Capital Grains - exotic flavors - grain mixes - Brief Article - Recipe

Nutrition Action Healthletter, Sept, 1999 by Wendy Meltzer, Jayne Hurley

BYOV

No matter how delicious your "rice-and" mix is, dinner-in-a-box it's not. Take Chicken& Broccoli Rice-A-Roni. If the "Now Even More Broccoli" emblazoned on the package is true, we'd hate to see what it looked like before. There was barely a tablespoon of dehydrated broccoli in the whole box, despite the beautiful florets pictured on the front.

And the lovely drawings on the box of Lundberg's Wild & Mushroom Quick Brown Rice must be what natural mushroom flavor looks like, because that's as close as the ingredient list gets to mushrooms.

What to do? BYOV (Bring Your Own Vegetables). Cut up some fresh vegetables and toss them in your pilaf, or steam or saute some asparagus, broccoli, snap peas, spinach, or whatever to go alongside. That's the only way you'll end up with a meaningful amount of vegetables in your mix.

RELATED ARTICLE: GOING WITH THE GRAIN

Best Bites (##) have at least four grams of fiber and no more than 480 mg of sodium in a one-cup serving. That's about 60 grams of most mixes, before cooking. (For mixes that list a serving size smaller than 45 grams, we increased the serving to 60 grams.) Make Your Own Best Bites (*) have at least four grams of fiber, a separate spice packet, and no more than 960 mg of sodium (that way, they'll have no more than 480 mg if you use half the packet). Honorable Mentions (#) have no fiber minimum, as long as they have no more than 480 mg of sodium. All the numbers in the chart are for the mixes prepared with no added margarine, oil, or butter, even if the instructions call for them. Mixes are ranked from most to least fiber, then least to most sodium.