How Healthy Is TJ’s Vegetable Fried Rice?

For many people, Trader Joe’s isn’t just a grocery store. It’s a place to find wondrous new foods to try, including tons of trademarked treats. And if you’re nosing around the frozen foods section, you’ll likely run into a bag of Trader Joe’s Vegetable Fried Rice. But is it worth tossing into your cart if you’re trying to follow a healthy diet? The answer depends on your goals.

If you scan the ingredients, you’ll notice that the first few foods are all natural. Rice is at the top, followed by a litany of vegetables including carrots, soybeans, corn, peas, and more. Those are all decently nutritional choices unless you’re sensitive to soy, so that’s a win. And according to the product’s nutritional label, each one-cup serving contains 4.8 grams of protein, just two grams of unsaturated fat, and zero cholesterol. 

The average adult individual requires around 0.8 grams of protein for each kilogram of body weight every day. For example, if you weigh 68 kilograms (150 pounds), you would need 54.4 grams of protein daily. So a cup of Trader Joe’s Vegetable Fried Rice could deliver about a tenth of the total protein you need in a day.

One possible nutritional downside to Trader Joe’s Vegetable Fried Rice tonight is that it uses canola oil, which has garnered a negative reputation among some dietitians and nutritionists. Research has revealed a potential correlation between the consumption of canola oil and multiple unwanted medical outcomes like inflammation and compromised cardiovascular responses.

A 2018 study in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry explored the effects of ingesting previously heated canola oil on some rats. After 28 days, those rats exhibited indicators of inflammation and oxidative stress. Additionally, a 2011 study published in Lipids in Health and Disease explored how consuming canola oil for 25 days would affect hypertensive rats. The canola oil appeared to cause a spike in rats’ total and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol readings. Those findings suggested that canola oil might raise the risk of cardiovascular disease.

To be fair, the two studies just mentioned weren’t performed with human subjects. Plus, other studies have produced less questionable outcomes. For example, a 2023 review in Nutrients explored canola oil’s functional food potential. The reviewers determined that canola oil could be helpful, including as an anti-inflammatory and cardioprotective agent. Consequently, canola oil may or may not be a deal breaker, depending on your nutritional needs.

That said, canola oil isn’t the only nutritional red flag when it comes to Trader Joe’s Vegetable Fried Rice. One serving has 2.4 grams of sugar, which might not seem like a lot at first. But the American Heart Association recommends that women limit their sugar intake in a day to 25 grams and men to 36 grams. This means that a serving of this fried rice would account for almost 10% of a woman’s daily sugar limit and close to 7% for a man’s.

Another sneaky source of concern in this frozen food is sodium. At 408 milligrams, it’s fairly significant yet hardly surprising, because many foods have more sodium than people realize. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes that most adults should aim for less than 2,300 milligrams of sodium daily. Thus, eating a meal that includes a cup of Trader Joe’s Vegetable Fried Rice might not be desirable if you’re trying to keep your sodium consumption down.

Does this mean that you should bypass Trader Joe’s Vegetable Fried Rice? Maybe not. Thanks to its pros, it might be all right for an occasional fast option as long as you stick to smaller portion sizes and are eating a balanced diet. Alternatively, you might want to just try an easy fried rice recipe with vegetables and stash away a few healthier rice-based meals in your freezer to reheat later.