All Natural Alexia Select Sides. Roasted Red Potatoes & Baby Portabella Mushrooms, Roasted Red Potatoes & Harvest Vegetables, Chipotle Roasted Sweet Potatoes, and Roasted Red Potatoes & Italian-Inspired Vegetables. $3.39 per 14-ounce bag.
Bonnie: Alexia Foods' frozen Select Sides combine potatoes and veggies and a packet of seasoned herbed-and-spice-infused oil. To prepare, thaw the oil in a bowl of hot water for just a couple of minutes, heat that oil in a skillet, add the veggies and saute for 8 to 12 minutes to create a tasty side.
Other than sodium pyrophosphate— considered safe and there to prevent discoloration in the potatoes— the ingredients are ones you'd use at home. The Chipotle Roasted Sweet Potatoes is my favorite flavor for a couple of reasons: Nutritionally, it's the best, with only 160 calories, 6 grams fat, a minute 190 milligrams sodium, a hefty 5 grams fiber and lots of vitamins and minerals from the sweet corn, red bell peppers, black beans and potatoes. It also tastes best, although like the rest of Select Sides, it would benefit from a bit more seasoning kick.
Carolyn: Nutritionists like Bonnie are always saying that Americans need to shift the focus of the meal from the meat to the side dish. Following that advice would be easy if all side dishes tasted as good as these new Alexia Select Sides.
Alexia began as a gourmet frozen potato product maker, and Select Sides are primarily potato-based, with herb oil, veggies and beans providing flavor and textural contrast. These make the butter- or cheese-soaked Birds Eye and Green Giant competition seem like kiddie fare. Select Sides have to be cooked in a skillet, so they're a little more work than a TV dinner, but the payoff is better texture and worth it.
The portabella pieces in the Baby Portabella Mushrooms variety are so flavorful, this side could be a main dish, with or without added meat. But most people will want to use these to complete a dinner on a busy weekday, when there's no time to prepare an elaborate protein (which would only probably clash with Select Sides' bold flavors anyway). The Chipotle Roasted Sweet Potatoes is the exception: It didn't taste much like chipotle or anything else.
General Mills Total Plus Omega-3s Honey Almond Flax Cereal. $3.89 per 12.25-ounce box.
Bonnie: Total has always been a multivitamin in flake form. This new one is no exception. Like the other Total cereals, this new Plus Omega-3s contains 100 percent of the U.S. government's daily value of at least 11 vitamins and minerals. One serving also contains 16 grams of whole grains, or at least one of the three recommended daily servings, and 10 percent (160 milligrams) of the daily value of omega-3 ALA.
Those ALA omega-3 fatty acids come from flax seed. Although the body can convert some ALA into EPA and DHA — the better-for-you omega-3s found in fish — it's inefficient at doing that. ALA, though, may help lower cholesterol.
As for Total Plus' taste, it's merely OK and not all that sweet — surprising, considering this cereal contains 13 grams sugar per serving. That's three more than General Mills' pledged upper limit for its cereals advertised to children, including Cocoa Puffs, Reese's Puffs and Lucky Charms.
Carolyn: Total Plus Omega-3s Honey Almond Flax cereal is a blatant rip-off of Kashi GoLean Crunch! Honey Almond Flax cereal down to the variety name. Total, a more mainstream brand, is slightly sweeter and isn't quite as nutritious, at least in terms of omega-3s and fiber. (GoLean Crunch! Honey Almond Flax cereal contains five times the omega-3s and twice the fiber.) Total does contain more vitamins and minerals, which is what passed for nutrition back in the 1960s when Total was invented.
Which is not to say I'll regularly be buying any honey almond flax cereal. Total Honey Almond Flax is another case of a health-oriented brand trying to widen its appeal via sugar bath, instead of pouring on the more expensive almond and sweetened flax nugget accents that would make it taste even better.
Nestle Butterfinger Snackerz. 89 cents per 1.28-ounce and $3.29 per 9.2-ounce bag.
Bonnie: I hate being a naysayer, but candy is just candy no matter how it's resized. This new Butterfinger Snackerz is simply a smaller version of Nestle's popular crispy, chocolatey, peanut-buttery Butterfinger bar.
Whether bite-size or regular, it's full of calories, fat and sugar with minimal nutrition — or what dietitians call "empty" calories. A 11/4-ounce pouch contains 170 calories, 8 grams fat (of which 3.5 is saturated), 15 grams sugar, 2 grams protein and lots of additives, including artificial colors and flavors.
If you like the flavor of the regular Butterfinger, you'll like this, too. But a tablespoon of peanut butter with celery, carrot sticks or even whole-wheat pretzels is a much more nutritious snack.
Carolyn: What was wrong with Butterfinger's ball-shaped, pellet-size BBs? That was my reaction to seeing these new Butterfinger Snackerz, another small-piece version of the Butterfinger candy bar in a bag that has apparently and sadly replaced the BBs. (At 1.2-inches, Snackerz aren't even all that mini, thereby reducing the feeling of abundance you usually get when eating single-serve, multipiece bag candy.)
Full-size Butterfinger bars also have more chocolate coating and flavor. In fact, just about any Butterfinger variation, past or present, is better than these.
Bonnie Tandy Leblang is a registered dietitian and professional speaker. She has an interactive site (www.biteofthebest.com) about products she recommends. Follow her on Twitter: BonnieBOTB. Carolyn Wyman is a junk-food fanatic and author of "The Great Philly Cheesesteak Book" (Running Press). Each week, they critique three new food items.