No good to go.

American must be extremely busy. How else to explain the explosion of supermarket foods with "Heat 'n Eat" or "Ready in 3 Minutes" emblazoned on their labels? And those are for the slowpokes--folks who have time to sit down at the dining room table and enjoy a meal. Apparently many of us don't.

The latest target of food marketers: people who eat on the road, at work, or we-don't-want-to-know-where. While all that extra packaging doesn't bode well for the nation's landfills, it's probably no worse than that you'd get at a fast-food restaurant, a 7-Eleven convenience store, the eatery at your local mall, or a gas station food mart.

With competitors like those, supermarket on-the-go foods should shine. So why does it feel like rain?

The information for this article was compiled by Tamar Genger.

Salad Daze

What could be better than salad on the go? Ready Pac--a company we've praised for its innovative salads and chopped veggies in a bag--lets you choose from a Chef, Chicken Caesar, or BLT Salad. There's only one problem: Each container is clearly meant for one person, but the Nutrition Facts panels say that the Chicken Caesar Salad serves two... and that the BLT or Chef Salad serves three.

So instead of the 140 calories listed on the label of the BLT or Chef Salad, you get 420 calories. Instead of the three or four grams of saturated fat, you get nine or 11 grams. And the sodium isn't 390 or 580 mg, but 1,170 or 1,740 mg. Unless you notice the "servings per container: 3" on the label, you'd never know.

Tiny Trouble

Haagen-Dazs sells the most adorable little cups of ice cream. Ben & Jerry's even includes a small spoon with theirs. Each container holds only about four ounces (half a cup). How much harm could those eight tablespoons do?

If it's Haagen-Dazs Dulce de Leche Caramel Ice Cream, you can chalk up 300 calories, 11 grams of saturated fat (half a day's worth), and six teaspoons of added sugar. Still think they're adorable?

Keep Popping

They're so cute. Pepperidge Farm wraps some of its popular cookies in convenient "On the Go!" bags for people who eat on the run. Each bag of Nantucket Chocolate Chunk Minis, for example, has six "poppable bite size cookies."

Pop, pop, pop. Before you know it, the bag is empty ... and you're 260 calories, five grams of saturated fat, and 17 grams of sugar fuller. That's roughly twice what you'd get in one "Big" Nantucket cookie. You'll see those cute little Minis as a harmless snack. Your body will see each bag as a Dunkin' Donuts Chocolate Kreme Filled Donut.

A Real Meal?

It's the ultimate for people who have no time to eat. Forget food altogether. Just bring along your Snapple a Day Meal Replacement wherever you go. It's a "naturally flavored ready to drink meal"--that is, if you think of water, sugar, soy protein, juice, fruit puree, gums, and a vitamin pill as a meal.

And it's a rather skimpy meal at that. Snapple adds roughly a third of a day's worth of most vitamins and minerals, but only a seventh of a day's protein. Its five grams of fiber are substantial, but health experts recommend getting fiber from foods like fruits and vegetables, not a drink thickened with gum arabic and pectin. The label doesn't say how much juice Snapple contains, but apparently the company needed add artificial colors and natural fruit flavors to enhance what was there.

Snapple a Day isn't the worst thing you could eat, but who needs it? Why rely on a vitamin-fortified sugar-sweetened "meal replacement" when you can have an apple a day?

Bitter Bites

Apparently, some people don't have time to eat candy at borne. So, as a public service, Hershey has packed its Whoppers, KitKat Bites, York Peppermint Bites, Mini Kisses, and Reese's Peanut Butter Bites into single-serve bags.

Tuck a Reese's into your briefcase or pocketbook and you'll be carrying around 410 calories, 14 grams of saturated fat, and 37 grams of sugar. Polish off the small bag on your way to work and you've blown 20 percent of your day's calories, 70 percent of your day's sat fat, and 90 percent of your day's added sugar quota.

Partially hydrogenated palm kernel oil helps the candy "melt in your mouth, not in your hands," as the old M&M's commercial used to say. It also makes Reese's Bites worse for you than Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.

Gel No

Nature packs some of the healthiest (and delectable) "to go" foods--nectarines, pears, apples, and oranges, for example. Fruit packaged in cans or plastic cups are okay if you can't find fresh. Del Monte Fruit & Gel cups "To Go" are another story. The company replaces at least half the fruit with gel (think Jell-O). Who needs peaches when you can have artificially colored and flavored sugar, water, and gums?

Get Off the Pot

"Unlike typical pot pies that require a fork, now there is a hand held pot pie that's quick and easy enough to eat on the go!" gushes the label of Hot Pockets Pot Pie Express. "Enjoy the oven-baked taste of a traditional pot pie in only 2 minutes!"

Just what we need--a quick and easy way to swallow 350 calories, 870 mg of sodium, and 4 1/2 grams of saturated fat. Odds are, there's another four of five grams of artery-clogging trans fat from the partially hydrogenated soybean oil in the crust. And--despite the lovely photo on the box--there's no more than 1 1/2 tablespoons of broccoli in each Chicken and Broccoli pocket.

Ready in only two minutes? Guess you can grab it as you run out the door for your cardiologist's appointment.

Hidden Secrets

Hidden Valley now packages its Original Ranch Dressing in single cups so you can take them "Anytime, Anyplace." We'd be the last ones to discourage anyone from grabbing a bag of baby carrots and a cup of dressing on the way out the door. But even we didn't notice (at first) that the Nutrition Facts make the dressing look better than it is.

The 140 calories and 260 mg of sodium that you'll see on the label apply to just two tablespoons of dressing. Yet each cup contains five tablespoons. Oops. Now we're talking 350 calories and 650 mg of sodium. Guess they don't call it "hidden" for nothing.

Calorie Bar

Originally designed for athletes who couldn't stop to eat, say, during a marathon, energy bars are now considered the perfect food for people who can't stop to eat, say, during a marathon meeting.

It's partly due to a labeling loophole. People think that an "energy bar" will make them more energetic. Legally, all "energy bar" means is "calorie bar," nothing more.

Our advice: Read the ingredient list and Nutrition Facts panel, not the front label. Take Balance+ Chocolate Banana Plus Antioxidants Complete Nutrition Energy Bar.

Do ingredients like soy protein isolate, high fructose corn syrup, sugar, and fractionated palm kernel oil sound like an ideal meal? Do you need vitamins and minerals on top of what you already get from your daily multi? Is it worth getting 20 percent of a day's saturated fat and four teaspoons of sugar in a 200-calorie bar?

If the answers are no, have a peach, a yogurt, a handful of nuts--you get the idea.