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

[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.