Low Carb pasta.....

[poltr1]

Some foods just aren't meant to be tampered with.

Ever have low-fat blue cheese dressing? It's awful! It looks and tastes absolutely horrid. Stick with the real stuff. Ditto that with fat-free grated cheese; It feels and tastes like sawdust. And low-sodium cream of mushroom soup? Bleah.

Where there's fat, there's flavor. And that is why a foodie like me is loath to try low-fat foods. I remember an episode of the Simpsons when Homer is eating a rice cake and saying, "Hello, taste!" I have to agree with Homer.


This time, I tried some low-carb pasta (that's macaroni for you non-foodies). Last year, I picked up a bag of low-carb rigatoni at Big Lots. According to the label, the pasta was made from whole-grain flour. But it had a reddish tint to it, which regular pasta doesn't have. That's OK; I've seen tomato and spinach pastas, and they have orange and green colors to them, respectively.

About three weekends ago (the weekend around January 15), I finally was brave and/or hungry enough to open the bag, cook some, and sample it. Not only did it keep its reddish color, the pasta had a different smell and taste to it. I gave myself a helping. Ugh. I was determined to finish it, but it took some work and diligence on my part (and plenty of sauce to cover the taste). The Wife wouldn't even touch it.

I had it again about a week later, with the aforementioned fat-free grated cheese, and some Prego sauce with mushroom and garlic. I had an easier time downing the meal. I could have used a nice glass of Chianti to help wash it down. It tasted a little better this time.

Would I buy this stuff again? No. I'd probably eat whole-grain pasta only if it were freshly made, by myself or a pasta chef. Or if I were really serious about cutting down on the carbs, I'd skip the pasta altogether.


So, what is it with this low-carb food craze? Is this a fad that will go away soon? And has the Atkins plan been scientifically proven to work as well as people say it does?

Comments

[cadhla.livejournal.com]

I think it depends partially on how you, specifically, perceive tastes. I actually prefer low-fat blue cheese dressing, and fat-free sour cream -- anything more tastes a little bit funny to me.

So mileage? Will always vary.

[folkmew.livejournal.com]

I think you've just had bad experiences. Here's my take on the foods you mentioned (admittedly, it may just BE my take but...):
Low-fat Blue Cheese Dressing - I can tolerate it but prefer to use high fat stuff watered down. (I water it down because it spreads over my salad better and I can use less and still feel like the salad is nicely covered.

Fat free cheese - pretty much yuck, though I've used it in recipes mixed with higher fat cheese and it can work that way. However, I think the LOW FAT cheese can be decent at worst. Cabot makes a quite decent low fat cheddar that my kids love. I use it to sprinkle on salads sometimes, or to put in omelettes sometimes. Mind you, I use really yummy regular old gourmet cheese too but there are times when I want MORE cheese on something like a burrito or chili that the lo-fat stuff suffices just fine IMHO. ;-)

Cream CHeese and sourcream - I basically won't use the fat-free types but find the lower fat types to be quite tolerable. OTOH I also found that an equivalent amount of low fat cream cheese and regular WHIPPED cream cheese have the same WW points value so for bagels guess which gets my vote? ;-)

Now - Whole Wheat Pasta - let me HIGHLY recommend you try the Prince brand that is out now. Really. Someone told me in my WW group to try it and I dubiously got some and tried it on everyone. Mind you, I LIKE whole wheat pasta just fine but the key is would ED and the Kids eat it? The kids love the stuff same as regular and Ed thinks it is fully tolerable at worst and quite decent at best. What I used to do was mix whole wheat pasta with regular but once I found this I use it. I think what they do (most likely) is what many of us have been doing with whole wheat bread for years - they mix some whole wheat with some regular white flour - this gives you a lighter whole wheat. Trust me, the pasta and noodles are good. They don't say anything about "CARBS" or "ATKINS" on them - make sure you are just getting what appears to be a plain old grocery store box of pasta that says it is whole wheat. (I think the egg noodles and pasta brand was prince but wouldn't swear to it).

Good luck! Eating healthy can be tasty still honest! ;-)

[poltr1]

Here's the brand of low-carb pasta I had: Due Amici PastaLite. Imported from Italy.

I agree that the reduced-fat cheeses and such still have enough flavor in them that I can't tell the difference between them. So I'll go for the reduced-fat ones instead of the low-fat ones.

The low-fat blue cheese dressing I had was from Diet Workshop. It was in packets.

[suecochran.livejournal.com]

I've read that there was at least one study of several diets - Atkins, Weight Watchers, Ornish, and one other that escapes me at the moment. What they found is that the diet that works best is the one that works best for the individual. No matter if you eat low-carb or high-carb, what matters most is the calories - which means portion sizes.

I have also heard it suggested that if you buy frozen dinners this will help you with dieting because it is a controlled portion. I personally don't eat the regular grocery store frozen entrees because they have a lot of what I consider "crap" in them - partially hydrogenated oils, high fructose corn syrup, monosodium glutamate, and lots of other things which I consider unhealthy. I shop for frozen dinners at Whole Foods Market (formerly "Fresh Fields") and I get Amy's frozen dinners and Taj Indian Food, and several other ones that are quite tasty, and have a shorter list of ingredients. I believe that the shorter the list of ingredients, the healthier the food is. Although I was a vegetarian for 20 years, I now eat some red meat - but I still eat a 90% or more veggie diet.

I've heard it said, and I agree with this, that the healthiest diet is one where you don't ignore a whole food group. I have some friends who were successful in losing weight on Atkins. I don't think that it's a healthy diet for the long term however. I think that of all those I've heard of and tried myself, Weight Watchers is the most healthful. It teaches you to learn portion sizes, and allows you to eat small amounts of "treats" like chocolate. It's a study in moderation, and is a diet you can live with for life. Diets like Atkins which severly limits carbohydrates, or "no fat" or extremely low fat diets cut out or extremely reduce whole nutrient groups, and I can't believe that that is healthy. Also, if you don't like the food, you won't be able to eat it (duh).

Mixing regular and low fat cheeses or pastas as MEW suggests are a good idea. Same as mixing regular and low sodium (which I do with V-8 - the regular one tastes too salty to me and the low sodium has too little salt, so I mix them). Better to find something you can use as a substitute, such as - I used to use ketchup on scrambled eggs - then I read the ketchup label. High fructose corn syrup. Now I use salsa on my eggs, and I much prefer it that way.
I use rice milk on my cereal because I don't react well to dairy (it clogs up my upper respiratory system and gives me terrible post-nasal drip).

Just my two cents.

I wish you luck in your efforts to find healthy foods that you actually can enjoy.

[poltr1]

My doctor recommended the Sugar Busters! plan for me, which is low-carb, low-glycemic index, but it isn't as stringent or as regimented as Atkins. I've been trying to follow it, cutting out potatoes, starchy veggies, enriched white flour, and white rice. I've also been trying to cut out salt and cut down on fat.

What I like about Sugar Busters is that it was written by three nutritionists and one Fortune 500 CEO, and field-tested in the Big Easy -- New Orleans -- Fat City.

I think I'd rather have pico de gallo on my eggs -- salsa veggies without the tomatoey sauce. And a course, a dash of cayenne pepper sauce.

V-8 would make a decent substitute for vegetables if it still had the fiber that the veggies have.

[persis.livejournal.com]

FWIW, I have found success with the South Beach Diet; essentially getting rid of the whites, flour, sugar, rice and potatoes. SB rates carbs as good or bad, and leaves a lot of room for flexibility. Of course, some exercise always helps. :-) And SB allows chocolate (dark preferably) and wine (in moderation).

I agree with what mew and Sue say about eating what you like, vs. forcing yourself to eat unfavorite foods. I would go with what works for you. Spencer *detests* Weight Watchers, but I think he's remembering the "old" WW. He feels that Atkins works best for him as he can see almost immediate results (but when he goes off there's always a weight gain... the down side of some of these 'diets') where I feel that a total change of attitude toward food is what gets me going toward the lighter side of things.

I am a firm believer in olive oil as a healthful fat, and do almost all my cooking with it. For baking I use butter, but in moderate amounts it is OK. I would *not* recommend margarine under any circumstance. It is pure trans fat.

And I agree with Sue that if you are going to get frozen dinners, avoid the usual suspects found in regular grocery stores. GO for something else; they will taste better and be better for you. But if you can start with whole foods, the less processed, the better.

I do understand the pasta thing; kids will eat it almost all the time, and it is cheap, even when stretched with peas and shrimp added (Talis's favorite). But since both Spencer and I are interested in slimmer waistlines, we don't eat pasta nearly as much as we used to, and when I make rice, it is brown or wild. That said, mac and cheese is *still* a staple of Talis's diet as she is still growing (and currently eating like there's no tomorrow, day after day; I am expecting either a height spurt or something). (She is very lean and has no body fat to spare, so I am not concerned about pasta.)

[poltr1]

I heard somewhere that margarine is a few atoms away from a certain type of plastic.

And yes, olive oil is a monounsaturated fat and therefore better for you than saturated fats like coconut or palm oils. In the summertime, I like to go with a Mediterranean diet -- lots of southern Italian and Greek foods. Opa!

Go easy on the shrimp; they're high in cholesterol.

And since Maria has trouble gaining weight, we don't cut back on her portions. I'm happy she likes goetta for breakfast once a week.