Trader Joe's Vegan Pad Thai Bowl

I said I would talk about it, so I will. I had one for lunch on Tuesday, and it was the beginning of my descent into a week of less-than-optimal food choices. Basically, there were a lot of calories (and a lot of starch and refined fat) and not enough vegetables or flavor. It was fairly cheap and cooked quickly, but I would have to give it only a 2 out of 5 on the nutrition scale and a 2 out of 5 on the taste scale. So I won't be doing that again. There are some foods that are nutritionally lacking but spiritually pleasing; this wasn't one of them. Also the texture of the tofu was a little strange.

The same day, I bought a Trader Joe's Vegetarian Asian Rice Bowl ($1.99), which I haven't tried yet. After the other bowl I'm a little afraid. Nutritionally the rice bowl is less scary; I just hope it tastes good.

I have to say that in general I enjoy shopping at Trader Joe's (there's one right across from my work, so I often dash over and grab a salad...'n stuff), but I have a few gripes about it. One is produce: it's just weird and unnatural the way they do it. The other one is the total and complete lack of no-added-sugar yogurt cups. They have nonfat organic yogurt with lovely fruit flavors, but then you turn it over and read the label and it's like (I am not making this up) 160 calories. You know where those calories come from? Sugar. Death. It's true that dairy products have a certain amount of naturally occuring sugar (e.g. lactose, etc), but it's also true that Dannon Light & Fit yogurt is only 90 calories a cup (they use splenda or nutrasweet). The best compromise I have found was at Whole Foods. A brand called (I think) Cascade Farms has lowfat (or fat free?) individual yogurt cups in a variety of fruit flavors (including boysenberry!) that's only 110 calories. Additionally, they don't use an artificial sweetener; they just don't use a lot of the sweetener they do you use (cane juice or something). This is like the approach of Honest Tea, which I have to give a big thumbs up to. Anyway, not only does the Cascade Farms yogurt taste just fine, but it's only 70 cents a cup (Light & Fit is usually a dollar or $5 for 5 at Safeway), AND--are you ready?--they use pectin instead of gelatin. That's right, folks. Many non-fat yogurts use gelatin to stabilize them, and as we know, gelatin is usually not vegetarian.

So, to sum:
1. Trader Joe's: good. Pad Thai bowl: not good.
2. Yogurt: important. Cascade Farms Yogurt: good.
3. Honest Tea: very good!
4. Reading labels: Very important!

What are you having for lunch?
- posted by k @ 1:39 PM