A couple of
years ago I lost more than 50 pounds following “The Atkins Diet”. Since then I watched my weight pretty good,
but with sickness and other difficulties this winter, it crept up on me pretty
good. The whole 50 pounds is not back –
nothing anywhere close – but it was enough that I knew I had to do something
before I was right back where I started from.
I was excited
that this time Atkins came out with a few more products to make following the
low carbohydrate eating plan easier.
Especially helpful to someone who works third-shift when there are no
places open to grab a quick salad or the like are the new line of frozen
dinners. I’ve been trying them one by
one and while some of them have been terrific, there is at least one that
totally fails. That would be this one.
The packaging
for Atkins Meatloaf with Portobello
Mushroom Gravy promises “custom premium meatloaf topped with Portobello
mushroom gravy and a side of cauliflower florets, fire roasted zucchini and
green beans”. Sounds good, doesn’t
it? The picture on the box shows what
looks like a typical slab of frozen meatloaf in a nice bit of gravy, topped
with mushrooms and a good side of vegetables.
As usual, it’s photographed on a small plate to present that there’s
more food there than what’s actually in the frozen dinner. Still, I did find the substance of the meal
to be filling. There was plenty of food
here for me.
This
presentation on the box is deceptive for another reason as well. When the frozen dinner comes out of the
microwave, it’s not quite as neat and pretty as it appears here. The directions state to microwave on HIGH for
4 minutes, then remove the film, stir the vegetables, rotate the meatloaf, and
spoon the gravy back on top. After that,
heat for an additional 2 minutes. Let
stand in the microwave for 1 minute.
What came out was vegetables that were mixed with the gravy. Although that didn’t really bother me, it
didn’t look as good as the box. The
meatloaf looked like a slab cut off of a brick.
It really wasn’t the least bit appetizing and looked more like the food
I get in the cheapest of the cheap frozen dinners.
The taste
really wasn’t much better when it came to the meatloaf. The first time I tried it, I just grabbed a
fork to break it apart. Every meatloaf I’ve
ever had I could break apart with a fork.
Not this one. I had to go get a
knife and cut it apart. It was tougher
than nearly anything else I’d tasted in a frozen dinner, and that’s saying
something. I actually went back and bought
this a second time, thinking maybe the first time was a fluke. I mean, they wouldn’t market something this
bad, right? My experience with the
meatloaf was exactly the same. I needed
a knife to slice through it and it was tougher than many steaks I’ve had. The taste wasn’t good either.
The gravy was
good, so I couldn’t complain about that.
It helped to choke down the meatloaf since I had no way to get anything
else to eat that night. The vegetables
were good too, although they were coated in gravy and soft, nothing like the
pretty picture on the box. I’m not
usually a cauliflower eater but when I swirled them in the gravy I managed to
eat them just fine.
Nutritionally,
keep in mind this is designed for people who are counting carbohydrates. There’s 320 calories in the entire frozen
dinner, which isn’t too bad. Of that,
180 are from fat. That works out to 20g
of fat or 31% of the recommended daily value.
Of that, 7g are saturated fat which represents 35% of the recommended
daily value. There’s 640mg of sodium in the
dinner, or 27% of the recommended daily value – really not too bad for a frozen
dinner. For carb counters, this has 7g
of net carbs and is good for all phases of the Atkins diet.
Still, I
wouldn’t recommend Atkins Meatloaf with
Portobello Mushroom Gravy to anyone.
I gave it a second shot and the result was the same. A tough slab of horrible looking meat with a
decent selection of vegetables in gravy which made it edible. If I’d had another option the second time, I
don’t think I would have finished it.
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