Hormel Compleats Homestyle Beef with Mashed Potatoes & Gravy-Is There Another Ingredient Besides Salt?
Written: Nov 04 '09
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Product Rating:
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Pros: lower calories, fat & sodium than similar entree
Cons: still high in sodium, salt is the only thing I could taste
The Bottom Line: Despite delivering on the promise of being healthier for you, I can't recommend this Hormel Compleats entree as the taste is much worse.
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| AliventiAsylum's Full Review: Hormel Compleats Homestyle Beef with Mashed Potato... |
In looking at the different product lines offered by various corporations, I decided to compare a couple of “regular” entree offerings with those produced that are supposed to be healthier. The Hormel Compleats line of food have a line of regular entrees and a "healthier" line as well. The supposedly healthier offerings have a different packaging. I suppose the green color is supposed to be healthier, indicating vegetables and capitalizing on the “green” concept we’ve somewhat embraced in our society.
The line of Hormel Compleats meals is different than other quick entrees on the market. These do not have to be refrigerated or frozen and can usually be found on the shelf by the canned pastas. The idea is that it can be kept in a desk drawer and avoid the peril of your lunch you’ve brought from home disappearing from the community refrigerator.
Hormel Compleats Homestyle Beef with Mashed Potatoes & Gravy is similar to the Beef Steak Tips with Mashed Potatoes in the regular line from Hormel. The packaging for this allegedly healthier entree shows chunks of beef and mushroom slices in a light gravy over a bed of mashed potatoes. It's been taken from the dish it comes in and put on a plate with a garnish.
The food comes in an oval dish that feels heavier than the packaging of most frozen entrees. The plastic covering the dish is heavier as well. It takes a bit of a thrust to puncture the top for venting. The directions state to heat this in the microwave for just one minute thirty seconds. The packaging is rather strongly sealed, and I’m always afraid that pulling back the film is going to result in the film going one way and the dish going the other with one or both ending up on the floor.
After the fight to pull back the film covering the top of the dish, I found something that would in no way resemble what the picture was, even if I removed it and tried to arrange it in the same way on a plate. The majority of the entree is dominated by gravy, rather then appearing to be a light coating. Even the potatoes are buried beneath the gravy. There were a few mushroom pieces floating in the gravy, but no beef was apparent. When I did find the beef, it was a few sliced of beef and a few mushrooms. The majority of the food in this entree really is the potatoes.
I have to say that the potatoes in the Beef Steak Tips with Mashed Potatoes entree I had in the regular Compleats line were gourmet compared to these. The gravy must have soaked in because they were brown all the way through. On the plus side, there were small chunks of potato in there which gave it a nice texture.
The taste of Hormel Compleats Homestyle Beef with Mashed Potatoes & Gravy was dominated by salt. This is despite the fact that it has almost one third less salt of the regular entree. The gravy had no taste other than salt - it was like eating liquid salt. Since it touched and buried everything, this meant that the taste was salty. The mushrooms were salty, the potatoes were salty, the meat was salty.
Did I mention the entree tasted salty?
On the subject of nutrition, this healthier entree actually does come out ahead of the similar Beef Steak Tips with Mashed Potatoes . This has 220 calories, which is 50 calories less than what’s in the other entree. Of those, 50 are from fat, compared to 80 on the Steak Tips. That comes out to 6g of fat here compared to 9g in the similar entree. On the subject of sodium, this still is pretty high at 600mg of sodium which is comparable to most frozen entrees on the market. However, that’s 350mg less than what’s in the Steak Tips. And it still tasted salty…
Although the Hormel Compleats Homestyle Beef with Mashed Potatoes & Gravy does deliver on its promise of being healthier for you than the similar Beef Steak Tips with Mashed Potatoes , it suffers in the taste department. I didn’t find it all that enjoyable to eat and couldn’t detect any other flavor outside of the sodium. I can’t recommend it at all because of the poor taste. There’s also way too much gravy compared to the substantial food in the entree. This is definitely one to pass on.
Ingredients: Rehydrated Potatoes (Water, Potatoes, Mono- and Diglycerides, Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate, Citric Acid), Water, Cooked Beef (Beef, Water, Natural Flavor, Salt, Dextrose, Sodium Phosphate), Wine (Contains Salt, Potassium Sorbate [Preservative]), Mushrooms, Onions, Beef Fat, Modified Cornstarch, Potassium Chloride, Potato Starch, Beef Base (Cooked Beef with Natural Juices, Salt, Hydrolyzed Corn Soy Wheat Gluten Protein, Hydrolyzed Corn Soy Protein, Sugar, Beef Flavoring [Hydrolyzed Corn Soy Wheat Gluten Protein, Autolyzed Yeast Extract, Dextrose, Partially Hydrogenated Cottonseed and Soybean Oils], Maltodextrin, Onion Powder, Hydrolyzed Corn Protein with Disodium Inosinate and Disodium Guanylate, Autolyzed Yeast Extract, Caramel Color, Natural Flavorings), Beef Flavor (Beef Flavor [Hydrolyzed Soy, Wheat, and Corn Protein, Yeast Extract, Beef Fat and Beef Stock], Maltodextrin, Sugar, Natural Flavoring, Caramel Color, Disodium Inosinate, Disodium Guanylate), Disodium Inosinate and Disodium Guanylate, Microcrystalline Cellulose, Sugar, Caramel Color, Tartaric Acid, Spices, Salt, Mushroom Extract (Mushrooms, Maltodextrin), Flavoring, Sodium Bisulfite.
© 2009 Patti Aliventi
Recommended:
No
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Member: Patti Aliventi
Location: Mount Washington Valley, New Hampshire
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