In the world of frozen snacks, some score a touchdown and others are sacked harder than Joe Theismann. Now that football season is here, we don't want you to disappoint your ravenous game-watching friends, so we're here to help you separate the good from the bad in the world of gameday snacks.
Being food editors, we tend to go a little overboard -- caramelized onion dip, grilled sliders, fondue pots, all from scratch -- but we know what's really going on in the rest of America. In the land where food snobs don't prevail, people want convenience. They want things frozen, and they want them microwaved. Well, this one's for you guys.
We rounded up a collection of all-natural, frozen game-time snacks that are meant for your microwave. Though it was tempting to include oven-baked snacks like mozzarella sticks and samosas, comparing microwaved and oven-baked food is like entering Honey Boo Boo as a contestant in the Miss Universe pageant. It's just not fair.
You may be wondering what "all-natural" means. It turns out, so is the rest of the world. Though there's no legal definition of "all-natural," the term is used in food labeling to imply that it's minimally processed and doesn't contain manufactured ingredients. There aren't too many standards enforcing this label, but hey, we'll take it.
We averaged the votes of our tasters, helping you figure out which brands are worth buying and which brands you should avoid at ALL COSTS.
Take a look at the slideshow below for the results, and let us know what you think! Have any others to recommend? Give us a holler.
As always, this taste test is in no way sponsored or influenced by the brands included.
Frozen All Natural Football Snacks, 2013
This story appears in Issue 71 of our weekly iPad magazine, Huffington, available Friday, Oct. 18 in the iTunes App store.