Critique: Banquet's Chicken Fried Chicken Meal!

I'm very surprised that over the past few years of critiquing Banquets cheat meals, that somehow I'd missed one!

This vintage offering from the folks at Banquet costs about a buck in early 2015 and thus makes it very eligible for someone on a limited food budget such as myself. Seriously! What can you buy for a buck these days? (I stopped at a small convenience store recently and could not find anything other than a local paper for less than a buck – and you can't eat that)!

Inside the box, I noticed you get some chicken (a thigh?) in a white gravy sauce, mashed potatoes and some corn! A mix that reminded me of dinner while growing up on a farm in Central Missouri back in the 50's – only everything back then was very fresh and had zero preservatives. Hell, the chicken was still moving! These days, I guess you have to give up some things in order to live in the wonderful techno-gizmo world of today – like freshness! And, anyway, how could all those chemicals they use to preserve food be bad for you? Disodium Dihydrogen Pyrophosphate is an ingredient in this meal and it certainly sounds interesting, doesn't it? After all, the EPA backs these companies and we all know the EPA is like some super mom whose only reason for existence is to protect and nurture her slightly retarded children. The fact that scientific findings that are now becoming well established and indicate a diet of processed food is a certain ticket to all sorts of cancer, while troubling to ponder, just cannot be true – after all, your government wouldn't intentionally lie to you or hurt you, now would they?

So, in spite of some questionable risks, I elected to pop one of these little 340 calorie beauties into my microwave oven. After all, what choice did I have? I was hungry! The directions on the box were pretty easy. All you had to do was to cut the plastic cover from over the potatoes, nuke it on high for 3, stir them pertaters and the nuke it again for another 3 minutes. (Man, If I had a nickel for all the meals I've prepared that same exact way)! Ding ding sing – the sumptuous chicken repast was ready and I dug right in!

OK, so the loads of salt (910 mg) probably did help to make the meal tasty – after all we humans crave salt so much that most anything tastes better when it saturated with good ol' NaCl. The fact that a high salt intake, over time, is directly linked to hypertension and heart disease is not germane to the taste conversation we're having right at this point! I enjoyed the experience and damn the consequences!

I gave this a solid 7 on a scale of 10 and would recommend that any of my non-friends stock up and eat them often!