South Beach Diet Garlic Parmesan Chicken with Penne: Latest Frozen Entree

Chicken seems to be the staple for every frozen meal dedicated to helping people lose weight or have better nutrition. Just go to the frozen food section of any grocery store and you will find dozens and dozens of healthy frozen meals with the title "Chicken and...". Most of the time it is chicken and some sort of pasta. Is it irony that chicken and Italian meals are supposed to help you lose weight?

The South Beach Diet has no exception to the chicken rule. One of their newest meals is the South Beach Garlic Parmesan Chicken with Penne. I decided to brave the meal since the last South Beach Diet Food I had wasn't a disappointment. After all, how many companies can mess up chicken and noodles?

Appearance and Nutrition. Well, it looked like any other ordinary frozen meal I've had: boring. The only thing popping about the Garlic Parmesan Chicken with Penne meal were the red bell peppers. They were so bright in color they looked rather fresh and might, just might, taste fresh. There didn't appear to be too much chicken but there sure was a whole lot of whole wheat penne pasta to go around.

Each meal is supposed to give 290 calories towards your diet. There are also 11 grams of fat and 24 grams of carbs included in each serving. And again, South Beach Diet guru Dr. Arthur Agatston must really like his protein because there are 29 grams per serving.

You also get 35% of the recommended daily allowance of Vitamins A and C, as well as 15% of your calcium and 10% of your iron. South Beach Diet frozen entrees are never short on nutrition.

Taste. And this is where the disappointment comes. I didn't really taste much garlic or parmesan in the South Beach Garlic Parmesan Chicken with Penne. It must be hard to come up with a sauce meant to enrich your chicken when there isn't much chicken to begin with.

The sauce was runny and just basically flavorless. I could have used water and garlic salt and probably would have gotten the same results. I followed all the microwave instructions to the letter and it was a sore disappointment.

The only thing impressive about this meal was the vegetables. I don't know how they do it, but South Beach Diet technicians seem to get their veggies right. They were all crunchy, buttery and totally absent of rubber like most frozen vegetables are. With a little salt, they would have been fantastic. But I'm under the impression that you don't need to add anything to a frozen meal.

This is definitely one meal I won't buy again on purpose. The veggies were good, but the rest was just ho-hum chicken and noodles. I could see why some people would enjoy this, but definitely not me.