Steamfresh veggies are tasty and convenient

Birds Eye Steamfresh Premium Selects. Baby Brussels Sprouts, Broccoli Florets, and Whole Green Beans. $2.29 per 12-ounce bag.

Bonnie: Steamfresh veggies warm a dietitian's heart, as each package contains vegetables and nothing more. Steamfresh veggies go from the freezer to the microwave and steam right in the bags in about five minutes. There's no cleaning, cutting or chopping the vegetables, and no dirtying a pan or casserole dish.

The cooking time, however, is based on an 1,100-watt microwave. Do you know the wattage of your oven? I didn't think so. So when you first make these, the timing will be pure guesswork within the suggested parameters. Figure out the timing, though, and you're golden. I only wish these came in more than one serving size (for four) so all sizes of families could use these.

Carolyn: Birds Eye's Steamfresh bags bring microwave popcorn and frozen dinner ease to steaming veggies. Still, steaming fresh veggies in the microwave is nowhere near as complicated or messy as making your own popcorn or dinner. In fact, the hardest thing is cutting the plastic wrap to cover your fresh veggies and water.

Birds Eye Steamfresh veggies come unadorned instead of with a sauce, which would take some time and skill to make. In short, this is a wonderful product for people who can afford the price of this relatively small convenience.

Stonyfield Farm Shift Natural Energy Drink. Berry Boost, Power Punch, and Strawberry Banana. $1.75 per 10-ounce bottle.

Bonnie: Shift is a cultured dairy, organic, fat- and caffeine-free energy drink with protein, vitamins, fiber and probiotics (live, active good-for-you bacteria). The folks at Stonyfield are hoping you'll "shift" from Red Bull, Monster, Full Throttle, Go Fast! and Bawls Guarana to Shift. Those other energy drinks are mainly nutritionally void, heart-stimulating, stomach-upsetting concoctions that are loaded with guarana-based and other kinds of caffeine.

A bottle of Shift has 200 calories, along with calcium, potassium, vitamins B3, B6, D and C, and zinc. Its energy comes not from caffeine but from ginseng and acai (a nutrient-rich Brazilian fruit). Obviously, I'd recommend Shift over those other energy drinks and, by the way, over regular (sugary) or diet soft drinks, too.