The Snook and I tried Atkins Chocolate Chocolate Chip Brownie Mix tonight and we were a little disappointed. First off, it retails for five bucks in the U.S. Guess how much I had to pay for it here? Twenty. Twenty dollars Australian. (With the exchange rate it should’ve been $8 AU, so there was more than a 100% markup on it.) Next, I followed the instructions exactly. Dump the contents in a bowl, add 1/3 cup oil, 1/4 water, and an egg. Mix. Pour into loaf pan. “Pour” was a little optimistic though. This stuff was like thick sticky mud. The Snook kept asking, “Are you sure you followed the directions correctly?” I was sure. The end product was predictably dense and dry. Chocolatey, yes, but way too crumbly. By morning it’ll be hard as a rock. So did I get a bag with a wacky incorrect recipe? Because when I pay twenty dollars for brownies, I expect them to be good.

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  1. is full-fat ice cream legal on Atkins? sounds like a perfect excuse for some brownie sundaes to me. πŸ˜‰

  2. I jumped back on the Atkins bandwagon yesterday, tired of those 10-20 pounds that keep hanging around (because of those bad munchy habits, of course). I enjoy your updates and pictures about your Atkins successes and challenges; it’s very motivating to see how well you’ve done!

  3. We’ve actually found “carb-modified” ice cream here from Nestle! That made the brownies a little more palatable. πŸ™‚

  4. Breyers has recently come out with a full-fat Splenda version of ice cream. Dammit…. I forget what it’s called, exaclty, because I’ve only seen it once. But it rocks hard. I love ice cream. I love Splenda. Put them together and I am indeed a happy camper.

    And Kris — your experience with the brownies is not an isolated event. I’ve never bought any of the Atkins bake mixes with any success. I think they’re downright awful, to tell you the truth. I’d rather just go without than have subpar munchies.

  5. If I wanted to go atkins, would eggs, sausage, and cheese be legal? After a week of that would I still be alive? I figure, eggs and suasage is a good hearty breakfast. Cheese is good for a light lunch. Cheese also makes a good snack. And for dinner, who knows, maybe more cheese. Chesse can be expensive tho.

  6. Dan – Those are definitely Atkins friendly foods*. You don’t eat them for every *single* meal though. I usually have eggs and cheese for breakfast, salad for lunch, and then meat and veg for dinner. On most days I have an after-work snack of cheese or nuts or a dill pickle. After nearly a year of that I’m forty pounds lighter and my cholesterol and blood pressure have gone DOWN! Believe it; it’s possible.

    * Re: Sausage, you’ve gotta watch the ingredients list. A lot of butchers will bulk up their links with “cereals” and other weird stuff. Basically look towards the more expensive “gourmet” sausages… They’ll have a higher meat content and probably taste better too!

  7. I feel bad about misrepresenting myself now. I don’t really eat sausage. I’m actually something of a vegetarian (well, not really, but I have particular rules which add up to not eating a lot of meat). But I am perfectly willing to live off of cheese, no question about that. I might try it, you know, for the sake of science. I have had my eye on this one 5lb block of cheddar at Kroger for some time.

  8. Ah, you’re a MOCKER! πŸ™‚

    Yeah, it’s hard to do Atkins if you’re vegetarian, I think. It’d be pretty monotonous, at any rate. But cheese is definitely on the list! The Snook thinks I’m turning into a mouse because we actually buy the 1 kilo block of Colby (What’s that? 2.2 pounds, I think) and I go through it in a week. It’s good stuff. I like to cut it into sticks and dip them in baba ganoush. I’d kill for some Colby Jack though. They just don’t have that here.

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