Product Review: Atkins Italian Style Pasta Bake Frozen Meal
While I am usually a fan of most of Atkins’ Nutritionals Products, the Italian Style Pasta Bake is lacking in both pasta and flavor. When I saw this product in the freezer section, I was excited to try it. I mean, look at the photo! Doesn’t it look absolutely delicious with lots of pasta, cheese, and sauce?
I admit it. Pasta is a difficult food to have on a low carb lifestyle. When Dreamfields Pasta came out with their pastas that they alleged were the equivalent of 5 net carbs in a serving, I was thrilled. Unfortunately, that didn’t turn out to be the case and they had greatly misstated the actual carbs. Although I did try them in several dishes and had no ill effects or weight gain from one serving and I still use the product. Atkins had a pasta on the market also, which I think has since been discontinued, but I never tried the pasta because it was still too high in carbs to fit into my lifestyle.
So, I saw this one and thought it would be the answer to a dream. It only has 7 net carbs in the whole meal and generally, Atkins meals are pretty generous for the average eater. I popped it in my microwave to cook and pulled it out to stare at it in disappointment. If there is 1/4 cup of pasta in this dish, I would be surprised. The sausage is plentiful though and the flavor of the sausage is very good, but the sauce lacks spice and is just too bland to really make a hit with me. The actual cooked product bears little resemblance to the picture on the box. I wish I’d taken a photo of the actual dish, but I didn’t and I don’t plan to buy it again in order to get the photo. Take my word, this is not one of Atkins better products.
Now, Atkins has often improved on their products when the feedback and sales aren’t that high and it’s possible they will try to improve this one as well. So, if I see a “new and improved” label on it, I might try it again. For now, I’ll stick with my pasta sauce on spaghetti squash or zucchini noodles. I also have pasta flour from LC Foods that I just might try making one of these days soon. Stay tuned for that!
Nutrition Info per box (Atkin) Calories: 360 Fat: 21 g Net Carbs: 7 g Protein: 33 g
Weight 9 oz. (255 g)
On a scale of 1 to 5, I give this 2 cooking spoons. It’s not terrible, but it’s not very good either.
As a child, I was pudgy from the time I was about 4 years old onward. Until I was three, I was thin, thanks largely to tonsillitis. Once my tonsils were removed, I started eating more and my weight began to increase. My mother tried reduced food – I had a half a sandwich and a piece of fruit for lunch. Try concentrating on school work when you’re hungry all the time. And I didn’t lose any weight. The doctor tried shots and other diets. I was on a weight loss diet most of my young life, mostly low calorie.
When I first went on the Atkins diet when I was 19, I went from 210 pounds down to 160 pounds and I kept it off for about 6 years. This was the high protein version of the diet and even though it recommended vegetables, they weren’t stressed as much as they are now. The recommended carb count for that era was 60 grams per day and net carbs were not even in the picture. I was pretty active in those days. I had a reasonably physical job that meant I was on my feet and moving a lot and I used to ice skate almost every day for several hours. It was when I slipped off the diet, adding in more carbohydrates, that the weight began to go back up again. As is typical with this, those pounds brought back friends with them and my weight went up to about 230 pounds. And there it stayed for several years.
My next attempt with the Atkins diet was with the same method and I lost weight again, although not as successfully. I got down to about 180 pounds and held there for a few years before slipping off it and gaining weight again. The next major weight loss phase was when the roommate went on one of the popular low calories diets that you purchased their food and pretty much ate only that. She began to lose weight on it, but slowly. I maintained you could achieve the same results with using the frozen food brands that are low calories, so I embarked on a 1000 calorie a day diet using primarily frozen foods and keeping under that limit. The only drawback is that you are frequently hungry when you’re functioning at under 1000 calories. I walked during my lunch hours at work and I lost from 230 down to 170 pounds in less than six months. I was much more successful than the roomie on the expensive diet. I also made low calorie meals at home and the Weight Watchers cookbook became a companion then. I converted my favorite Betty Crocker recipes to both low calorie and low carbohydrates in those days.
My first home computer was one of the Coleco Adam models and it allowed the user to program in basic. I knew enough basic code to write a simple food calculator that would calculate the number of calories and carbohydrates in a specific value of food so I was able to adjust recipes fairly accurately.
Once again, I slipped after a few years and those pounds came back to boost my weight to a whopping 300 pounds! Why did the diets fail? I lost the weight but I couldn’t maintain for more than a few years. My body craved things that I couldn’t have or simply tasted awful with the products we had to make them. Sugar substitutes had an after taste that ruined your cheesecake, diet drinks were in the same state. I loved bread and there were no low calorie or low carb substitutes that were any good. I remember trying low fat cheese in a grilled cheese sandwich and it simply refused to melt. It was like plastic.
Switching to a Low Carb Lifestyle
This brings me to 2009. I was now at a slowly climbing weight of 315 pounds and I am not an overeater! I don‘t gorge on food regularly, although now and then a craving would lead me to gulp down more than a serving of something that I really wanted. But generally, my diet was between 1200 and 1500 calories daily. I am 5’ 9 1/2” tall. I am guessing that the lowest weight I could reach and still look healthy would be about 150 lbs. I’ve been as low as 160 lbs. and I was thin, but there was still enough fat on my body to drop another 10 pounds. But I felt healthy at that weight. When I got to 170, I also felt good. And here I was 315 lbs, wearing size 2x (24-26) clothes.
I am mostly healthy, although I have heart arrhythmia although my arteries are clean and my cholesterol is low, but I was beginning to suffer from high blood pressure. Over a few years, I had experienced the pain of kidney stones at least three separate times. For those who’ve had them, you know they are very painful and you’re nauseatingly ill for several hours while the stone passes. In February of 2010, I experienced a cluster of kidney stones that left me ill and eating very little for almost the whole month. I had lost a few pounds in December and January, but by the end of the month, I was down 38 pounds. For several months afterwards, I didn’t eat a lot of food and I wasn’t all that hungry. But I also wasn’t losing any more weight. By the end of the year, I was beginning to inch back up on the scale again and I was trying to lose more.
In February 2011, I began looking at the Atkins program again and I saw that there were changes in it. They talked of the net carbs or effective carbs. I bought the new book and read through it. The initial phase was very restrictive in the foods you could eat, but it wasn’t starvation. I started on it. I dropped a few pounds and stalled while I was house-sitting for a friend in Las Vegas. I was following the diet, but it wasn’t working for me. When I returned home to Reno, I looked though it again and found I was using a food in my salads that was not on the approved list. So I started again. This time I began to lose the weight and by the end of 2011, I had lost 58 pounds. After the initial phase, which I extended to a month, I began the On-going Weight Loss (OWL) phase where you can gradually begin adding foods, one by one, back into your diet. The intent here is to learn what foods affect your weight loss and you can begin increasing the number of net carbs you are eating to determine where your weight loss point is. Sadly, I soon learned that those 20 net carbs are close to the maximum I could consume and continue to lose weight. If I go up to 23 net carbs, I will maintain; over that and I gain. It’s very low and most people are not that restricted.
Since that February of the kidney-stone induced weight loss, to the present, I have lost 140 pounds and am at 175 pounds, and a size 12, now. I plan to get down to 170 pounds, and maybe less, eventually, but I am not stressing over it. It’s a slow process, but I feel great and my blood pressure is normal. I am not hungry most of the time and I snack on low carb items several times a day. My energy level is up and overall, I think I am doing well. I must mention at this point that I don’t exercise that much. I keep telling myself that I should exercise several times a week, but apart from some gardening, banging around the kitchen creating new low carb dishes and a little walking now and then, I am pretty much in front of the computer most of the time.
Adapting to What Works
My New Year’s Day spread, all low carb, except the sweet potatoes we made for PK’s sister From the left clockwise: Broccoli Salad, Harvard beets, Spiral Ham, Irish Style Celery & Kohlrabi. In addition, we had Irish Soda Bread and a Frozen Peppermint Cream Pie, also low carb.
On this journey, I have discovered many foods that I can eat that replace other staples, like rice, beans and potatoes, in my diet. I have adapted recipes to use cauliflower, turnips, kohlrabi and daikon radishes to replace these more starchy vegetables. I generally don’t eat any higher carb vegetables, like potatoes, corn and sweet potatoes. Fruits are very limited as well, although most berries, in moderation, work well. I slip in peaches and other higher carb fruits now and then in very small amounts. Usually, I eat 3 to 4 ounces of meat protein in one or two meals a day. Eggs are used frequently. I have started using non-wheat flours, such as almond flour, coconut flour and other nut flours as well as low carb flours, which are made by several companies now. Breads aren’t the same taste, but they are more like whole or grain breads and when you haven’t been eating regular bread for a while, they are delicious. I prefer them now.
There are also many new products that help make the diet easier to maintain. Atkins has an amazing line of low carb diet bars and candy that range from 2 net carbs to 6 net carbs per bar. Their caramel nut bar is like a Snickers bar and the Chocolate Hazelnut Bar is my favorite. They also have a decadent Chocolate Cashew Bar that is a special treat since it’s a little higher. Russell Stover’s has wonderful sugar free candies that are low carb as well. These taste fabulous. Sugar substitutes have gotten better with no after taste. Many of these use sugar alcohol for sweetener. It’s not alcohol and it comes from sugar, so the taste is virtually the same. I use it for cakes and cookies. It has no calories and no carbs. New jams and jellies are low in carbs. CarbQuick is like Bisquick for cooking and I make a lot of breads with it. Many of these foods were developed to help diabetics and it’s also a blessing for those of us who are trying to keep the carbs low.
So, is a low carb diet unhealthy? I don’t think so. Not if you follow it correctly, don’t overeat on proteins and take your vitamins. Will it work for you? My roomie says that not all diets work for everyone, but it’s taken me to a couple of months ago to get her to actually follow the Atkins plan. Atkins maintains that it will work for everyone, some better than others, but you need to follow the plan and that involves eating regular meals and snacks. If you skip breakfast, maybe eat a snack bar or a diet drink for a break, then a salad for lunch and a low carb dinner, you’ll have a low calorie day and you might lose a little, but you’ll actually do better with a hard boiled egg and cheese for breakfast, a low carb snack bar or drink for a break, a salad with tuna or chicken in it, another snack of nuts in the afternoon, and a low carb dinner. It keeps the body’s fat burners fired up and working. The calories may come in a little higher than 1,000 per day, but you’re feeling better, not hungry and you can always grab a low carb dessert if you wish.
To my way of thinking a low carb diet that works is better than gastric surgery that not only restricts your intake, but also puts you on a limited diet and can cause other problems with your body. I have also known people who have had this surgery and not followed the recommended diet and have not lost the weight as well as a couple who lost an initially large amount, but then had to really cut their intake in order to lose any more. And there are others who’ve experienced complications from the surgery itself, even with lap bands.
The low carb diet, be it Atkins, the Zone, South Beach or any other that basically follows the low carb approach, is the least difficult of diets to stick with, even when going out to eat. It’s not always easy. It takes a lot of will power to say “no hash browns, no bread” when ordering egg omelets; to say “I’ll have green beans or broccoli” instead of a baked potato with my steak. Mexican food is limited, but you can have carnitas, chile rellanos or fajitas without the tortillas, refried beans and rice. Passing up bread with olive oil at an Italian restaurant is hard enough, but saying no to pasta can be very difficult. I try to avoid them. At home, I can substitute many of the side dishes with low carb versions, but in the restaurant, look for salads or meat dishes with a side salad.
If there is one thing I have realized after all my yo-yo dieting experiences, it is that if you don’t find a way of eating that you can live with the rest of your life, losing the weight on any diet is a waste of time and hard on your body. For me, a low carb lifestyle is something I can live with for life. I just wish I could up those base net carbs another 5 to 10 carbs a day…
It’s not that I don’t love a potato, but I don’t like the high carbohydrates that come with it. I have always been a potato eater and love it prepared many ways, but if you’re trying to keep your carbs as low as I need to in order to not gain weight, then the potato has to be eaten sparingly or not at all. I actually haven’t eaten a potato in over two years except for the boxty I tried in Portland last March (and gained 2 pounds from!) or the ¼ cup of boiled potatoes I may splurge for at the annual Corned Beef and Cabbage dinner this St. Patrick’s Day. Mostly, I don’t miss them – mainly because I have found workable and delicious alternatives. The flavors are different from the potato and in some cases, more tasty.
The one place that I haven’t found a good replacement is for a baked potato. The potato has a unique texture when it’s baked and so far, nothing else I’ve tried has been a proper stand in for it. So, if anyone has found something that bakes up the same way, let me know.
Root Vegetables
Root vegetables, from top left: Turnip, Kohlrabi, Rutabaga (on top) and Daikon Radish
In the meantime, my go-to trio for most potato substitutions consists of turnips, kohlrabi and daikon radish. The turnip was in Europe long before the potato and doing the function of a potato in many dishes. It is wonderful in scalloped turnips, in stews, boiled and buttered, and many other ways that I am still discovering. I have a hard time describing its flavor, but either you like it or you don’t. You do need to peel it unless you have a fresh from the garden turnip because I’ve found the skin a bit bitter. A member of the mustard family, they have a slight peppery taste, much like a daikon radish has. Larger, older turnips tend to be tougher and have more of that peppery taste, so they need to be cooked with other vegetables. One of my favorite recipes is turnips with green beans.
Kohlrabi is a recent discovery for me and one that I wish I had discovered sooner. It’s an odd looking light green vegetable with the stems coming out in several places at the top to support lots of lovely leaves that are also delicious in a salad, cooked like spinach or chard or added to soups, stews and casseroles. The root bulb actually grows above ground and should be picked when it’s about 2 to 3 inches in diameter. To me, it looks like a broccoli stalk in color and in texture. You peel the skin, which is like a thicker version of a broccoli stalk skin and the inside is a very pale green. It works very well in the same ways that the turnip does. By the way, all three of my go-to vegetables can be cut in planks and fried or roasted with seasonings and are wonderfully flavorful.
The daikon radish is a large root with a peppery flavor that isn’t too strong and is milder than a regular radish. Like other radishes, it’s great cut or shredded and added to salad. But you can also shred it and make hash browns. Or cut it up and add it to stews, soups and other potato dishes.
My favorite way to make a mash is to add equal parts of turnips, kohlrabi, daikon and cauliflower to the pot of boiling water and mash them together with butter and little but of heavy cream. Add seasonings and you have a great substitute for mashed potatoes. Add some flour and eggs to the leftovers and you have a mashed cake like a potato pancake.
Another overlooked vegetable, and one that I stubbornly refused to consider for years because I disliked it as a child, is the beet. It has a sweet, earthy flavor that is hard to describe. I tried cooking a couple of golden beets with green beans and ham the other night and it was delicious. So, I have added beets to the potato sub list. Beet greens are also tasty leaves that goes well with the kohlrabi leaf and can be used in the same way. I never thought I would be that crazy about leaves, but these are changing my mind.
Used a little more often as a potato substitute, cauliflower is also a great stand-in, not only for potatoes but for rice. You can put it in a food processor and chop it down to the size of rice, then cook it in rice dishes and it fills in very well.
How wonderful are these vegetables to a low carb lifestyle? They are awesome. Take a look at this chat I put together showing you some comparisons. I pulled the nutrition information from Spark People and/or Atkins or elsewhere on the internet, so I believe it is accurate. I used 1 cup diced as the quantity for each one.
This list includes rutabaga, which is similar to a turnip but is a little sweeter. In many parts of Europe, including Ireland, Scotland, Scandinavia and parts of England, it is called a turnip and is used for neeps and tatties (potatoes and turnips).The turnip mostly known in the US is the white globe with the purple top or a plain white globe. The rutabaga is also called a swede because it originated in Scandinavia. The two have different flavors but can be used the same way. The rutabaga is the highest in carbohydrates of the potato alternates that I’ve listed.
So, if you want to cut back on your carbs and calories, try using one of the root substitutes for your potato. Unless you want a baked one, that is and if I find a good substitute, I’ll let you know.
Yesterday, I went to my local health food store and purchased two loaves of Julian Bread’s zero net carb breads, their regular bread and the cinnamon bread. First, these were in small supply at this big store that carries health food products and the cinnamon bread was frozen. They sell so few units that it’s best to freeze the bread. The bread lists online at Julian Bread’s web site for $7.95 a loaf, pretty pricey for a small loaf of bread, but from this chain market, it was $9.99 a loaf. Way too pricey!
But I had hopes that the taste of the bread would make up for it. This was not to be. I toasted up one of slices in the toaster. It was very thin, but it held together well and didn’t fall apart when I removed it. Often low carb breads tend to crumble. These breads are gluten free also so that is a plus for it. I buttered it, split the piece and my roomie and I both tasted it. No flavor! I would say it tastes like cardboard, but I’ve never eaten cardboard. It just didn’t even have a taste of salt or anything else a bread should taste like. Worse, the butter flavor disappeared in it.
Today, I tried a piece of the cinnamon bread with peanut butter and strawberry jam on it. It brought nothing to the party. The only flavors that came through were the toppings. Not even the cinnamon is distinct enough. It’s not even like a cracker.
So, I would have to say that this is not worth the money to purchase. You can make a better tasting low carb bread from scratch that only has a couple of effective carbs in it or buy a low carb bread mix from New Hope Mills or Bob’s Red Mill or LC Foods. Even my low carb soda bread has more flavor with a taste that’s very close to the real thing.
If you want to make low carb breads, I can’t stress how easy they are to make even though you may have to special order a few products. I get mine from Netrition.com. It takes about a week and the shipping is $4.95, no matter how much you order, so order several at one time, They carry New Hope Mills, CarbQuick, Bob’s Red Mill, Dixie Diner and LC Foods products, so they’re a great place for one stop shopping and shipping.
