Thank God. The lovely husband flies home tonight after a three-day business trip to Miami. He will walk through the door and collapse on the sofa following an exhausting few days of business and travel. Unfortunately, gone are the days where I can welcome him home with a painstakingly prepared evening meal and some kind of skimpy outfit. Instead, having just entertained, cooked for and then manhandled our lively little toddler into bed, I will no doubt be wearing some glamorous combination of pajamas and a t-shirt decorated with play-doh and spaghetti. Having been a single-parenting working mummy in his absence I will probably be tempted to discuss the definition of "exhausting" but I will try and hold myself back…you never know!

Fortunately, unforeseen domestic mishaps aside (which as you know are not a rare occurrence in my life), by the time the taxi draws up, I should be able to collapse alongside him. A perfect opportunity to discuss all the Very Important things that he missed while he was away (i.e. American Idol), made even more possible by the fact that dinner will just take care of itself. In the world of quick-fix dinners, there are fortunately some healthy options out there and who doesn't have time to heat up a bowl of soup?

In a previous life, my idea of a quick-fix would have involved a box of chicken tenders or a pizza. In his current reality, the lovely husband's idea of a quick-fix still revolves around pizza preferably a large one, smothered in cheese and mystery meat. However, as a meat-feast pizza is my nutritional nemesis (closely tied with Diet Coke), the chances of this occurring when I'm around are slim to none. When I'm not around however, the no-mystery-meat law occasionally gets broken, although not without some severe repercussions. Last time I pulled the pizza box out of the trash and sat my poor husband down for a half-hour nutritional battering.

If you would rather live in ignorance, I suggest you stop reading now. However if you're curious about just how bad a four-meat pizza can be for you… read on. Here are the summary points from the Pizza Lecture.

Firstly, remember that in a quest to minimise the calorific impact of fast food, manufacturers list the nutritional information by serving size. So although this was a normal sized-pizza for a normal person, the figures were specific to one slice, or one fifth, of the pizza. However, facing reality, eating the whole thing amounted to the following:

* 1,950 calories

* 100g fat

* 40g saturated fat

* 250mg cholesterol

* 5,050mg sodium

* 25g of sugar

Can I just point out here that the average DAILY recommended calorie intake is approximately 2,000 calories? As if that weren't bad enough, the long, long list of ingredients was also very suspect. In fact the mystery meat on the pizza even contained BHT. BHT is an artificial antioxidant that's also widely used in jet fuel, rubber and petroleum. If I haven't put you off yet, consider this: BHT is also used in embalming fluid. Mmmmmmm, delicious.

Further, the saturated fat content is astronomical. As a nutritional therapist, I would suggest keeping saturated fat to less than 10g daily. A more generous professional might allow you 20g. Even then, eating this pizza doubles your saturated fat intake for the day and that's before you've even drunk a latte or eaten a bag of chips.

Next on my hit list; the sodium. Ideally, as an adult, your sodium intake should be less than 1,200mg daily. The 5,050mg figure above is not a typo, it's just that one of these pizzas delivers over four times the daily quota. Finally, just to top off the nutritional brilliance, this pizza contains 25g of sugar that's over six teaspoons.

What does all this mean? I don't want to tell you never to eat pizza ever again, but only do so occasionally and when you do, please try and avoid the meaty options. It's toppings such as pepperoni and sausage that drive the salt and fat content right over the edge. Instead, go for a simple cheese topping and add chicken if you like. If you can especially if you are in a restaurant, order one with a few vegetables on top to help offset some of the bad stuff.

However, do make sure that you don't rely on pizza as a regular quick-fix.

There are alternatives out there that are just as quick and easy as pizza from the freezer. A bowl of healthy soup for example can be ready in minutes and if you want to make it more hearty, just add some cooked pasta.

Many of the grocery stores here now stock the fresh Covent Garden soups. These are about as close to home-made as you are going to get, with the bonus of a clear, colour-coded food labelling system. All the products are labelled as either green, orange or red for total fat, saturated fat, sugar and salt content. As with many brands, there is a diversity of healthy and unhealthy options within the product range. The bonus with Covent Garden, is that it's easy to see which is which.

There are a couple of Covent Garden soups I wouldn't recommend. The Thai Chicken and the Broccoli & Stilton are for example, both high in saturated fat. Not as high as a four-meat pizza mind you, but relatively speaking. However, the Three Bean and Lentil soup pictured here is excellent. It contains only 0.3g of saturated fat, contains 11g of protein (that's equivalent to nearly two eggs) and has a great 5.7g of fibre per half carton. The Moroccan Spiced Chick Pea, Minestrone and Plum, Tomato & Basil are also good.

As many of the soups do, the Plum, Tomato & Basil soup also makes an excellent sauce for fish or chicken useful if you have a spare half carton kicking around the fridge. A quick word of caution however- the tomato soup does contain 14.7g of sugar (3.5 teaspoons) which is more than I'd normally recommend, so whilst I would put this in the "generally healthy" bracket, go easy. To be honest though, after looking at the pizza box, this would still be a step in the right direction!

• The advice given in this article is not intended to replace medical advice, but to complement it. Always consult your GP if you have any health concerns. Catherine Burns BA Hons, Dip ION is a fully qualified Nutritional Therapist trained by the Institute for Optimum Nutrition in the U.K. Please note that she is not a Registered Dietitian. She can be contacted at nourishbda@gmail.com