Frozen Foods You Should Avoid At All Costs

When you're hungry and simply don't have the time or energy to whip up something in the kitchen, looking to your freezer is usually a solid option. Most of us carry at least a handful of frozen foods for exactly this scenario. Frozen meals make eating quick and convenient, with minimal cleanup afterward and a gut full of satisfying food. Luckily, there's no shortage of frozen goodies available at grocery stores, so make sure you stock up every so often so when kitchen laziness strikes, you're armed to the teeth with solutions.

Keep in mind, of course, that you need to be very careful when choosing which prepared meals are worthy of a spot in your freezer and which ones you should absolutely stay away from. Many frozen meals are packed with unhealthy ingredients that would leave your doctor scowling if they knew you were partaking in them. Always take nutritional facts into account when perusing the frozen aisles. To make things a little easier for you, we've compiled a list of some of the frozen goodies you should never even bat an eye at. If abiding by a clean diet is one of your prerogatives, keep these items off your shopping list forever.

Totino's Pizza Rolls are one of those frozen snacks your parents would buy you right before a big sleepover with all your friends. You'd stay up late, watch a scary movie, and absolutely crush handfuls of pizza rolls. Snackable bite-sized pockets of pizza toppings are a fantastic idea since you don't always want to deal with an entire pie but sometimes you do want that pizza flavor in a fun size. While this product has "childhood nostalgia" written all over it, it's best to put that nostalgia high on a shelf and forget about these completely.

Before we even get into the nutritional content, let's start with the biggest flaw they had: the molten hot innards when they emerged from the microwave. The pizza filling was smolderingly hot, and the skin on the inside of your mouth would turn to ribbons if you ate them too quickly. Now, moving on to the nutritional value, there isn't much. Seeing as each pizza roll was tiny, you could toss back a lot of them in one sitting, and that spells trouble since only six of them contain 210 calories and 350 milligrams of sodium. By the end of your Totino's extravaganza, you'll likely take on too many calories and too much salt.

Not everyone loves tearing meat off of a chicken wing. Whether it's a concern for the damage it could do to their teeth enamel, or it simply makes them feel too caveman-like, they just prefer a boneless cut. Luckily for all those bone-avoiders, there are plenty of boneless wing options out there so they can still enjoy bite-sized chunks of chicken without worrying about their teeth. Tyson offers consumers its Any'tizers Buffalo Style Boneless Chicken Bites, but one look at the nutritional facts tells you not to add these to the grocery cart.

The Any-tizers bag comes with about eight servings of boneless chicken bites, which is a small handful of them for one serving. You can easily crush two or three servings depending on how hungry you are. Well, just know that one single serving throws 700 milligrams of salt your way, as well as 190 calories. If that isn't enough of a reason to opt for something else, the quality here is really lacking. The meat has a rubbery texture to it, and the Buffalo flavor never hits your palate the way Buffalo flavors usually do. These bites are subpar additions to your freezer, so look the other way.

When your appetite starts screaming at you from deep inside your gut, the word "hungry" prances around the forefront of your mind until you satiate it with something. And what better way to calm it down than with a product that literally has the word "hungry" in its name? Hungry-Man frozen dinners line the frozen food aisles of so many grocery stores, and the photos on the boxes make them look so darn appealing. However, a tray of this food is just plain terrible for you. Especially if you're thinking about trying the Classic Fried Chicken dinner.

Just about every aspect of this dinner is regrettable. The entire Hungry-Man meal — which consists of fried chicken, two small sides, and a dessert — clocks in at a whopping 950 calories. Not only are you loading up on calories, but you're also taking in almost 2 grams of sodium, 57 grams of fat (88% of your daily value), 140 milligrams of cholesterol, and 12 grams of saturated fat (60% of your daily value). Your body will not be pleased with you after making your way to the end of this race.

If you ever find yourself eating a platter of pancakes and sausage and thinking to yourself, "I wish there was a way to eat all this without needing utensils," Jimmy Dean has the answer. The company sells pancakes and sausage on a stick, and they're exactly what they sound like. You get a wooden popsicle stick that impales a sausage, and the whole thing is wrapped in a fluffy pancake. It's a quick and convenient way to munch down a flapjack breakfast while on the go. Just because a fun little product like this exists doesn't mean it's worth purchasing.

The disappointing texture is the very first strike against these. The pancake casing doesn't have any fluffiness to it. Instead, the cooked batter has a tough texture you really need to gnaw at. Then, once you break through the pancake's epidermis, the sausage underneath is super rubbery and extremely salty. In fact, just one of these sticks carries with it 410 milligrams of sodium, which is no good. The whole thing also packs 250 calories into your eating schedule, as well as 9 grams of sugar and 15 grams of fat. Foods that are propped onto sticks are fun. Consuming all the unhealthy stuff that comes with them is not.

"Looking for a convenient and delicious full entrée in a single package?" asks the El Monterey website. When you don't feel like cooking up a whole dinner, the answer is always a resounding, "Yes!" The company offers a chicken enchiladas meal as an answer to all those hungry appetites asking too many questions. The meal comes with two chicken enchiladas covered in Suiza sauce, Monterey Jack cheese, and cheddar cheese, and they're served alongside Spanish-style rice. Are these tasty? Yes. Are they the kind of food your doctor would suggest? No way.

Watching a caloric intake is important for many people, and if you fall into that category, you'll be alarmed to know this dinner packs 530 calories. Yes, that number could be worse, but it's still far from ideal. The meal also hits you with 890 milligrams of sodium. You're also ingesting 27 grams of fat and 12 grams of saturated fat. Make the health-conscious decision and leave this off your future shopping lists.

Whoever Marie Callander is, she sure knows her way around a frozen meal. The company cranks out a ton of frozen goodies, from savory dinners to sugary pies. One of the options available to customers is the Spaghetti with Meat Sauce frozen dinner. You get a tray of spaghetti with seasoned beef and pork. Nothing too fancy happening here. The meal's product description on Kroger's website states the product is "the perfect Italian-inspired meal." Unfortunately, there are several reasons this meal is far from perfect.

It's the sodium content here that's really worrisome, especially if you have elevated blood pressure. The tray of pasta slams you with 920 milligrams of the stuff. You also get 350 calories, which ain't great. But, the flavor and texture are also reasons to avoid this product, with one unsatisfied customer writing, "There is not enough sauce for the amount of spaghetti they give you. Plus, the sauce had a weird aftertaste. And the bread is soggy and [tastes] God awful. This brand has many other options that taste really good. I would choose a different one over this one."

Stuffing a bunch of tasty ingredients into a handheld pocket of flaky dough is always a convenient way to enjoy a meal, and that's what makes Hot Pockets such a popular item. Simply place the frozen tubes of goodies in their respective cardboard sleeves and toss those bad boys in the microwave for a couple of minutes. Now you have lunch, dinner, or a mid-meal on-the-go snack. One Hot Pockets option that might appeal to those who don't have time to make breakfast in the mornings is the Applewood Bacon, Egg, & Cheese variety. Just know this is not a product you should start your day with.

One of the biggest issues with Hot Pockets is they tend to heat up unevenly, which is the case with these. It seems like no matter how long you leave them cooking, there are always room-temperature spots that make for really unappetizing bites. The parts that do heat up can take on a magma-like quality and burn the heck outta your mouth. No first-degree burn is worth the nutrition (or lack thereof) that you get these as well. Each sandwich has 290 calories, 600 milligrams of sodium, and 5 grams of saturated fat.

When you have to feed a few hungry mouths in the quickest and most convenient way possible, turning to pizza is usually a fantastic idea. Everyone gets to munch down a couple of slices while enjoying an array of tasty ingredients nestled on a warm, crispy disc of melted cheese. The company Banquet makes several frozen pizza options for customers who want to stock their freezers with some 'za, one of them being the Mega Double Stuffed Four Meat Frozen Pizza Slices. These slices are just as unhealthy as they sound.

Right off the bat, the product's box lets you know just how rough this pizza is for your body. One slice contains 430 calories and wallops you with over a gram of sodium. That's half your daily allotment of salt in one slice. Yowza. But, if that's not enough to sway you, the flavor of this isn't exactly worth writing home about. One customer didn't hold back when it came to their frustration with this, saying, "I bought this yesterday, horrible purchase, wasted money. The 'pizza' remains as raw dough in the middle, and the toppings are terribly small portioned ... The 'pizza' is worse than any school square pizza you've ever had. This is 100% a waste of money ... It seems this company aims to create the cheapest food possible."

Breakfast, as some like to tell you, is the most important meal of the day. Whether or not that's actually true is up for debate, but starting your day out with a tasty, substantial meal is definitely better than kicking off the morning with something that totally lets you down in the flavor and health department. There are a ton of frozen breakfast options available, like the Bob Evans Farm Sausage & Potatoes breakfast bowl. You get a helping of scrambled eggs with melted cheese, chunks of sausage, and diced potatoes in one hot bowl. However, this is the kind of morning starter that your routine wants no part of at all.

The nutritional facts here are abysmal. One of these breakfast bowls slams you with 440 calories, and your body also suffers through 235 milligrams of cholesterol (78% of your daily value), 25 grams of fat, 12 grams of saturated fat, and just under 1,500 milligrams of sodium. Every corner you turn down is straight-up bad news. Plus, the cherry on top of this disaster pie is the simple fact that the flavor is awful. It's so overly salty that it's inedible. The texture of everything is rubbery, and all you're left wishing is that you ventured down a different avenue for breakfast.

You can't let yourself fall for the delicious photos on the front of food boxes. The pictures slapped on the cardboard are taken by professional photographers, and they're meticulously arranged so the meal looks as appealing as possible. Then you open it up and pull out a tray of mystery substances smashed together in plastic wrap. This is exactly what happens when you purchase the Banquet Mega Meats Sweet & Spicy Asian Style Boneless Strips. Not only is the actual product so much less enticing than the visual on the packaging, but the nutritional facts are out-of-this-world horrendous.

"This was a major let down. No sauce, just a little flavoring on one side of the chicken," wrote one customer. Another added, "There was NO sauce, no sweet & sour Asian taste at all, just soggy hot chicken." Now, onto the nutritional facts. This one meal has you packing away 2,650 milligrams of sodium. That's over your entire day's worth of salt in one unsatisfying sitting. Attach 100 milligrams of cholesterol, 27 grams of fat, and 610 calories and you have yourself a frozen meal that should never, ever enter your mouth.

Macaroni and cheese is one of the greatest comfort foods around. A rich bowl of delicate noodles drenched in warm, gooey cheese just feels like home. It harkens back to childhood days, and it warms your belly as well as your soul. There are a lot of frozen macaroni and cheese options available, but Stouffer's is one company whose name is synonymous with the stuff. Just looking at the picture of the product on the box is enough to fill you with joy. However, glancing at the nutritional facts is enough to instantly cancel out the joy you just felt.

Each tray of Stouffer's Macaroni & Cheese packs 480 calories. But, riding alongside those calories are 1,280 milligrams of sodium, which is just over half your daily allotment, as well as 9 grams of saturated fat. Listen, everyone should know that diving headfirst into a bowl of macaroni and cheese isn't a recipe for pristine health, but there are better ways to get your mac and cheese fix than with this product.

Let's get one thing straight: When it's time to toss back a burger or two, health isn't exactly at the forefront of your mind. We all know burgers aren't what the doctor ordered, but they're just so good that from time to time we need to treat our appetites to something special. The Johnsonville Grillers Steakhouse Onion Seasoned Patties might leap off the frozen food shelf at you as a viable burger option when the urge hits. They'll certainly scratch that burger itch, but they'll flood you with some pretty awful stuff at the same time.

Each patty carries with it 350 calories. Assuming you'll be adding fixings onto your patty, these things can rack up the caloric numbers really quickly. Even if you just have a burger, that's still pretty steep. Worse yet, there are 860 milligrams of sodium and 10 grams of saturated fat (half your daily value). Don't let the fact that you also get 17 grams of protein fool you into thinking you need these in your freezer. You don't.