Trader Joe's Frozen Food Review - What to Buy & Avoid!

flavor family what is up it is art and Bobby back at Trader Joe's you know we've only been kicked out every time we've been here but that's not gonna stop us because I've heard the third time is actually the charm right and we have to come back because I'm enthralled with the frozen food department here at Trader Joe's it's uniquely Trader Joe's they have no outside parties here it's basically trainer Joe's trainer giotto's trainer Ming's all that good stuff and we did that pig frozen food review last week and so I thought we should new one for Trader Joe's because I know how much you like it and I think this videos gonna be a little unique because we have to fly under the radar I really don't want to get kicked out for this one as much as we love Trader Joe's we gotta get the video done so before we go in there go ahead and subscribe to our channel click that red subscribe button and better yet you know what there's a bell icon right below the video go ahead whoa I haven't worked out today and enable all notifications because every single week we have four videos going live and you do not want to miss them we have a live stream we have three cooking videos we have grocery store videos and all that good stuff now let's be undercover brother going to Trader Joe's and see what we can do all right I have some grass-fed beef in my hand but the frozen grass-fed beef is actually something I want you to stay away from here at Trader Joe's because we're trained to look for two things either a hundred percent grass-fed or grass-fed and grass finish so if I look at the burgers here it says grass-fed but nowhere does it say a hundred percent or grass-finished so this actually doesn't no no then they have these bricks these bricks of 85/15 ground beef but once again it says you know we're on here that's a hundred percent the only place that says a hundred percent is the fresh one pound block and the thing is I've tried this before the texture this ground meat is a little stringy so I actually prefer to get that at Aldi or Costco as the best deal on frozen burger beef patties and also Walmart has a t20 100% ground beef and organic so this is actually something I'd stay away from if I reach over here this is the place I was going to buy us the e frozen packets I always talk to you guys about not buying the frozen bowls or the frozen of smoothies cus are jacked up with sugars this is unbelievable it's a pack of four forty nine four four packets and look at the ingredients there's no sugar added this is just pure acai your own moles at home with like almond butter and coconut milk and almond milk and frozen blueberries that's what you want to eat not that free one pretty maid want to have tons of sugar then right in front of me here is a new relatively new item if they check shook a starter kit it says bring your own eggs and the ingredients are fantastic there's really no preservatives they use olive oil and very good oil that's one of the things we talked about previously Eric here at our Trader Joe's they have a love affair with different varieties of oil sometimes I use the best like olive oil or extra virgin olive oil but other products I'll show you sometimes have the worst oil here like canola oil or soybean oil but this is super super cool all right let's switch over to b-roll because the employees are on to us this is a very very popular thing here at Trader Joe's the cauliflower gnocchi I do want to let you know though it's not low-carb just because it's cauliflower look what they use it as cassava flour and potato starch so actually the carbs are quite high it's 22 per serving but the ingredients are very good they're using the best-in-class oil extra virgin olive oil with minimal ingredients no preservatives no filler so it's actually very Bobby approved don't be confused up with is not low-carb but it is high quality and the price look at this art 269 that is not bad at all this is cheesy spaghetti squash casserole the spaghetti squash is low carb but once again this is not low-carb because if you read the ingredients it has breadcrumbs made with flour and it may have the bechamel sauce in here bechamel sauce is butter flour and milk so it's not low-carb but it relatively is coming here the cheesy spaghetti squash is $4.99 so not too bad now this is actually very cool this is riced cauliflower and butternut squash risotto and I love these flavors because they're very fall but look at the ingredients here you guys we have some really nice ingredients real cream extra-virgin olive oil again I don't like the fat they're using yeast extract so when you see something that says East extract in your mind think okay that's another word for msg yeast extract is a chemically made flavor enhancer it excites your taste buds and your a brain so I don't love to see that but that's really the only suspect thing here and actually is pretty key to approved seven total carbs two grams of fiber so five net carbs per serving there's three servings in here so we're talking about 15 net carbs this is Bobby approved and key to approve it does have the yeast extract but I'm still okay with that and it's a product of Italy yeah that's right it is look at this guy product of Italy all right I think Italy says hey we don't want any of the cauliflower so let's just send it over to the Americans and this is 369 here and then all right when you see stuff like this carrot spirals and zucchini spirals even though it is very clean and zucchini is low carb when you freeze vegetables like this ice crystals form in the cell walls and when I saw this out it's actually they're gonna get very wet and soggy so if you don't want to make your own buy the pre-made ones in the produce department it's a way better this is a hugely popular by the best says right here look at this number one customer favorite Schrader's Ming's mandarin orange chicken the problem is you guys I'm not loving the ingredients so the actual part here for the chicken is not too bad but the sauce has a lot of sugar it has some preservatives here they're using soybean oil even though even though Trader Joe's is non-gmo I really wonder if all their ingredients are non-gmo and it's a highly processed highly refined oil so that's an example of good and bad oils so I would pass on that and the price if I'm the price isn't bad it's $4.99 all right let's switch back to wide angle or we got a break from the Waldos let's talk about ice cream ice cream here is dr. Jekyll and mr. Hyde has a lot of ingredients here have natural flavors or karenina so if you like the Trader Joe's gelato I would think twice cuz a lot of the flavors here have carrageenan natural flavors and look at that laundry list of ingredients carrageenan is a seaweed emulsifier that can wreak havoc on your stomach and your uncut and your intestines I would just not not use that they put that in a lot of stuff here at Trader Joe's like their cream unless you buy the organic cream if you're dairy-free you get this chocolate one here with made with coconut milk the problem is even though it's less ingredients they put carrageenan and mono like glycerides which is a form of trans fatty acid so I would stay away from that the best bet is their version of halo top this is the low fat high protein but I would stick with the peanutbutter one because it's much cleaner than the cookies and cream but the whole carton here you guys only has 12 grams of fat and sugars are 10 grams per serving ice cream normally has about 18 to 20 so this is actually clean with none of those bad ingredients and some of the sweeteners coming from monk fruit which is fantastic and they have a new fall or winter flavor here called maple ginger cookie swirl a huge list of ingredients here including tons of natural flavorings a few preservatives so I'd stay away from this one too but this is once again we have to read the label sometimes we're using good quality ingredients sometimes use bad but as soon as you identify them you know which ones to avoid and which ones to buy all right I got some of your favorite items here at Trader Joe's including these famed cauliflower pizza crust and new for the fall and winter butternut squash pizza crust once again don't think there's our Lokar about look at the ingredients these are loaded with corn flour corn starch and potato starch once again they say everything here is GMO free at Trader Joe's I'm gonna have to take their word for that but the cauliflower pizza crust you guys has a whopping 100 grams of carbs in here I've tried seven ways to Sunday to try to make this crispy I can't be instructions here I like a puzzle like flip it flip it again flip it again broil it I just don't love this one I have a recipe for a paleo meaning grain free and dairy free cauliflower pizza crust I'll put that link down below same thing with the squash slightly less carbs but made with corn flour corn starch and potato starch these are just car bombs and my problem with this much starch even though it's gluten free it spikes your blood sugars right this is not the kind of simple carbohydrates you want to eat then we're gonna go over the burgers in a second they have fries here if you watch my frozen food review last week which I highly recommend that you do afterward now at this one these are the kind of fries you want to stay away from because they're not organic I love to eat organic potatoes and they're cooked with bad quality oil handsome cut fries art and I still can't figure out what a handsome french fry is but I mean it's quite good-looking I'm gonna say it but it's cooked in soybean oil and canola I be processed and highly refined sure it's GMO free because it's here at Trader Joe's but when you process oil at that amount of high heat you damage the fatty acid and they use a chemical called hexane to extract the oil and the sweet potatoes are cooked once again in soybean oil have a few extra additives here I don't love get the organic potatoes frozen fries at Whole Foods they're non-gmo they use good quality expel their pressed oil these I just wouldn't pick up so let me put these back and I'll grab the burgers here including veggie burgers we'll talk about that really quick all right I've got a good variety of burgers here let's start with a high-protein veggie burger from Trader Joe's once again a lot of these burgers have that dr. Jekyll and mr. Hyde a relationship with the ingredients I love the fact that they're using key protein I try to stay away from soy protein isolate I'm just not a big fan pea protein is a very complex protein that's great for vegetarians they're using expeller press canola oil when I see canola I want it to be non GMO and expeller pressed expel the press means it's not highly refined so we're off to a great start the only two ingredients I don't like in here is natural flavors if you don't want to eat artificial flavorings don't eat our natural flavorings and they put caramel coloring caramel coloring is a food color that is a known carcinogen and they do it just to make the burger look brown so I can't get behind this one but in the frozen food review I show you some really good ones including my man dr. Prager he's doing veggie burgers right because we look at the ingredients here and he's using expeller press canola oil a ton of natural vegetables really no filler here there's a little bit of soybeans but it's non-gmo this is good he's got a couple varieties that are very very good and Waldo okay and then going on to another great name the quinoa cowboy veggie burger this one is actually very good and I love the fact that they're using whole grains here gluten free grains in the form of quinoa it's not a gluten free burger because they are using bread crumbs as a binder but the rest of the ingredients here are very clean this might be the best in class veggie burger for Trader Joe's brand here and just to go to that other side the ugly side of burgers here these are the premium salmon burgers they're not using high quality wild or high-quality farm raised salmon yes there is such a thing as called high quality farm raised it's Norwegian salmon that's very ethnically and responsibly farm raised but guys look at these ingredients here they're using carrageenan in a salmon burger why would they do that maltodextrin multi-texture is made from corn usually GMO corn but we'll believe on that it's non-gmo here but it spikes your blood Sugar's because it's high in the glycemic index and natural flavorings in the burger here so this is a major no but we have a few good options here so let me go put these away and round up some more items all right the Waldos are catching a scent of what we're doing so we're gonna switch back over to b-roll before I do there's a good way to do a meatless and a bad way these meatless breakfast patties are the bad way we look at the ingredients here they're using a lot of soy protein they're using a lot of preservatives carrageenan caramel coloring yeast extract sometimes we try to do a good thing by making something vegan you actually do a bad thing this is a bad thing why they're adding all these ingredients I have no idea so I would stay away from that art undercover brother style let's keep on rolling along here all right you might get excited when you see this rice cauliflower stir-fry here because you think it's a low carb and actually it is relatively low carb and that's the same carb count as the risotto my problem is the ingredients here they're using a little bit of molto dextran which is that food preservative here and they're using a little bit of corn starch which I don't love overall not bad but I would stick with the cauliflower risotto much better we come down here these are actually Israeli frozen garlic and ginger and they have cilantro too that's a great idea in case you don't have fresh ones on hand but read the ingredients there hey guys it has cornstarch in there which probably is GMO and the garlic here also has canola oil which is highly processed so I would not use these but it's a really really good idea it's always good idea to have frozen stuff like skis and corn in your freezer cuz when it's offseasons these are almost as good as fresh and you don't have to buy the organic corn here at Trader Joe's because everything's non-gmo right so you can get the regular one here but I find this super-sweet organic one it's actually really good I put it in a veggie chili recently and it's it was fantastic so I've always have a bag or two of those in my freezer and then speaking of stuff to have in my freezer you have a few options here for frozen rice I would get the organic brown rice it's a bit cleaner and it's great to have this because even though it's not paleo Akito if you want to make fried rice it's ready already and the key to making really good fried rice is to pre make it ahead of time and this is actually has the right texture it's a little al dente and it soaks up the flavors of the pan perfectly so I would always have one of these in my freezer okay if you're trying to pick the best pizza here at Trader Joe's it's very tricky because all of these pizzas even the organic ones are relatively clean I'm impressed by the minimal ingredients that every single one in the crust uses this sunflower oil it's not non Express it's not an expeller pressed is traditional so if I go for the organic or even the pizzeria margarita here it's always with sunflower oil so I really wish that we're expeller pressed because the rest of the ingredients are super clean here and then I have no problem buying seafood frozen actually the seafood you get at the fishmonger in the grocery store comes frozen they thought so buying the wild salmon here is actually not a bad deal it's a 1099 a pound it's cheaper in certain places but it can mean to have some and you have to know where some of the fish comes from because the tilapia here is not high-quality farm raised I don't need much tilapia because the nutritional profile is not good meaning it has high omega sixes but this one here is from Indonesia and they don't have the best farming practices I have no problem buying Alaskan wild caught Cod here or dovo so just if it's farm raised know the quality of the farming and be careful because it has to be Norwegian for salmon alright I can't leave the burger session without talking about the turkey burgers if we look at the ingredients super-clean just a few they're using rosemary extract not rosemary natural flavors I wish was organic turkey or pasture-raised Turkey that being said it's still relatively clean so I'm okay with that I much rather you get that one than a salmon burger they have chili lime burgers here let me see the ingredients on this one and this one see has natural flavor see that so I would stick with the turkey burger because they don't need to sneak that in there I don't know why they are but that maxsa didn't know for me so we pretty much covered all the burgers here we can't end this video without talking about chicken tenders or chicken nuggets this is their version of a chicken tender red flag goes up immediately because that laundry list of ingredients that's way too long you guys and I start reading I see what's the breading made out of it's made out of wheat which is fine but it's in soybean oil once again Trader Joe's either using a really good oil like we saw extra-virgin or really cruddy oil like highly processed and refined soybean oil we also see dextrose dextrose it's another way word for sugar sneaking more refined sugar in there which we don't need and you know what in the frozen food video last week Applegate farms makes a fantastic one gluten free and a regular that has barely any ingredients heck even the Tison all-natural is better than this so I would pass on that and then I see out of the corner of my eye here chicken burrito bowl and I'm actually very happy cuz this one is very clean why can't any of these frozen ones use at least organic chicken organic protein and be a hundred percent organic you know who does that Ami's once again if you watch the frozen amy is healing it and it's 100% organic so this has no filler here actually everything is very very clean so I think that is just about it here let me just take a peek at this gluten free mac and cheese here and stuff alright so actually the mac and cheese and the gluten free mac and cheese is pretty clean for the gluten for either using corn flour rice flour two of the higher starch simple carbohydrate flours I don't love but they're also using quinoa and lentils our which is more complex but the rest of this ingredients are pretty clean and the same is true for the traditional mac and cheese so not too bad for a processed cheese product art do you believe in miracles yes you guys we did not get kicked out of Trader Joe's woohoo we did almost at the end the manager asked us what we were doing and I said we're just taking photos for our blog we got away with it and that's all that counts because this review to be Donna be getting weird looks here I love you guys subscribe like and share these videos are a lot of work to make and plus the new Flay City podcast is out new episodes every Tuesday lucky around the grocery store we got two more of those videos going below so right now but art and I will see you very soon and we seance you like we always do hashtag keep on cooking mad love and peace

Channel: FlavCity with Bobby Parrish

Views: 661,246

Keywords: trader joes, trader joes haul, trader joes grocery haul, trader joes favorites, trader joes healthy haul, what to buy at trader joes, trader joes haul 2018, trader joes frozen food, grocery haul, food haul, grocery shopping, grocery haul 2019, shopping haul, healthy grocery haul, food review, shop with me, frozen foods, healthy food, flavcity, bobby parrish

Id: -fZ0QzbPGh4

Length: 17min 49sec (1069 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 13 2019