Heat-and-Eat Meat.

SEASONED MEATS TASTE HOMEMADE

What's for dinner?

For most people, that question is answered the same day it's asked, usually after 4:30 p.m., according to research sponsored by the beef industry. And it oughta know.

Hectic schedules spell trouble for some cuts of meat. One out of three consumers, for example, say that pot roast takes too much time to cook. The same time-crunch has hurt sales for less-expensive cuts like chuck and round steak.

Solution: heat-and-eat meat.

A new herd of convenience foods is showing up in refrigerated supermarket meat cases. They're marinated, seasoned (and sometimes cooked) one-or-two-pound packages of meat. Pot roast, prime rib, pork roast, pork tenderloin, sirloin, even ribs or London broil ... take your pick.

Don't confuse them with frozen family packs of meatloaf and gravy or Salisbury steak. Most of the new crop cooks up moist and tender, and many taste like you made them in your own kitchen.

Should you give the new convenience meats a whirl? If you're not a meat-eater, the answer is no. A number of studies show higher rates of colon and prostate cancers in people who consume more red meat. While leaner meat is less damaging to your heart than fattier meat, something other than the fat in red meat may raise the risk of cancer. So sticking to lean meat is no surefire protection.

But if you are a meat-eater, the new seasoned meats may make your day. Many brands are fairly low in fat, thanks in part to the "flavoring solutions" that keep them moist. Unfortunately, those injections also mean more sodium, as do the marinades and sauces. (We looked at seasoned meats, not ones that are only injected with citric acid, lactic acid, phosphates, or other solutions that add moisture.)

Still, you could do a lot worse, especially if your dinner options often boil down to throwing a couple of burgers in the frying pan or getting Boston Market Meatloaf with Gravy.

A small serving of our Best Bites--four ounces (uncooked), three ounces (cooked), or five ounces if the (cooked) meat comes with sauce or gravy--has no more than three grams of saturated fat and 480 milligrams of sodium. Three grams of sat fat are more than the two grams we allowed in Best Bites for heat-and-eat chicken (see October 1999). But beef and pork are inherently higher in saturated fat than chicken or turkey.

What's more, three grams aren't much compared to, say, a quarter-pound of so-called "lean" ground beef, which has 15 grams of fat, six of them saturated. And that's if you broil it and let the fatty juices run off. An order of Boston Market Meatloaf will run you 22 grams of fat, eight of them saturated. And you'll swallow 1,040 mg of sodium along with it ... more when you add side dishes.

Just keep in mind that our Best Bites are for a modest portion of meat--about the size of a deck of cards. If you eat twice that much (which is closer to what you'd get in a restaurant), you'll have to double the fat, sat fat, and sodium numbers listed on the back of the package.

Even the manufacturers seem to recognize that three ounces is less than most people eat. For example, while the Nutrition Facts on the back of Emmber's Heat & Serve Traditional Pot Roast packages list fat, sodium, etc., for three ounces, a banner on the front of the package says that 20 ounces "serves three to four people." That's five or six ounces a person.

"The serving suggestion on the front is based on information about how much people eat," says Dick Cobb, Emmber's Vice President of Retail Sales and Marketing. So why use a smaller serving on the back? "The U.S. Department of Agriculture requires that we give nutrition information for a three-ounce serving."

Uncooked

We found dozens of uncooked loins, roasts, and steaks that met our saturated-fat cut-off. The most common was pork tenderloin, the leanest cut of pork, seasoned in seemingly endless ways.

But try to limit sodium to (a quite generous) 480 mg and the field narrows. Still, two lines from Smithfield--Lean Generation (sold nationally) and Tender 'n Easy (sold only east of the Mississippi)--came up with ten pork tenderloins, five pork loins, four pork loin fillets, and two pork roasts that weren't salt-laden. Our favorite flavors (available in both lines) were the slightly smoky Honey Barbecue and the tangy Garlic & Herb. But the pungent Garlic & Onion (only available in Lean Generation) also tasted homemade. And Lean Generation's Arizona Grill and Tender 'n Easy's Southwest Grill could have come straight off the barbecue.

Only Lean Generation's Island Blend (overpowering soy sauce taste) and both lines' pepper flavors (too heavily seasoned) were disappointing. What's more, some of the flavors that earned a Best Bite in one line (Tender 'n Easy's mild Teriyaki, for example) had slightly too much sodium for a Best Bite in the other, even though the company claims that both lines use the same seasoning.

Hormel's Always Tender line had one Best Bite. The Honey Mustard Pork Loin Filet, tender and slightly sweet, could easily hold its own in any restaurant.

Armour's Garden Herb Pork Tenderloin lives up to its name. The herbs taste like they were just plucked. Think Sunday dinners with the whole family sitting around the table. In contrast, the company's Italian Style Seasoned Pork Roast was chewy and unappealing.

Mosey's Old Fashioned Center-Cut Pork Loin was tenderized to the point of mush. On the other hand, the company must have run out of tenderizer by the time it got to its Steak-Outs. The two flavors that were low enough in saturated fat and sodium--Teriyaki Style and Italian Style--were tough and rubbery.

Cooked

It doesn't get any easier. You stop at the store, grab some vegetables or salad fixings, and rush home to heat your precooked roast. More than a dozen products met our saturated-fat cut-off, but only six of them weren't over-salted. Luckily, they were also some of the best-tasting.

One bite of RMH's Quick-N-Easy Pork Roast in Bourbon Sauce and you'll know that the company employs some topnotch chefs. Its Quick-N-Easy Prime Rib of Beef with Au Jus also deserves an A+ for tenderness and superb flavor, even if you trim the extra fat from around the edge. But be warned: The front of the eight-ounce package says "Serves 1 Adult," while the nutrition facts on the back are for a three-ounce serving.

Butcher & Cook's delicious Beef Pot Roast is another winner. Ditto for Mosey's Time For Dinner Corned Beef With Juices. It's not easy to find corned beef that isn't heavily salted. Serve it tonight for dinner ... and slice up the leftovers for sandwiches tomorrow.

Tyson's Time Trimmers Seasoned Beef Strips didn't wow us with flavor, but they might taste great in a tortilla with all the fixings.

THE MEAT RACK

The numbers in the chart are for four ounces (if the meat comes uncooked), three ounces (if the meat comes cooked), or five ounces (if it comes cooked and contains sauce or gravy). Stick to that serving size and, in each case, you'll be eating about three ounces of meat. Best Bites have no more than three grams of saturated fat and 480 milligrams of sodium. Within each category, meats are ranked from best to worst--from least to most saturated fat, then total fat, then sodium, then calories.

[CHART OMITTED]

The information for this chart was compiled by Heather Jones.