I am pretty impressed with some of the South Beach Diet frozen dinners. They are low in calories, low in carbs, and well balanced. I just finished up some of the Savory Beef plate.

First the stats. You get only 220 calories here. 8g of fat, with no trans fats. 16g of carbs, minus 3g of fiber which gives you only 13g net carbs.

Nutrition wise you get 30% Vitamin A, 20% Vitamin C, 15% calcium and 10% iron. So this is rather good for you!

The only down side here is the 930mg of sodium per serving. That's almost 40% of your daily allowance of salt right there in one meal. I know frozen meals often have a lot of salt in them as preservative, but even so this is on the high side.

So how does it taste? It's important that you cook this as directed, in stages. You microwave it for a little while, then stop and stir. This ensures the cheese gets all around on the broccoli and the sauce soaks into the beef. Then you microwave it some more - and then you let it sit.

The beef is still a little tough after all of that, but really, you're not paying for filet mignon here. It is quite good for what it is, and you're getting 20g of protein in here. The broccoli gets a bit dehydrated, but again this isn't a steamer pack. I do find the steamer setups do much better for broccoli and vegetables in general. Maybe the South Beach line will come out with some steamer packs in the future.

I know it's hard to judge portion size, but I've been watching portion size for many years now and I found this to be a bit on the small size. I think others who are just getting into eating healthily are going to find this rather small. They might use this as a "half meal" and have a large salad before it, or maybe a bowl of soup. That's a good practice to get into in any case, to start every meal with a soup or salad. They fill you up and get nutrition into you without loading you with sugars or calories.

In general, I definitely keep a few of these in the freezer for emergencies. That way if there's nothing else in the house, I can always turn to these.


Lisa Shea's Library of Low Carb Books