Be it busyness or laziness, let’s face the facts: Sometimes, you need to eat a microwave dinner…. Be it busyness or laziness, let’s face the facts: Sometimes, you need to eat a microwave dinner.

Thousands of students eat microwave dinners every night. As a service to our readers, I decided to let The Pitt News pay for my dinners for six nights under the condition that every night, I sampled a different brand of microwave dinner. Anything for a good story. To make this study scientific, I sampled the same basic meal — macaroni and cheese — from each competitor.

While tasting, I evaluated the dishes on an array of criteria including deliciousness, healthiness (or lack thereof), how filling the food is and the length and complexity of the ‘cooking’ procedure. The purpose of this study was to find the best mac-and-cheese microwave meal on the market, although the journey was just as fulfilling as the destination.

Stouffer’s

Price: $3.29

Found at: 7-Eleven, CVS, IGA, Rite Aid

Cook Time: 6 minutes

Don’t let those pesky nutrition facts scare you: Stouffer’s is the Cadillac of mac and cheese. The 550 grams of artery-clogging ecstasy tastes just like Momma’s home cookin’. And while the meal itself doesn’t even remotely resemble the picture on the package, the sight and scent of a perfectly prepared Stouffer’s mac and cheese just screams, ‘Eat me!’ (which is good, because that’s what you’re about to do). Post-consumption, Stouffer’s left my stomach full with satisfaction and my heart bursting with euphoria — or perhaps that feeling is from the 34 grams of fat. While a quick skim of the numbers might make you think that there’s ‘only’ 920 milligrams of sodium and 7 grams of saturated fat, that ‘Servings Per Container: About 2’ line buried betwixt other information leaves a sour aftertaste. As intimidating as the 700 calories and 76 percent of your day’s sodium intake might seem after doing the math, the fact that my mom couldn’t make mac and cheese this good — I love you anyway, Mom — makes Stouffer’s well worth the love handles. Pros *Tastes like home, or better *Made with real cheese *Especially filling Cons *As unhealthy as it is delicious *6-minute cook time a bit on the lengthy side *Minus points for deceptive 2-servings-per-container format of nutrition fact.

Michelina’s

Price: $2.99

Found at: Towers’ Market To-Go

Cook time: 3 minutes

The Michelina’s box features a black-and-white photograph of an old Italian lady followed by the text ‘Authentico Macaroni & Cheese.’ While I’m not exactly sure what makes mac and cheese ‘authentico,’ I do know that Michelina’s was old-fashioned delicious. While I question the legitimacy of Michelina’s heritage — last time I checked, the company’s home state of Minnesota wasn’t near Tuscany — the cheese checked out, tasted great and cooked slightly thinner than Stouffer’s, so as to not dominate the dish. In all, Michelina’s is one of the finer foods Oakland’s freezers have to offer, but it just couldn’t offer any special taste to separate itself from the pack. Pros *The cardboard box is biodegradable, which totally counts for your part in saving the environment. *The lady on the box is, in fact, named ‘Mama Michelina’ and was an Italian immigrant — very ‘authentico.’ Cons *Tastes good but not great *Cardboard box difficult to open without burning yourself

Amy’s Macaroni and Cheese

Price: $4.89

Found at: Towers’ Market To-Go

Cook time: 6 minutes

While I had never heard of Amy’s Macaroni & Cheese, the hope that its organic ingredients would soothe my increasingly angered arteries led me to buy this mysterious meal. With virtually all ingredients prefaced by the word ‘organic,’ I couldn’t help but feel semi-healthy as I ate my meal, until a glance at the nutrition facts changed my mind: 410 calories for 255 grams of food, compared to Lean Cuisine’s 290 calories for slightly more food. While I found solace in the fact that I could find most of the ingredients in my refrigerator, the finished product tasted no more impressive than anything else found there. Call me crazy for expecting a frozen dinner to not taste like a frozen dinner, but many of the other mac and cheeses have accomplished this feat, while Amy’s could not. Pros *Milk? Cheese? Butter? What kind of ingredients are those? *It’s going to get really cold outside really soon. And for thousands of students, Amy’s availability in Market To-Go means not having to step outside to get dinner. Cons *The priciest mac and cheese in Oakland *The quality ingredients failed to yield a quality taste.

Easy Mac

Price: $0.99

Found at: 7-Eleven, CVS, IGA, Rite Aid

Cook Time: 3:30 minutes

If Stouffer’s is the Cadillac of mac and cheese, Easy Mac is the Daewoo. It’s awfully peculiar that every microwavable brand of macaroni and cheese needs to be frozen or canned — except for Easy Mac. Packing only 58 grams of food, you’re not really saving any money choosing this dollar dinner over its pricier peers. Come dinnertime, I had to look away as I mixed the ‘cheese’ into the plastic container. The half-mixed globs of cheese scared away most remnants of my appetite. Another occurrence unique to the Easy Mac experience is the nastiness stuck to my fork: a cluster of partially mixed cheese that grasped on for dear life. The unnatural color didn’t help. I haven’t seen that shade of orange anywhere else in the world. By the time I noticed the 220 calories, I was already numbed by the encyclopedia of ingredients inscribed on the side of the container. I can’t even pronounce most of the science projects included in the ingredients. The cheese-sauce mix contains something called ‘corn syrup solids.’ Mmm mmm, oh how I love some corn syrup solids. Pros *Quick and cheap, just how I like ’em. *While it doesn’t taste homemade, it still tastes good if you’re in the mood for a fast food-esque mac and cheese. Cons *Stirring in the powdered cheese is an unwelcome addition to the preparation process. *When I think quality mac-and-cheese ingredients, I think monostearate.

Chef Boyardee

Price: $1.49

Found at: Towers’ Market To-Go

Cook time: 45 seconds

While evaluating, one question I asked was, ‘How long does it take to get from ‘I’m hungry,’ to ‘I’m full?” With Chef Boyardee mac and cheese, it’s a matter of seconds. Canning its mac and cheese both to maintain freshness and to hasten the heating process, Chef Boyardee, for lack of a better term, has its shit together. Not especially known for mac and cheese, the fine folks who brought us Beefaroni hit an edible jackpot with this macaroni masterpiece. Call me cheesy for making all the puns, but it’s a relief to see that someone out there still knows how to make good food the American way: in a can. And for those of you playing along at home, Market To-Go sells a wider variety of mac and cheese than IGA, Rite Aid or CVS. Go, Sodexo! Pros *Ridiculously fast cooking time *Looking at taste-to-price ratio, Chef Boyardee is a clear winner. Cons *What’s not to like? Nothing, that’s what.

Lean Cuisine

Price: $2.99

Found at: 7-Eleven, CVS, IGA, Rite Aid

Cook Time: 4:30 minutes

While technically a member of the Stouffer’s family, Lean Cuisine is more of a distant cousin than it is the prodigal son that calorie counters may have been hoping for. Although one box of Lean Cuisine is much healthier than one box of Stouffer’s classic, you get about half as much food: 283 grams compared to Stouffer’s 550. In fact, once you do the math, Lean Cuisine still packs 80 percent of the calories that a classic Stouffer’s dinner of the same size does. Considering Lean Cuisine isn’t that much healthier, it delivers a merely mediocre mac and cheese. After eating, I took a moment to reminisce on the cheese’s thin, watery texture and lack of taste. Despite the food being enough to make my stomach full, I still felt empty on the inside. Pros *Respect for actually making the picture on the box look somewhat similar to the real food. *While high in calories, it has only one-third the fat of Stouffer’s. Cons *Looking at the ingredients, what the hell is ‘cheese flavor’? *We can send a man to the moon, but we can’t make a mac and cheese that doesn’t require stirring in the middle of microwaving.

And the winner is … Chef Boyardee. If you have to eat one mac and cheese, and health is a top priority, you shouldn’t be eating mac and cheese. But with that said, Chef Boyardee’s calorie count of 190 is on par with — if not healthier than ‘mdash; its competitors. Besides the homey taste, relative healthiness and cheap price, Chef Boyardee comes canned, meaning that it doesn’t need to be frozen and will gladly sit on your shelf without expiring — or becoming freezer burnt ‘mdash; until the moment is just right.