Chronicles of a Late Bloomer

• Taste Rating:
  
• Health Rating:
  
• Environment Rating:
  
• Processed Rating:
  
• Portability Rating:
  
• Overall Rating:
  

Taste Rating: I find this has just the amount of spiciness for a morning meal — not too much to jolt you, but enough to feel fancy.

Health Rating: Low cal, but somewhat high in sodium.

Environment Rating: Comes canned. Can is recyclable but not biodegradable, obviously.

Processed Rating: This is a processed food and is built for convenience. By that, I mean that you could make the same food with whole, fresh ingredients if you had the time. There are no listed preservatives or artificial sweeteners in this product and I think you can trust that, since the sauce is now manufactured in Los Angeles and therefore subject to FDA and labeling regulations.

Portability Rating: While in the can, it is very portable. However, it is a sauce and could easily spill. Depends on how you use it.

Overall Rating:

Normally, I wouldn’t profile a processed or canned food, but a craving for El Pato this morning really hit the spot and I was impressed with how healthy it was.

I was first exposed to this “tomato sauce”¹ on my mission when one of our Mexican mamas used it in a quick-and-dirty version of chilaquiles.

One ounce (1/8 of a can) of El Pato yields:

• 5 calories
• 0g fat
• 0 protein
• less than 1g sugar

I like spicy things, though, and so I mixed half a can (4 oz) with my two scrambled eggs this morning and tossed in 1/2 cup of black beans to make more of a chilaquile feel. Naw, it didn’t taste like chilaquiles… but it hit the spot for only 321 calories and 11 grams fat. It also had 10 grams of fiber and 23 grams of protein. 5.5 points. Nice.

Best of all? I can usually find El Pato in my supermarket for around $0.89 a can.

1. More of a salsa, in my opinion, since the ingredients include tomato puree, water, chiles, onions, garlic, salt and spices. [↩]