Pretty Krafty

Nutrition Action Healthletter, April, 2003

"You make it fresh" is the slogan that Kraft uses to sell its new Fresh Prep line. "You make it fatty" is more like it.

Here's what Kraft means by "You make it fresh": Each Fresh Prep dinner kit supplies all but one key ingredient. For example, the Mexican Style Lasagna includes salsa, tortillas, nacho cheese sauce, and cheddar and Monterey jack cheeses. All you do is "just add ground beef."

Terrific. Kraft gives you a quick, convenient way to serve fatty ground beef and three kinds of fatty cheese to your loved ones. It's an upscale Hamburger Helper disguised as wholesome home cooking. (Two of the five other Fresh Preps--Four Cheese Chicken Alfredo and Three Cheese Chicken Enchiladas--use poultry instead of beef, but they both load up on cheese. Kraft is the top U.S. cheese, seller, after all.)

Here's the tricky part: At first glance, a serving of Mexican Style Lasagna appears to have 16 grams of fat--seven of them saturated. Unless you check the (barely visible) asterisk at the bottom of the Nutrition Facts panel, you'd never know that those numbers leave out the pound of ground beef that you're supposed to add. With the beef, each serving ends up with 30 grams of fat (13 of them saturated), along with 500 calories and 1,290 mg of sodium.

We don't call `em Krafty for nothing.

Kraft: (800) 847-1997.