All Things Pinoy,  Eat or Retreat,  Product Reviews

Eat or Retreat: 7 Grains Edamame Protein Pasta for a healthier pasta option?

Since we started this month talking about Pinoy products, I thought we could keep that streak going for another post. I came across 7 Grains Edamame Protein Pasta while browsing the Wellness section at BeautyMNL. I have been loving that online shop not for beauty products but for getting acquainted with new and interesting Filipino brands. Like I mention on my previous post rounding up my recent favorite Pinoy product discoveries, I have been greatly appreciative of the support BeautyMNL is giving local brands.

You know how when you try to order from certain sites that carry all-local brands but you have to pay separate shipping fees for each brand you order? That’s not the case here. BeautyMNL packs everything for you and sends them all together. You can even get free shipping when they run promos. That’s a big deal for me because individual shipping fees really add up.

Anyway, enough about BeautyMNL. I’m really here to review the 7 Grains Edamame Protein Pasta. (I also bought their Skinny Tomato Ketchup to try out. While I do like it for its all-natural qualities, it tastes like a slightly sweeter but normal tomato ketchup.) 7 Grains as a brand is new to me, and so is the idea of noodles made using edamame beans. As a fan of any sort of noodles in general, I got very curious about these and how they would taste. Can they actually be the ultimate pasta alternative?

7 Grains as a brand focuses on providing healthier substitutes to food items we love and consume often. According to their site, their products are made with natural ingredients and therefore contain less calories, less salt, and less sugar. Before putting out any product, they make sure research and consultation through proper local and international channels are implemented.

After trying out their 7 Grains Edamame Protein Pasta, I can believe that they put a lot of work into figuring out how to create this pasta substitute. At a glance, it’s kind of hard to tell this is actually “pasta”. It looks like hay. It doesn’t particularly have a strong scent, maybe a bit earthy.

The box contains a lot of nutritional information about this 7 Grains Edamame Protein Pasta. I realize that you guys might be surprised about how much of a conscious eater I am because I like to bake stuff, but I am always reading nutritional labels when I’m buying stuff so I appreciate this quite a bit. They even have a little comparison versus normal pasta.

On the other side is the cooking instructions, and it literally cooks like any normal pasta out there, but for only half the time because there isn’t any flour used to make this. I think it’s cool that this is literally just made up of two ingredients: edamame and water.

Once the protein pasta is cooked, it changes into a lighter green-brown hue and it also fattens up a bit. I tried one strand and honestly it didn’t have that al dente bite I like from normal pasta. It’s softer. I decided to turn it into a Kung Pao Pasta kind of thing using a Charlie Chan Pasta hack from Pepper.ph that I’ve been wanting to try. The recipe ended up being too salty for my liking, but I was surprised with how well these noodles matched this kind of noodle dish.

Even though my pasta didn’t really taste like Yellow Cab Pizza‘s Charlie Chan, I still found the experience of eating the 7 Grains Edamame Protein Pasta itself rather enjoyable. The noodles are a little rougher than normal pasta, but that’s okay with me. They also remind me a bit of soft tofu wherein they have this way of soaking up the sauce into each strand. The strands are also thinner than your usual pasta despite puffing up a little after boiling. I guess this could have contributed to why the salty flavors from the Kung Pao sauce were even more noticeable. I would have to experiment with these again to know for sure.

The noodles may not have cooked up as al dente as I like, but I like it for other reasons: Aside from the health factor, I can really see the versatility of these noodles. The way the sauce clings onto the noodles is a positive. I don’t know that I would use these for noodle soups because I think it may end up being too soft for that, but I definitely think these are great for stir-frying. I would undercook them a little if I need to stir-fry them for any additional amount of time though.

So the question now is, would I order this again? Short answer, yes. I actually did order their soybean protein pasta and tamarind puree to try because I got even more curious about this brand after getting to try my first two products from them. I like the fact that this gives me the option to have my pasta without all the baggage and all the guilt of too much carbs in my system. Words like low calories, zero additives, and low net carbs have a strong pull.

If you’re a stringent lover of pasta and you absolutely cannot tolerate any alternatives to it, then you probably will not like this. I admit it’s not 100% the same as eating traditional pasta. BUT I believe there are a lot of people out there who have tried and continue to love this healthier alternative because this item is often sold out at BeautyMNL. You can order them off the 7Grains website directly though. At Php 160 per 200 grams, it doesn’t really hurt to try. Frankly, your level of enjoyment will depend on the recipe you choose to prepare the protein pasta with.

I’m really glad that more and more brands these days are focusing on offering healthier alternatives to all our favorite foods. Even more exciting that local brands are stepping up to the plate! Let me know what your thoughts are about this brand and this product if you try it. 🙂

Full disclosure: All products featured on this post were bought with my own money. All opinions are my own. I have not received any compensation for writing this post.

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