VeganMoFo Day 13 - Right Foods Cups

Every Saturday we visit an elderly relative and do all her shopping, and when done we join her for a little nosh. She and my husband (her nephew) usually have a few cups of coffee and eat those Texas-sized store bought muffins, while I sip on my bottle of water and eat food from home. Many times I just bring a cooked baked potato sprinkled with a no-salt added spice blend, and in the past I had brought along some dinner leftovers. I found those to be way too much food for the short time we're actually in the dining room eating.

 In my pre-McDougall days I had brought along ramen noodle cups, but as I got older and then into McDougall eating I realized they may be delicious and convenient, but certainly weren't that healthy.

Then came McDougall Right Foods. In the beginning, Dr. McDougall and partner/s decided together what to make available, and to this day you'll find a large variety of instant meals, from oatmeal to curries, all McDougall Plan-acceptable. Recently they introduced ready-made soup in aseptic boxes. Many of the soups are way too high in sodium for me; many claim to be 2 servings when we all know nobody is going to share a cup of ramen. Eventually they developed a lighter-sodium version of some of the cups, but at over 300 mg per serving they were still a bit too high for frequent eating.

The cups still say "McDougall Right Foods" but Dr. McDougall recently mentioned in a forum post that he's no longer with the company. He also says these cups are to be "sometimes" foods, not for everyday use. Eating that cup of ramen when visiting that aunt is a "sometimes" thing for me.

There's a new line of these cups out, Asian Entrée, and I picked up a few of them last week. Today I brought the Roasted Peanut Noodle with me to try. It's still a bit high in sodium so I took the advice of some of the people on the official McDougall forums and used only half a flavor packet, and it still tasted pretty great. The spices won't go to waste - I'll use the rest during a veggies & rice lunch. I'm glad our local Stop and Shop has them on sale so I can go back and pick up a few more next week.

This is not something I would eat often - I still prefer to bring my own food when we're out at mealtime, but because I had no leftovers and no potatoes this morning to take with me on this elder-visit, this cup sure came in handy.