are trying to heed that advice, there are only so many tuna sandwiches you can eat and then you really need to go to the grocery store. Supermarket freezer cases are stocked with surprisingly good prepared seafood.  Here are a few suggestions.

 

Crab Feast:

Phillips Seafood Restaurants don't deliver. But every bite of their packaged Crab & Shrimp Cakes brings you closer to one of their popular mid Atlantic restaurants.

Each cake has only 1 1/2 grams of sat fat and 310 mg of sodium, though the delicate mix of crab and shrimp and the mild Cajun seasoning make it a challenge to stop at just one. The subtle but rich flavor calls for simple sides: serve with mixed greens, oven roasted sweet or white potatoes, and fresh asparagus spears ( steamed and tossed with a touch of light soy sauce, olive oil, and red pepper flakes).

Trader Joe's Maryland Style Crab Cakes are shrimp free, so the flavor of crab shines through. Both brands can go directly from freezer to oven . . . and neighter requires you to tip the waiter.

 

Fish:

Never quite sure how to cook fish just right: how to stay between raw and rubbery? If you can take plastic wrap off a package and turn on an oven, I have an answer for you.

Morey's offers fresh salmon seasoned with marinades like Teriyaki, Twelve Pepper Medley, Garlic Cracked Pepper, Hickory, Lemon Dill, and Seasoned Grill. Each comes in its own baking tray that can go right from the fridge to the oven. Some 15 minutes later, the pop-up timer lets you know that the fish is done. Morey's does not overdo the salt ( around 150 mg per serving). And, thanks to its vacuum packaging, you can buy fresh fish today for dinner next week.

If you can't find Morey's or prefer wild salmon ( Morey's is farm raised in Chile), try Gorton's Classic Grilled Salmon. Unlike Morey's, the frozen fillets are not restaurant quality, but they beat most other frozen fish ( much of it unexciting pollock) hands down. Exception: Trader Joe's Marinated Ahi Tuna Steaks tast like they were dished up by your favorite seafood establishment.

If Gorton's perfectly shaped fish rectangles do not look appetizing, crumble them up and serve over pasta (with sauteed onions, mushrooms,zucchini, and garlic). Or slice them into strips to wake up a Caesar or spinach salad.

 

Tempura:

You do not need to take off your shoes and sit on floor mats to eat Tiger Thai Tempura Shrimp. Even at your dining room table, you would swear you were in a Japanese restaurant. Ditto for Trader Joe's tempura shrimp, with its crisp, light crust.

But there is a catch. You can not just glance at the Nutrition Facts label and dig in. First you have to adjust the numbers to a typical 4 oz. serving ( about 4 shrimp). rather than Tiger's 1 oz. single shrimp or Trader Joe's 3 oz. 3 shrimp serving. then you have to find the numbers for the salty soy dipping sauce, which appear elsewhere on the labels.

Both brands taste great without any sauce.

Of course, you can not really appreciate Tiger's and Trader Joe's numbers unless you have seen a box of Gorton's Popcorn Shrimp. The Company's Web site may highlight the shrimp's 0 grams of trans fat, but each serving still spackles your arteries with some 4 grams of sat fat and 600 - 900 mg of sodium.

 

Fish Sticks:

If the only seafood you ate as a child was fish sticks, you know how breaded pollock tastes - pretty much like the breading.

At least some companies, like Gorton's, no longer fry in partially hydrogenated oils, so their breading is free of trans fat. Old warhorses Mrs. Paul's and Van de Kamp's announce that they are removing the trans.

Natural Sea Premium Cod Fillets lead the pack with a (mostly) whole wheat breading cooked in (trans free) canola oil. The breading cooks up nice and crispy, yet is light enough to let the cod's delicate flavor through.

 

 

Many frozen pies and cheesecakes from Mrs. Smith's, Sara Lee, Marie Callender's, and other companies still have trans fat. But when it comes to bad fat, Edwards Chocolate Cheesecake takes the you-know-what.

According to the big print, it's a "Velvety Smooth Cheesecake in a Chocolate Cookie Crust Made with Hershey's. But the small print reveals a mixture of sugar, cream cheese, partially hydrogenated vegetable shortening and water, flour, milk, cocoa, margarine (made of partially hydrogenated oil) and a couple of dozen gums, flavorings, and preservatives.

If that does not dampen your appetite, how do 510 calories, 7 grams of trans fat, and 13 grams of sat fat per slice sound? Maybe like a full day's worth of bad fat in a fifth of a pie?

But trans-free pies and cakes can also be heart hazards. Wholly Healthy New York Style Cheesecake has no trans, but each slice is teeming with 14 grams of sat fat, thanks to butter in the crumb crust and cream cheese, sour cream, and cream in the filling. Mrs. Smith's fruit pies have no trans either, but they still deliver some 7 grams of sat fat per slice.

Solution for pie lovers: MAKE YOUR OWN.

"0 g Trans Fat!" says the label of Nestle Crunch Ice Cream Bars. Sounds like zero threat to the arteries, no? NO!

Each bar has 11 grams (half a day's worth) of sat. fat. To avoid tricking consumers who might assume that any trans-free food is good for their hearts, the Food and Drug Administration considered placing limits on the sat fat in products that make "trans-free" claims.

Thanks in part to industry opposition, the agency never reached a decision. So "trans-free" is illegal on food labels until the FDA defines the claim.

But "0 grams trans fat" is perfectly fine, say the feds. Talk about loopholes.

It is not just Nestle Crunch. You will find "0 grams trans!" claims on dozens of foods that are not low in sat fat, like Mrs. Smith's Apple Pie (7 gms of sat), Mrs. Paul's Crunchy Fish Fillets (5 gms), Nestle Toll House Chcolate Chip Cookie Dough (3 gms) and Land O'Lakes Margarine (3 gm).

Another FDA bunder: if the label says "0 grams trans", a serving of the food may have as much as 0.49 grams of trans fat, which is NOT trivial.

"Pepperidge Farm Roasted Turkey Premium Pot Pie brings an entirely new level of suberb flavor and texture to one of America's favorite classics," says the label, which boasts about the "large chunks of roasted white meat turkey and generous amounts of carrots, corn, peas and celery, in rich, smooth gravy all inside a flaky crust that bakes to golden perfection . . ."

Not a word about the partially hydrogenated vegetable shortening and the 9 grams of trans fat, 10 grams of sat fat, and 890 mg of sodium in each 500 calorie serving . . . half a pie.

Instead of trans-laden shortening, Amy's pot pies contain butter and Boston Market's and Stouffer's rely on lard. So with or without trans fat, most pot pies are good for little more than obstructing the arteries that run beneath your pot belly.

It looks so harmless. Celeste frozen Vegetable Pizza for One is a mere 7 inches across - smaller than a Frisbee. While you would expect some sat fat ( and no trans fat) from the cheese, this pizza, with its green and red peppers, mushrooms, onions, and olives ought to be better than most.

But 4 1/2 grams of sat fat plus 4 1/2 grams of trans ( half a day's bad fat) in each 6 oz, 380 calorie, single serve pizza? That is bad enough, even without the 1060 mg of sodium - two - thirds of a day's max.

In contrast, Lean Cuisine Roasted Vegetable Pizza, which weights the same and also serves one, goes easy on the cheese, so it ends up with no trans and just 1 1/2 grams of sat fat.

On other pizzas, zero trans may not mean zero damgage. A 6 oz serving of trans-free DiGiorno Rising Crust Vegetable Pizza, for example, contains 5 grams of sat fat - a quarter of a day's worth.

Where does Celeste get all of its trans fat? Some comes from the partially hydrogenated vegetable oil in the crust, but most is tucked into the "low moisture part skim mozzarella cheese substitute" which consists largely of water, casein ( a milk protein) and partially hydrogenated soybean oil.

Sounds like Vegetable Pizza for NO one.

Plain old pop corn is high in fiber and low in calories, fat, and salt. So what makes Pop Secret Movie Theater Butter microwave popcorn so bad?

Pop Secret adds enough partially hydrogentated soybean oil ( to its natural and artificial butter flavor) to supply 6 grams of trans fat (and 4 grams of sat fat) to each 6 cup "snack size" bag.

Why so much? Companies say that they need a solid (saturated or partially hydrogenated) fat, because an unsaturated one ( like ordinary canola oil) would seep thru the bags as they sit on the grocery store shelf.

In other words, if the trans fat does not get you, the sat fat will. Newman's Own Pop's Corn may have zero trans, but its palm kernel oil gives each 6 cup serving 8 grams of sat fat.

Of course, companies have already figured out how to cut the sat and the trans: low-fat microwave popcorn. Both Orville Redenbacher's Smart Pop and Pop Secret 94% Fat Free Butter popcorn need no trans and virtually no sat fat to please die hard popcorn fans.

Is the fatty popcorn for that vast number of Americans who need to put on weight or who are itching to take cholesterol-lowering drugs?

Or is it for those who simply do not know any better?

Choose wisely  . . . live well.

Use coffee filters in between pancakes, pork chops, meat patties and other items while stacking them for storage in the freezer.

That way you can easily remove individual portions without having to deforst the entire supply.