Mac and cheese from a box? Not even with cute bunnies

maki — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 08:47:30 +0100

Rebecca Blood has a great post summing up the recent minor brouhaha about a popular ‘quality’ mac and cheese brand that originated with article in Salon magazine, vs. the standard of the genre that comes in a blue box. Rebecca focuses on the actions of the CEO, specifically his comments on a post on megnut, which are funny in the way he assumes that people will just take his marketspeak at face value.

As I have written about before, I detest mac and cheese from a box. I have tried the bunny package mac and cheese more than once, lured by its promise of better flavor then the blue box, less additives and so on. (And the bunny lured me too. I adore bunnies.) Each time I have been disappointed. No matter how ‘quality’ they may claim it to be, cheese simply is not designed to come in foil pouches or in pre-powdered form.

The other issue with a food like mac and cheese is, it really doesn’t fit well into a modern eating lifestyle, should you choose to try to eat healthily most of the time. Even using skim milk (!) a serving of the bunny mac and cheese contains 280 calories. I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather spend 280 calories on something tastier than packaged mac and cheese.

Incidentally, this general philosophy has lead me to cut out most of the pre-packaged food that I do like also, like instant ramen and ravioli-in-a-can. I had to face up to the fact that a pack of my favorite instant ramen would cost me 420 calories and is loaded with all kinds of things I’d rather not eat, and that fresh ravioli actually is better than the soggy kind in a can. While I’m not saying all pre-prepared packaged foods are bad, a lot of them are a quick road to consuming a lot of calories for not much pleasure.

But back to the mac and cheese. For me, mac and cheese is something that is worth making an ultimate version of, but if you or your family must have that cheese-pasta thing quickly, there are many ways to make it quick too, such as this very popular recipe on Elise’s Simply Recipes.

convenience

Mac and cheese from a box? Not even with cute bunnies