I was getting some groceries last week when I saw a new product in the pasta aisle. Catelli “SuperGreens”.
Immediately I said, “I feel a blog post coming on!”.
Remember that vegetable bread? Total scam, right? And, according to my sources, pretty revolting to boot. Well, this pasta is no different (at least in the scam regard, I presume it tastes much like regular pasta).
How did Catelli get the vegetables in the pasta? Well, they added some vegetable powders (spinach, zucchini, broccoli, parsley, and kale). Super! Green! Hold-up though, before you decide your plate of pasta counts as your vegetables for the day think about how that compares to actual vegetables. Well, because of the processing that the veggies have undergone to become powders, and because the quantities added are likely negligible, there’s no comparing the two. You’re not getting any of the vitamins and minerals that you would by eating any of those actual vegetables.
I was curious how this “SuperGreens” pasta would compare to regular pasta. Catelli didn’t seem to have a plain old pasta option in the same format so I opted to look at their “Smart” pasta which is just regular pasta with added fibre.
As you can see, nutritionally the “SuperGreens” is nearly identical to the “Smart” pasta. In fact, the “Smart” pasta may be slightly better from a nutritional standpoint as it’s got more B vitamins, more fibre, and less sodium (although these differences are fairly minuscule).
If you like this new “SuperGreens” pasta, there’s nothing wrong with eating it. Just know that it doesn’t contribute to your vegetable servings. There’s nothing “super” about this, except maybe the marketing tactic. There’s nothing green about it either, except maybe the cash Catelli will be pulling in from the ridiculous representation of this product. You know what goes great with pasta though? A vegetable-rich sauce.
May 7, 2016 at 12:46 pm
Is the serving size of 1-1/4 C cooked or raw?
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May 7, 2016 at 1:35 pm
Excellent question. They should make that more clear. It would be for cooked pasta.
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Jun 5, 2016 at 3:51 pm
What about the “ronzoni” brand super greens pasta? The box claims 3 servings of vegetables per 3.5 oz serving. Is there any value for this brand? It is what I currently eat, but more so for the taste.
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Jun 5, 2016 at 4:44 pm
I’m not familiar with that brand and they don’t have much info on their website. However, by turning the vegetables into powders you’re bound to lose some of the nutrition. Also, a large part of the benefit of eating vegetables is that they fill you up without providing excess calories. By trying to get vegetables from pasta or bread, you’ll lose out on that aspect, as well as the hydration they provide.
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Aug 1, 2016 at 5:03 pm
I just purchased the Ronzoni SuperGreens. Yep, they got me with their marketing. I was in a slight hurry and didn’t take the time to look at the nutritional information. Shame on me. I arrived at my mom’s house and was excited to show her my find. She immediately looked at the side for the vitamin information, and she was shocked. No vitamin A, not even vitamin C. A decent amount of B vitamins, but I have a feeling it’s comparable to other non-green types. It honestly seems as if all they did was add a LOT of green food coloring to the pasta on top of veggie powder. Never again will I be fooled! Well, with that type of marketing anyway.
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Aug 1, 2016 at 5:42 pm
It happens to the best of us. On the upside, it’s no less nutritious than regular pasta :)
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Jun 16, 2016 at 4:44 pm
Since SuperGreens is trademarked, I’m going to make an educated guess & say that Catelli is just the Canadian version of Ronzoni.
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Oct 26, 2016 at 4:54 pm
They got me. It’s so disturbing that there is no truth in advertising. I am a person with bad food allergies.I need absolute truth when it comes to ingredients or else it will cost me an emergency room visit. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s not even veggie that they grounded up. It’s probably green food coloring. So disappointing
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Sep 17, 2017 at 3:11 am
Exactly why i quite the field of advertising. I couldn’t live with myself anymore. I was good, great at telling the sheeple what to buy. Portion sizes that vary depending on that product’s copywriters. Ways to word anything to sound nutritious and limit liability. Packaging to completely mislead the consumer into buying less for more. We used to laugh about it and how stupid people are. There are formulas on just how many times it takes to convince someone something is “Healthy”. By whos standards? The worst of it all? A government that pretends to protect but is the biggest player in the game of corruption. The very government we pay for helps to poison us in the name of big biz. It isnt even really business anymore. Just giant MONOPOLIES (remember when that word meant something and our goverment protected us against them)like KROEGER. Notice and read your food labels from almost every store if you want to doubt. At least in the Pacific Northwest every chain has Kroeger garbage. And the food chains in the Northwest have different names in other states but are all the same companies across the nation. We dont even notice cause we are too busy paying our bills, commuting and distracted by the media and our smart devices. Are we happier or healthier than our grandparents? One in three people gets cancer as opposed to one in twenty less than a century ago. I have tried in vain to find out just what percentage of vegetables vs how much wheat was in the RONZONI pasta. I guess we have been conditioned too accept that we are not entitled to know what we are ingesting ’cause that information is not available anywhere. If it is please post it for us ALL to see and PLEASE correct me. I would sleep much better to know i was wrong on this. If so, great…if not RONZOLI you suck.
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