Half your daily salt intake in one little pot?! (Asda Pasta Snack Pot)

Member Name: pink_glitter

Product:	Asda Pasta Snack Pot
Date:	20/04/09 (183 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: tastes OK

Disadvantages: high salt content, looks awful

I've had an ASDA Carbonara Meal pot in my kitchen cupboard for absolutely ages, but never really felt like eating it. In fact when I did eat it I didn't really feel like eating it, however I was waiting in for a plumber and I didn't want to cook something that would leave dirty pots and pans all over the kitchen or have any strong cooking smells, and this was the only thing in the cupboard I could really eat.

This is basically a pasta in a carbonara (cheese and ham) sauce that comes in a plastic pot, to which you add boiling water, a lot like a pot noodle really.

The packaging of this is pretty awful to be honest. I ordered it online, but I think had I seen it in the shop I wouldn't have purchased it. How shallow of me! This comes in a far too big white plastic pot, the only colour really being a picture of the product on the peel off lid. I don't know why the pot is so big, because there's around a 2-3cm gap above the fill line, so I'm sure they could make it a lot smaller if they tried.

Once the boiling water has been added, you simply stir, cover back up and leave for 5 minutes. The finished product is short lengths of spaghetti in a watery looking sauce with green flecks of herbs. It didn't particularly look very appetising, but when you're hungry you're hungry, so I went ahead and ate it!

It states on the pot, that the sauce is supposed to be creamy. Creamy is not a word I would have used to describe this product as the sauce is so watery. It had a mild cheesy taste to it, and was actually quite pleasant. The pasta itself was lovely too - it had a nice texture, and wasn't as soggy as I expected it may be. The herbs that were in this added colour but little taste, and the ham pieces were almost none existent. The overall taste was a pleasant, yet mild carbonara dish, and despite the salt content (which I'll get to) it didn't actually have a salty taste.

Nutritional Info (Per Pot):
455 calories
14.3g protein
73.8g carbohydrate
11.5g fat
1.1g sodium, which is equivalent to 2.8g salt

The recommended daily intake of salt is 6g, so this little pot of pasta contains nearly half of your daily allowance. I've eaten a few of these sorts of products recently, and to be honest the salt content is disgustingly high in all of them, but this is by far the highest, and I find it a little bit shocking really.

A 105g pot of this costs 77p from ASDA.

Overall, I was surprised at how nice this tasted, but despite the fact I've been eating a hell of a lot of rubbish recently, I'm trying to be more healthy, and there's no way that I'll buy this again, unless they can change the recipe to make it lower in salt.

Summary: A heart attack in a pot