Atkins Beef Merlot - It's Nice to Have Frozen Dinners that are Friendly to Low Carbohydrate Dieters

The only diet I’ve ever been able to follow that gives me decent results has been the Atkins Low Carbohydrate diet.  I’ve found that I can generally eat enough food that I feel full and still see good enough results on the program that I am encouraged to follow through with the diet.  Two years ago, I lost about 50 pounds.  This year, with a few stresses, I put some weight back on so I am back to low carbohydrates for a while.

The good news is that the Atkins brand is expanding a bit.  I always used their bars and shakes to give into that sweet tooth craving.  In addition, now there is a line of frozen meals that really help.  They can be a bit hard to find at the moment.  The most reliable source seems to be the local WalMart SuperCenter.  Since I don’t have one near me, I grab a bunch of the frozen dinners whenever I am near one.

The Atkins Beef Merlot was one of the first I tried.  It looked interesting from the box with nice chunks of beef and broccoli florets in what looked like a brown gravy.  The box touts this as: Tender beef and broccoli florets in a delicate Merlot wine sauce.  Preparation is simple.  It goes into the microwave for four minutes with the film covering the tray.  At that time, the film is peeled back & the food is stirred, then the film is replaced and it’s heated for another two minutes.

That’s what the box looks like.  The sad reality (at least as far as appearance goes) is this:

I’ve written before that the photography on these boxes is deceptive.  They use a small plate to give the illusion of there being more food in the meal.  This weighs in at 9 ozs., so it’s a typical portion size for a frozen entrée.  I’d just like to know, though, where are those nice chunks of beef? There were about 3-4 pieces that were a substantial size, and the rest pretty much fell apart upon stirring.  The broccoli fared even worse.  A few of the florets stayed together, but overall it became broccoli bits in the middle of gravy and pieces of beef.

The taste, thank God, is much better than the appearance.  I really liked how this tasted.  I was not optimistic the first time I had it and saw what it looked like.  The gravy is very good and although that dominates the overall taste of the food, it’s a good taste.  The beef and broccoli were tender.  The few big chunks of beef weren’t chewy and had good flavor to them.  Most of the broccoli had fallen apart, but the few bigger florets were also tender without being mushy.  It wasn’t entirely pleasant, though, that it felt like I was better off using a spoon to scrape most of the food from the tray since it had fallen apart.  There were only a few big chunks that I could actually sink a fork into.

Nutritionally, this is about what you would expect from a frozen dinner that’s focused on low carbohydrates.  There’s 310 calories in the dinner, 190 of which are from fat.  That works out to 21g of fat or 32% of the USDA recommended daily value.  Of that, there’s 4g of saturated fat which is 20% of the USDA recommended daily value.  Where this is a bit troubling is the same place most of these frozen dinners lose out which is salt or sodium.  There’s a whopping 920mg of sodium in the dinner which is 38% of the USDA recommended daily value.  Carbohydrate wise, there’s 9g of carbs in this less the fiber carbs of 3g leaving you with a net carbs of 6g.  It’s good for all phases of the Atkins diet plan.

I really like the flavor of the Atkins Beef Merlot so while there are some problems with the appearance and substance, and the sodium levels are a bit troubling especially to someone who already has high blood pressure, I would buy it again.  I just wouldn’t use it for my meals on a regular basis but a few times a week when I am at work and want something nice that’s easy to prepare, this definitely hits the mark.