StarKist Lunch To-Go (Chunk Light) Review

I like tuna fish. Tuna fish is the greatest thing to happen to sliced bread since the advent of the PB&J. I like it on toast, I like it on bread, I like it on crackers. I will even scoop it out of a bowl with Nacho Cheese Doritos. But Tuna Fish does have one problem. It’s not very portable, and as a working man that is a real problem for me. Thanks to the recession I have been brown-bagging my lunches for a while now. If Obama had promised that he would make eating out for lunch affordable for the working man again, I might have voted for him. But I digress.

I hate everything there is about packing a lunch. First there are only so many choices. There’s reheats, which is ok in theory but when you’re waiting in line behind 10 other guys at the microwave that is encrusted with cheese and various hardened sauces, you tend to start leaning towards your only other alternative which is sandwiches. The aforementioned PB&J’s are good for a while but after gagging down two of those for lunch day after day for 2 weeks, no matter how many different varieties of Jam/Jelly you use, you need a change. Deli meats are fine, but tend to be a little more expensive, and besides to make those good you need cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, sliced olives, oil & vinegar, etc. and who has time to get that all ready every morning before work? So then you turn to the trusty favorite that is Tuna Fish. All it needs is maybe a little lettuce and a few pickle slices and it’s just heavenly. Well that is until it’s sat in your cooler box for 4 or 5 hours, then it’s just a big soggy mess. You try to remedy this by packing a small Tupperware of Tuna Fish and assemble your sandwich at work, but holy crap what a pain in the butt.

I thought I had found the answer to this problem when I saw StarKist Lunch To-Go packets at Walmart. I bought a few of them and have been trying them out for the last week or so. They’re reasonably priced, but you can buy a box a Ritz Crackers and several cans of Tuna for much less, but that is not what these are all about. These are all about convenience. Aren’t they? I thought so.

I sat down in my usual seat in the cafeteria, gave the losers standing in line at the microwave a smug look as I opened my cooler box and removed the Lunch To-Go. They come in Albacore and Chunk Light. I bought Chunk Light because that’s the kind of Tuna I always buy.

First they instantly get 1 star because the packet is light weight and well put together. Each packet has a packet of Tuna, a packet of Light Mayonaise, a packet of relish, a 6-pack of no name ritz-like crackers, a spoon, a napkin and an after-lunch mint, and the container works as a mixing bowl. Plus there’s an instruction guide for the clueless among us.

As I spread all this stuff out I instantly felt like a douche because I had all this stuff spread out around me. I took a quick look around and although the guys still stuck at the microwaves couldn’t say anything to me, the other guys eating their already prepared sandwiches were now throwing me smug looks. However, I pressed on.

I ripped opened the packet of Tuna and grabbed the spoon. The spoon is about the size of the little pink sample spoons you see at Baskin Robbins and proved to be too short and too small to scrape all the Tuna out of the packet until your hand was wrist-deep into the packet and of course that gives your hand a fine coating of Tuna residue. Also, I found it was impossible to scrape the Tuna out of the corners of the packet. I have found that you need to slice the packet along 3 sides with scissors or some other sharp object if you really want all of the Tuna.

Another word about these packets. I have a friend here at work who got into body -building and when he learned that Tuna was a great source of protein he bought a whole bunch of these Tuna Packets (just the packets, not the whole lunch to-go kits). He ate 3 of these a day, breakfast, lunch and afternoon snack. He got down to his last one, ripped it open, had consumed about a third of it and discovered that it was almost all fish guts, scales and some bone. He’s kind of an idiot so he muscled his way through it but he hasn’t been able to eat another one since. I for one would warn you to inspect your Tuna Fish carefully before consuming. Anyway, the packets open easy but the spoon/packet combo is not conducive to easy use and they loose a star for that.

The “mixing bowl” is a good idea, and is big enough for this job. The mayo packet is not quite enough mayo for my liking but does the job. The relish packet is inspired and it had never occurred to me to use relish with Tuna Fish rather than slicing up pickles. The spoon, again is too small for the task of mixing and it ends up taking a while and you end up flicking Tuna Fish, relish and mayo all over the table. All these things combined and I have to take another star away from them.

Onto the crackers. These look like Ritz Crackers, but they are not. They are a cheap imitation and although not as salty as Ritz, they aren’t bad. Not great, but not bad. The real problem is there aren’t enough of them. You have two choices, either pile each cracker with way too much Tuna Fish or end up with left over Tuna that you just have to eat with your itty-bitty spoon. I for one would prefer 8 crackers. If that was too much cracker for some people I would have to ask, what would you rather gag down all by itself? A cracker or a spoon full of Tuna Fish? So they lose a star there as well.

Well I’m finally done eating and I’m kind of excited by the addition of the mint. I open it up. It’s a little bigger than a jelly-bean, hard, but should be just about right to get that tuna smell out of your mouth. I popped it into my mouth and instantly wanted to throw up. It wasn’t strong like an Altoid, it wasn’t yummy like an Andes Mint or Junior Mint it didn’t even clear my sinuses like a Halls Cough Drop. It was just plain nasty. I couldn’t spit it out fast enough and since there was no poop laying around that I could eat to get that foul taste out of my mouth I found myself tearing the tuna packet completely open and licking the insides of the packet just to stop that taste from tearing the papillae off of my tongue. The mint cost them a star.

By the end of the meal my hands were cramping from using that little stupid spoon, my hands were greasy with Tuna gook, the table around me looked like a tornado had come through the room, an entire hour had gone by (everybody including the reheats brigade had finished eating 30 minutes before me), I had this foul “not-minty” taste in my mouth and I was still hungry. What the hell? How ironic that a product made by StarKist gets no stars. I guess they can Kist their Star goodbye Nyuck-Nyuck-Nyuck!