Taco Bell's Bowlz are boring, short on meat

Taco Bell Home Originals Bowlz. Salsa Chicken, Santa Fe Style Beef, and Fiesta Steak. $2.79 per 9-ounce shelf-stable meal.

Bonnie: I'm no fan of shelf-stable meals. But I've gotta say I've sampled much worse in my 20-plus years as a food tester than Taco Bell Original Bowlz. Sure, the contents are mushy and almost indistinguishable, but refried beans and rice are mushy and are the mainstay of all three of these meals. And each one does have a tolerable Southwest flavor. Additives and high sodium aside, the nutritionals aren't bad: a reasonable 360 calories and 7 grams of fat at the most (in the Santa Fe Beef).

My main problem is the meat, or lack thereof. My Salsa Chicken bowl contained only a single small chunk of chicken; the Fiesta Steak, only a quarter-ounce of beef. (Yes, I weighed the teeny portion on my food scale.) The Santa Fe Style Beef contained what looked like a fairly substantial amount of ground beef. The ingredient panel clarified why. It contains beef "crumbles" — that's ground beef combined with 20 or so other ingredients.

Taco Bell would be better off removing the minuscule amount of meat in the other two and marketing them as vegetarian dishes.

Carolyn: I like these even less than Bonnie did. Maybe that's because I eat both Taco Bell restaurant meals and supermarket single-serve meals regularly and know how good they can be. These are essentially big boring bowls of beans.

It's unconscionable — really, almost tantamount to fraud — that chicken and steak are in the names of two of these. The only one with more than a spoonful of meat (the Santa Fe Style Beef) is, unfortunately, also the dullest-tasting.

Last I looked, you could buy a can of refried beans and enough store-brand rice to feed six people for half the cost of one of these single-serve Bowlz, and your eating experience would be essentially the same. And if all this wasn't bad enough, you just know that because of this product at least some kids are going to start spelling bowls with a "z."

Wish-Bone Light! Vinaigrette Dressing. Balsamic & Basil, Raspberry Walnut, and Asian With Sesame & Ginger. $3.69 per 16-ounce bottle.

Bonnie: I don't care for most bottled dressings. I'd prefer not to top my salad with high-fructose corn syrup, xanthan gum and a blend of preservatives, especially when you can easily whisk together salad dressing ingredients. I also don't like paying a lot of money for water, light salad dressing's main ingredient.