Price: $2.00 on sale
Serving: 1 pocket, 4.5oz.
Calories: 300 per serving
Fat: 13%, 9g
Cholesterol: 5%, 15mg
Sodium: 19%, 450mg
Protein: 14g
Carbohydrates: 14%, 42g
Fiber: 16%, 4g
Sugar: 5g
Weight Watchers Points: 6 Per Pocket

Amy’s Kitchen says: Amy’s favorite pocket sandwich is this version of the classic cheese pizza, made with our flavorful organic tomato pizza sauce and lower fat mozzarella cheese. This popular pocket sandwich is a natural for snacks and lunches for both kids and adults.

Abi says: Logically, I should love this pizza pocket. Americans love pizza. I am American. Ergo, love. But this isn’t a pizza pocket sandwich. It is a hollow pocket sandwich. Where’s the cheese? Also, where’s the sauce?

I know, you’re probably saying to yourself “Hey Abi, the cheese and sauce probably leaked out of the pocket during the cooking process. It happens all of the time.”

That might happen to you, but not to me. I am a microwave ninja. I am very, very careful to flip my pocket during the cooking process. I am sad that this pocket is essentially a bunch of crust with a thin layer of cheese and sauce. Even the suspect pizza pockets at my high school had more filling.

If this pocket had more filling, then I would say “Amy’s Kitchen has conquered the pizza pocket world with their flavorful pastry filled with delectably fresh sauce and delightfully stringy and satisfying mozzarella.” But I can’t say that because my pocket was hollow. In fact, the more and more I think about the hollow pocket, the sadder and sadder I become. I must end this review now lest I’m tempted to weep inconsolably the next time I see one of these pockets in the frozen food aisle.

However, if they are on sale I will not weep. I will instead purchase another pocket and let you know if mine was defective or if they all pretty much suck.

Price: $2.00
Serving: 1 package, 3.8oz. (food) and 6.75 fluid oz. (juice drink)
Calories: 420
Fat: 20%, 13g
Sodium: 31%, 750mg
Protein: 12g
Carbs: 22%, 66g
Fiber: 0%, 0g
Weight Watchers Points: 9

Oscar Mayer says: Lean white turkey-cured, Kraft pasteurized prepared cheddar cheese product, Ritz crackers, Skittles bite size candies, and Capri Sun Wild Cherry flavored juice drink blend from concentrate with other natural flavor.

Abi says: I like lunchmeat. I especially enjoy that super-thin sliced lunch meat that comes in those 33¢ packets at the grocery store and have names like Land-O-Frost. I detest thickly sliced lunchmeat. If I’m going to eat meat that has been stripped from an animal, cooked, and then reformed into a loaf, I’d like it to be produced in paper-thin slices. Would you eat a hunk of proscuitto? No, you would wrap the nearly see-through slices around hunks of cantaloupe and call that antipasti.

Lunchables aren’t antipasto. They also aren’t that great of a lunch. The turkey featured a variety of odd textures within each meat circle. This wouldn’t weird me out so much on Thanksgiving Day, but when I’m dealing with highly processed meats, I prefer not to find that some bits are slightly chewier than others.

The cheese was a horrific block of bright-orange plastic. Not actual plastic, but metaphorical plastic. I understand that as I get older and my palate expands, that my tastes will change. Also, I live in California now and am surrounded by places that sell crazy amounts of cheese. Today at Trader Joe’s they were sampling Vermont Cheddar and Irish Cheddar with Port and at the Milk Pail they had something with blue mold and a fresh, spreadable goat cheese. Free cheese is everywhere! And with such luxury everywhere, I feel like an idiot when I get American Cheese.

I’m sad that it is even called American Cheese. America makes some of the best cheese in the world, but we stuck our country’s name on the worst cheese ever invented. How disappointing.

The crackers were just crackers, much like a cross between off-brand Ritz and Keebler Club crackers, but with less butteriness. I have not met a cracker I didn’t like unless you count the Whole Foods store brand of Triscuits. Those things were awful and are still sitting in my cupboard. I would try to feed them to animals, but the raccoons in Stanford’s Escondido Village are already quite aggressive.

This mostly awful meal was accompanied by two wonderful items: Skittle and a Capri Sun. While I could never bring myself to purchase a box of Capri Sun (they come 10 to a box, I believe), I do find a lot of pleasure in stabbing that sometimes ineffectual little yellow straw through the foil pouch. And the Skittles? Well, you can’t really go wrong with Skittles.*

Now that I’m an adult, I understand why my mom never wanted to buy Lunchables for me or my brother. Sure, they were fun and involved miniature cold cuts, but with all of the sodium, possible chemicals, and bad cheese, she was steering me clear of a potentially distastrous palate-hindering experience.

*I originally wrote this thinking of the goodness that exists in the form of Original Skittles, Sour Skittles, and occasionally Wild Berry Skittles. However, I quickly remembered a flavor of Skittles that all but one person in my office’s cube area found completely disgusting: Carnival Flavor Skittles. Nasty, nasty stuff.

Price: $2.50
Serving: 1 meal. 7.05 oz.
Calories: 250
Fat: 20%, 13g
Sodium: 47%, 1130mg
Protein: 24gg
Carbs: 8%, 24g
Fiber: 15%, 15g
Weight Watchers Points: 5 Points

South Beach says: South Beach Diet Wraps combine the perfect blend of ingredients - soft wraps, flavorful sauces or dressings, and natural cheeses or crunchy toppings - for a taste sensation you’ll love!

Kelly says: I am not on the South Beach diet. I am a carb lover (hello, Easten European heritage!) and I find dieting slightly freaky. I’m not talking about eating healthy. I’m talking about dieting, you know, the sort that brings to mind the Gap Girls on Saturday Night Live.

But the South Beach Diet is supposed to be nutritious and filling, satisfying even. So when I saw this adult lunchable on sale at my grocery store, I thought “Great! Now I won’t have to wait in the office microwave line!”

Ugh, I’d rather wait in line than eat this any day. The mayo alone is 40 calories. Which means that cutting out the mayo brings this meal down to 210 calories. I also did not consume the Jell-o. Even healthier, right? WRONG. I was hungry in two hours. That’s what happens when you don’t EAT anything. I felt like Chris Farley in that video, but minus David Spade and Adam Sandler as my preppy sidekicks.

Even though it does not need to be said, I will say it: South Beach Diet’s Turkey Bacon Club Wraps is not a filling lunch, though it is sort of fun to put together. There are ultra-processed turkey slices, mini wheat tortillas, and a little packet of bacon. I wish I could just buy little packs of bacon in the store. Then I could occasionally use bacon without making the whole house smell like deep fried meat.

I know, there are pouches of pre-made bacon already out there, and they aren’t even refrigerated! That weirds me out.

Bacon aside, these South Beach Diet wraps are simply Lunchables for adults but without the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup or Andes mint. Wowsers. 47% of my sodium intake for the day was in the meal 7 ounce snack.

As a college educated adult I should know better than to eat this junk.

Price: $1.25
Serving: 1 box, 4.2oz.
Calories: 320
Fat: 20%, 13g
Sodium: 25%, 590mg
Protein: 11g
Carbs: 13%, 40g
Fiber: 11%, 3g
Weight Watchers Points: 7 Points

Delimex says: Flour Chicken and Cheese Taquitos in a Crisp and Carry Box

Abi says: I’m a taquito fiend. While I wouldn’t commit a crime to get taquitos, I would totally destroy my kidneys or liver or whatever gets screwed up by fried foods to eat them. You don’t even have to call them taquitos. You could just say “Today we’re serving some meat rolled in a tortilla and deep fried.” and I would shout “Sold!” because I am that into taquitos.

But not for meals. Just for appetizers. Or a snack. In fact, when I lived alone I would buy one of those 60 packs of taquitos (hey, I lived in Texas, they only came in 60 packs) and eat a few at a time, slowly savoring the entire taquito package. This isn’t because I enjoy holding back, but because those babies are deep fried and I do have a teensy, weensy bit of self-respect.

Also, I didn’t own a microwave. And when it takes 25 minutes to heat something up in the stove you have to be pretty committed to eating that thing. While I greatly enjoy taquitos, I am not sure I can give them a half hour of my life, so when I saw that Delimex had taquitos that could be heated in 1/10 of the time, I was quite enthusiastic.

For those of you that lack taquito-related willpower and for those of you that enjoy a lot of packaging for your food, I present to you the Delimex Chicken and Cheese Taquitos To Go! (The exclamation point is theirs, not mine) Yes, your coworkers will lose all sorts of respect for you when they see you microwaving these.

Respect-loss aside, you should stay away from these taquitos because the cheese is nonexistent and the chicken is dry and unappealing. Though, that could be the tortilla (it is difficult to tell the difference between the two) and when I can’t tell where the tortilla ends and the chicken begins, we know that there’s a problem.

Check out there picture! There is approximately a 3:1 ration of tortilla:fillings. If you got a burrito that was 3/4 tortilla you’d be pretty upset, though Delimexi seems to think that we’ll accept that same strategy in a taquito. No go, Delimex.