Not that I care about judgement, but I do want you to know that I am a normal person. I don’t always hold true to my beliefs. One of my beliefs is avoiding processed foods. We were experimenting with a ‘boxed dinner’ as they say in Canada. This was to see if this was something that we wanted to use to get by when we are staying up in the hospital.

Back in my early life, before I really started to challenge myself cooking we used to eat these boxed dinners. They were right sized for the two of us, the were cheap and easy to make. I shifted away from them as we started to work toward healthier choices but I remember thinking that they tasted pretty good.

I am a big fan of Crocodile Dundee. He has a famous line ‘you can live on it but it tastes like shit’. After eating one of these, I kind of know what he means. Mushy noodles, thin sauce with a slight chemical undertone. It certainly was easy to make and it definitely filled us up but boy it was not good.

Unfortunately, I bought several of these. Maybe the kids will eat them while we are gone? I doubt it since they didn’t grow up with it and my younger son is a vegetarian. But I will continue to side with Crocodile Dundee.

As I stated on the title, I am not a purist. While I would not like to recommend this as a diet plan, I think that there is a time and place. A good time would be a camping trip or being stuck at a hospital with limited facilities and options. Based on my exposure to freeze dried meals, I don’t think that this is any less bad. This was another thing that I used to think tasted much better.

One of the things that we used to consider gourmet in the early years was a boxed pasta. We would also buy some fish parts that were off-cuts of salmon considered cheeks and odd bits. I would grill them on a tiny barbeque and then serve them with fettucine. We thought that was kind of high society. At least it wasn’t ramen like we were eating in college.

Talking to my wife’s insurance company, they have a benefit for meal planning and food drop off. There is more on that to come but it sounds like they are going to suggest a menu and then drop off the food too. It will be interesting to see what they suggest. One of the restrictions on her recovery is that food cannot be over two days old. So, there is only so much planning we can do. I am thinking maybe those frozen stir-fry packages might be a better option than boxed dinner.

End Your Programming Routine: Well, we have this in our back pocket as an option. I am hoping the meal planning provides a better solution but I am also glad that we tried. It just reminds me why we left these behind. Sometimes we need reminders of why we make the decisions that we make. It is almost like you remember why taking tequila shots on Thursday night is not a good idea on Friday morning.