Wendyl Nissen: Plumped with veges, thin on calories

This little dish will give you 2.9g of fat and only 730 kj or 182 calories. Photo / Supplied

Weight Watchers Light Meal Honey Soy Noodles. $4.49 for 225g.

I've avoided "diet" meals for many years because often they would contain colours, flavours and additives designed to make not a lot of food taste palatable.

In some cases foods that were advertised as low in fat were actually high in sugar which helped to replace some of the lost flavour when the fat was taken out.

This is one of three new offerings from Weight Watchers which appealed to me for their high vegetable count - this one is 42 per cent vegetables.

Recent research from the Imperial College London advises that we should forget five fruit and vegetables a day and instead eat 10.

The difficulty with eating a lot of vegetables, I find, is that they have to be fresh to taste good, you need to use quite a few of them to stop from getting bored and they inevitably require a lot of chopping and preparation.

But if you want some protein as opposed to plant food, well you just buy a steak and fry it.

So finding an easy to prepare food offering with lots of vegetables and not a lot of calories makes a lot of sense for a quick light lunch or dinner.

Ingredients (in order of greatest quantity first):

Honey Soy Sauce (33%)

Water, soy sauce (5%), ginger paste, garlic paste, maize thickener (1422), honey (0.9%), sherry, lemon juice, corn oil , red chillies, flavour (contains sesame), yeast extract, spice.

There is quite a lot of sauce in this meal and it tastes good.

It is quite sweet with the honey and comes in at 11.3g of sugar per 225g serve which is just under three teaspoons.

There is also a flavour which may be artificial. There is no reference on the packet to not using artificial flavours.

Cooked noodles (14%)

Water, wheat semolina, turmeric, traces of egg.
Not a lot of noodles in here but enough to make it enjoyable. The turmeric in here will be to provide the yellow/orange colour.

Shelled edamame soy beans

Edamame beans are delicious! And they are good for you. They are high in protein, vitamin K and folate as well as fibre.

Red capsicum

There are large strips of capsicum visible in the mix.

Carrots

As above.

Baby corn

As above.

Shiitake mushrooms (8%)

I love the taste of these mushrooms which is a lot stronger then the normal mushrooms we commonly eat.

They are a good source of vitamins B and D and some people believe they have medicinal qualities although I think you'd have to eat a lot more than are in this serving to stoke up your immunity.

Spring onions

You can see little flakes of these in the mix.

My recommendations:

If I was to make this dish it would take me ages and it probably wouldn't taste as good as I'm not a great cook.

I would also probably eat a lot more rather than this small portion.

This little dish will give you 2.9g of fat and only 730kj or 182 calories which is great.

But you are also consuming nearly three teaspoons of sugar and what I assume is an artificial flavour in the sauce.

Having said that this is a great vegetarian meal for the teenager who is refusing to eat meat, or the adult watching their weight or as a side dish for that steak in the pan.

Highlights:

• Only 730kj or 182 calories.
• Uses some artificial flavour.
• Great nutrition with 42% vegetables.