Knorr-Lipton Sides Made With Whole Grains. Alfredo Pasta, Chicken Pasta, Sesame Chicken Rice and Chicken Broccoli Rice. $1.39 per 4.3- to 5-ounce pouch.
Bonnie: You would have to have been "Lost" to not have heard that our government's food pyramid now recommends that we get at least three servings of whole grains a day. Most major manufacturers have responded by quickly adding whole grains to every food they can. Knorr-Lipton responded with these new Sides. Two contain brown rice; the other two, whole-grain fettuccini made with some whole-wheat flour. All four contain at least 3 grams of fiber per serving, which is more than plain brown rice but not as much as whole-wheat pasta.
Like the other Knorr-Lipton Sides, these contain no preservatives, artificial colors or flavors. What they do contain are flavor enhancers that made the flavors repeat on me and significantly boost the sodium content. The heftiest is the Chicken Broccoli Rice, with 830 milligrams of sodium — or about two-fifths of the recommended daily limit. So, of course, additive-free brown rice or whole-wheat pastas that you flavor yourself would be better. But these new Lipton Sides are better than their nonwhole-grain Sides.
Carolyn: It would be easy to pick up one of these Knorr-Lipton whole-grain side-dish pouches thinking you were buying one of Knorr-Lipton's regular, nonwhole-grain side dishes. That's because the only difference between, say, Knorr-Lipton's regular Alfredo Pasta and Chicken Broccoli side dishes and these new whole-grain ones is the phrase "Whole Grain" printed several times on the right-hand front of otherwise identical packages.
The package doesn't tell you what this means, so I will: These are made with whole-wheat pasta or brown rice, and they taste and cook like it. That renders the "or until tender" part of the cooking instructions moot. Do brown rice and whole-wheat pasta ever truly get tender? By following the prescribed cooking and resting times, both rices ended up watery and both pastas, doughy.
New upscale Knorr name and upped-fiber notwithstanding, this is cafeteria fare, the Alfredo Pasta excepted. It's a rare case of a tasty Alfredo that is not horribly bad for you.
Del Monte Garden Select Tomatoes. Sliced, Petite Diced and Petite Diced With Basil, Garlic & Oregano. $1.89 per 14.5-ounce jar.
Bonnie: I was pleasantly surprised when I opened a jar of these new Del Monte Garden Select premium tomatoes. They live up to Del Monte's claim that they are closer to fresh than canned. That's because they're less processed, as packing foods in jars requires less heat than canning. In taste and texture, they're somewhere between canned and fresh. They're pretty pricey, but worth it when good-tasting fresh tomatoes are unavailable.
Carolyn: Everybody says Americans need to eat more fruits and vegetables. But keeping a household stocked with fresh vegetables can be difficult, what with spoilage and varying or questionable quality, especially in the offseason.
Enter Del Monte with these glass-jarred tomato products that the labels claim to be "more like fresh" — so much so that the back-of-label instructions say they can be used like fresh diced or sliced tomatoes in appetizers, dips and salads. I say only if you like fresh tomatoes that are limp and mushy. The diced ones were better, especially when cooked on top of the stove with onions to make a simple pasta sauce.
Del Monte Garden Select tomatoes might look pretty in their glass packaging, but they taste and perform exactly like canned tomatoes to me, if not to Bonnie.
Manischewitz Spelt Matzos. $2.99 per 12-ounce box.
Bonnie: Even the matzos for Passover are becoming nutritionally correct by including whole grains. This new Manischewitz one is made from spelt, an ancient wheat species (also known as farro) said to have been grown at the time of the Israelites' hasty exodus from Egypt. Since there was no time to let the bread dough rise, the Israelites just baked the flour-water mixture, resulting in the thin flat cracker-like unleavened bread. This matzo is traditionally eaten during the eight days of Passover to commemorate the Israelites' flight to freedom.
I like the slightly nuttier flavor of this new spelt variety over Manischewitz' regular matzos and much more than its very dry whole-wheat version. I like the taste of Manischewitz' egg matzo even better. Both the egg and spelt matzo contain 1 gram of fiber (which is 1 gram more than the regular kind). Start a new tradition of making the age-old grain spelt a part of your Passover table with the help of this new matzo.
Carolyn: I wouldn't go as far as Bonnie and say this new spelt matzo tastes better than regular flour matzo, but it certainly doesn't taste any worse. For all of you who usually eat jelly beans and marshmallow Peeps at this time of year rather than matzo: It tastes a little bit like unsalted oyster crackers, but it is large and flat — in other words, more of a benign canvas for jelly or cheese or dips like hummus than a treat in and of itself.
This spelt version is certainly much more mellow and approachable than bread products with whole wheat. In fact, after this, I might even consider trying some other spelt-containing foods that I've previously carefully avoided.
Bonnie Tandy Leblang is a registered dietitian and professional speaker. Carolyn Wyman is a junk-food fanatic and author of "Better Than Homemade: Amazing Foods That Changed the Way We Eat" (Quirk). Each week they critique three new food items.
© Universal Press Syndicate