Is your favorite takeaway meal at Indian Curry? Do you love whipping up a Tika masala in your kitchen like Master Chef? There is a growing range of curry sauces in the supermarkets, and today we are going to review two popular Tika masala sauces just for you. Hi, I'm Susie Burrow and I'm Leanne Wood, and we bring you the Nutrition Couch, a bye weekly chat on everything you can find in the supermarket and our very honest reviews
of some of our listeners much loved products. So Leanne Curry, is it your favorite order when you get some cheeky uber eats?
No, I just I always feel sick after eating it, and I think it's because I have a little bit of a sensitive gut. I just find it very very rich. However, David loves Indian like as a cuisine into order, so he gets very upset because I never let him have it. Whenever we go and you get some reats, I always be too hones saying we're not having that because I can't eat it and I'll feel sick tomorrow and you'll have to deal with me tomorrow. So the poor guy
probably hasn't had Indian takeaway in years. But I do like that there are a growing range of sort of sources where you can make your own at home. You can sort of balance it out a little bit more. But this curry is something that you love? Is it a go to in your household? SUSI?
Oh, it's so funny because when I was growing up, my parents would routinely have curry nights, so they would have their friends over. They would have the little bowls of coconut and banana and pumpams. It was a massive social occasion. And I have to be honest, I'm a very plain eater, as I've shared before. I like, really, you know, a piece of salmon and vegetables. I don't mind like a tie kind of curry, but it's certainly
something I don't make regularly at home. But like you, my husband loves it, and as soon as he gets my parents around her, if I'm not here, they will always whip out for a curry. So I'm a bit of the limiting factor. We won't disagree, but we should say that we know you guys listening love this because when Lee and I said to Leana, we really doing curry and she said, yeah, it's really popular. We've had several requests for it, so it's our job to bring
you the information. So we've got two pre made sources in the supermarket because we know you guys enjoy it. So the first one we're going to talk about today is that. And if I'm pronouncing these names wrong, please forgive me, am I saying it correct? Per Tax Is that right? I think it's yeah, Pa Tax, I think pat tax and Tika masala. That's how you say it, isn't it.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure.
So this is a source found just in the supermarket. It's actually made in the UK, which is interesting because one of my best friends is from the UK and she also loves a curry, so it probably doesn't surprise me so much to see one of these products comes
from overseas. So if we look at the ingredients, the first ingredients water tomatoes fifteen percent, yoga five percent, so on the whole, it's even starting out looking pretty clean, some concentrated tomato, pure vegetable oil, cream, may starch, and then it goes down into a lot of spices and thickness, which admittedly will be in very small amounts given that the next ingredient's only fifteen percent tomatoes and five percent yogurt. It's very low in calories, leanne you know, per serve.
It says, is it one serve per jar?
Know?
How much is that jar?
Three?
Four serves per jar? Just under one hundred calories, one point protein, only five point three grams of fat coming from a little bit of the yogurt and cream, but still low in saturated fat. Eight point one grams of carbohydrate, four point five grams of sugars, which I hastened to say it would be mainly from the tomatoes. Is that ingredient sodium?
There's a little bit of added sugar a little.
Bit not so much though, because that's cream three percent, so the main starts going to come in under three percent. So overall pretty low. Three one hundred and thirty milligrams of sodium, which is an insignificant for that smaller portion. But really this hasn't got a huge amount in it other than a bit of tomatoes and spices, so on the whole, you know, I think that it doesn't really contain so much at all. I don't think there's anything really wrong with it. If a client brought that to me,
I wouldn't have any real concerns with it. I don't know, what do you think. Maybe I'm not taking the sauces seriously enough. I just would say to them, it doesn't have really much in it. And if you're using it as serves four as described on the label, there wouldn't be an issue. But if you started to make it serves just too you'd be getting a fe whacka sodium. But if you're doing it with lean meat and some brown, hopefully brown whole grain rice, you know it's adding some flavor.
Sure it could be a little bit cleaner, but on the whole, there's not a whole lot wrong with it. I don't know what do you think?
And I think this is quite amusing because when I put these two products together, Susie, I actually chose to pattas one as the quote unquote bad one. I didn't even really read the nutrition. I just grabbed it off the shop. I thought, I'll try this and then I'll I'll pop it up there. And I'm sure that you know it looks too sort of decadent to be like healthy,
if that makes sense. So it's actually a really good option, and it's quite I sort of chose it as the one where I'm like, no, there's definitely a better option on the market, and the second one we're reviewing that from a marketing perspective, you would look at the front and pack label and that and say, you know, that's the better option, or that's a lower calorie option, that's a cleaner option. And so I actually find it quite
amusing that this is actually not a bad option. So I'd be more than happy for my clients to use something like this, as you said, with a bit of whole grains or legumes to bulk it out, some lean protein and a ton of edgies. I think where we would run into problems if we're just doing this with some you know, chicken thie with some meat or something and white rice and then maybe a little sprinkle of you know, I don't know, some broccoli or something on side.
That's where we'd run into troubles if we're not using it as part of a balanced meal. So I really do feel like it comes down to what you pair it with. But this as a source in terms of something that you might get you make this yourself at home versus you ordering in like an Indian curry. This would be a lot healthier and a lot better long term, I think, particularly because a lot of our Indian takeaway
is quite westernized in Australia as well. It's not like what you would get if you went to Indian ordered sort of a dicker missile lot up the street. It's definitely not the same thing. I think a lot of times in restaurants we use a hell of a lot more oil and yogurt and cream in them. Whereas I like the top two ingredients in this water tomatoes followed by yogurt. It's not you know, vegetable oil or cream at the top, which I think is really really important.
And I think that's why I actually don't tolerate take away you know Indian that well, Susie is because it is so high and fat and it is so greasy. I just don't digest or do well with too much fat. So I actually think this is quite a good product, And as you said, it would add a lot of flavor to meals, and if you didn't want to make it into more of a curry, you could just choose like maybe a tablespoon if there's over the top of some veggies, just to get a little bit of extra flavor.
I think that would go down really well as well.
And one of the most common questions I have when I've seen a new client is what can I put on my vegetables to flavor them up? And my general rule of thumb is I don't care what you add to the vegetables as long as you eat them, So you're absolutely right. I'd be very happy if people were using this kind of sauce to flavor out vegetables, and
I couldn't agree more. My biggest feedback to clients when talking about Indian cuisine is the quality of the protein, so making sure it is chicken breast, for example, not the fatty chicken thigh or drumsticks, or in the case of having things with it, you know, if you're having potatoes plus pomp and ms plus white rice, it's all processed carbohydrate, whereas if you can stick to the veggie based carbs are a very small amount of brown rice,
it will improve the overall profile of that meal. But I'm just having a quick look at these sources, Lee and because again I'm not overly familiar. This retail is at about four dollars. It's on sale this week at Willis when we're recording Pajar. But you do have to be careful because I'm just having a look now at one of the other popular products, which is the butter chicken. I know butter chickens very popular, and when I look this is the same brand. When I look at this
nutritional the first ingredients water followed by vegetable GE. So for me, that's a big concern because ge is going to give a high saturated fat, so that's coming in at four gram saturated perserve. So I would certainly be opting for products like this Ticka Masala which is a
vegetable based rather than a fat base. And that's probably another take home message for people when you're buying pre made sauces, particularly that a curry or Indian flavor, making sure you're choosing the veggie based options rather than ones that have that creamy base, because that inevitably will be adding a lot of saturated fat, as is the case with this one that's the butter chicken compared to the
Ticka Masala, which is the tomato based. So it does pay to have a quick scan of that ingredient list and just make sure you're getting more of the veggies rather than the fat which can be very present in Indian.
And definitely and just from an allergen perspectives to wrap us up, this one is green light for our Celiacs, no detectabile gutin. But it does obviously contain milk because it does have that yogurt and cream in there as well, So not a vegan based option, but is okay from our Celiac point of view. And there's an allergen statement maybe present tree nuts, so that's just something to be aware of as well if you have allergens in the family.
And so the second product we're looking at is one of the more boutique products. It's not in a japers say, they're in the pouches, and certainly in Asian cuisine we see the pouches, which we would want to say, as a rule of thumber slightly better nutritionally, but not always. This is the spice tailor, again I haven't seen it myself, which is called the original Tika Masala, so a direct
comparison to a product, this one comes from India. The first ingredient is thirty five percent onion, twenty seven percent tomato, pure milk, curd, water, some flowl oil, butter, rice, flour, garlic, salt, ginger, red chili powder, cashew nuts, and then a whole lot of spice. Is very similar to the per tax one. We've just had a look out. There's a lot of
ingredients on here. When I have a look at the nutritionals per hundred grams serve one hundred and fifty calories, two point two grams of protein, eight point seven grams of fat, says per serving hundred Yeah, so a bit higher in fat this one. Saturated fats still less than three percent at two point three seven point six grams of sugar, again not insignificant, one point six grams of fiber and six hundred and twenty milligrams of sodium. So
I think for Melian it's reasonably similar. If I had to choose nutritionally one I prefer, I probably would slightly err towards the per tax one. But given it's kind of the same product, it's sort of splitting hairs, I think this one's probably more expensive. That we have a quick chat it is. Yeah, have you tried have you tried this brand before? In any product?
I've tried both, and I honestly think I think the taste is fairly similar. I actually think the pa tax gives a little bit of a better mouthfeel. So because it is a it's cheaper, but it is lower in overall fat content and lower in overall salaries, and I personally think it had a better taste and a better mouthfeel. I would actually lean more towards the pa tax one, which really surprises me because I really thought that I would.
I would sort of go over more the Splice tailor one because, as you said, generally, in terms of pouches, you can see the visible herbs and splices in there, so it looks like a lot more of a whole food based product. But when you actually look at the ingredients and the nutrition facts, and really comes down to
is that actually they're quite similar products. So from a price and a lower calorie perspective, I would probably go more for the Patax one if I was being honest, and I think it did taste slightly, but they were both quite enjoyable if I was being honest, They both had really nice flavors.
This one, you're right, This retails for two dollars more, almost six dollars per serve versus the Pertax, which is only four for four serves. This is two to three serves per pack. I'm just having a look at another one in the range to see if it's the same situation, and the creamy ones are the ones to kind of avoid. But yeah, I think the first one is slightly better.
But I think the other take home message is that we get a lot of questions about package sauces because I think we sort of put a sweeping statement that, you know, we shouldn't be using packet sources at all
and their process. Now, I think for ease, if you had to go lean and buy every one of those ingredients that's required to make a delicious ticker masala, I would hasten to guess that that's going to cost at least thirty dollars by the time you buy the fresh produce all of those individual spices, without even considering the protein and the carbohydrates required, you know you're looking at a good at least twenty, if not closer to thirty
dollars spend. I would estimate now for the average person with the weekly budget, it's not feasible to be spending thirty plus dollars per meal unless it's a special occasion. So I think in the case of budget reasons ease convenience, certainly there's When it comes to packet sources, there are some really good options, and I think the best message with it is looking for ones that are relatively low and saturated fat. Seek out ones that have as little
added sugar as possible. So we like to aim for around less than five grad of sugars perserve, and you know, use them to flavor up healthier meals, you know, use loads of veggies and things with them, and then there's nothing to feel guilty or be worried about using a packet sauce. And if we're comparing preparing a chicken masala at home, a tick a masala at home versus something you would order in, you will always be better nutritionally
to make it yourself. And if that means using a packet sauce, admittedly trying to seek out the best one that's there, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Nutritionally, you don't, you know, fare better because you've made everything from scratch. If anything, strategically, you are going to be much better to invest in the more vegetables in there. In a leaner chicken or protein sauce than being worried about a little bit of processed sauce being added to
make that flavor that meal up. So I have no concerns with packet sauces, but my general feedback to clients is avoid the ones that are creamy. Or when you look at the ingredient lists, have vegetable oil as one of the first ingredients, and you'll be on the right track definitely.
And I think if you're a real fooder, you'll probably have them. Bulk of these is at home in your pantry anyway, so probably wouldn't cost you too much if you had the time and you really enjoyed it. Of course, making it from scratch is probably slightly better. And of course I think the sodium content's the biggest thing to be wary of. When we look at these two brands, Susie,
we break down the sodium content. The per tax is only nearly three hundred milligrams per hundred grams, or is the spice tailor one is six hundred and twenty per hundred grams, So it's got more than double the sodium, So it's more expensive product, it's higher calorie, it's double the amount of sodium in it, and it only serves three compared to the pattax which does four serves, and so I think you're going to make it stretch a little bit more for lower calorie and also for a
lot lower sodium content. So I think for me that one's the winner overall. Or you can do it yourself, as you said, but it really does take a long time in the kitchen. So I definitely wouldn't even hesitate to use something like this in a home made meal because I would much rather prefer to do it myself and enjoy it and make it the way I would like, versus ordering in something from Uberots which isn't going to make me feel great at the end of the day.
And as we talked about, Western style curries are much higher in than doing it yourself.
Very true, But in the meantime, enjoy your homemade Indian We look forward to seeing some of your images if you want to send them through, and we'll share them on our Instagram. So that brings us to the end of the Nutrition Couch product review for another week. If you haven't done so already, please subscribe to have us
delivered every Sunday and Wednesday morning. We have our social sites running and love your feedback, so feel free to follow us and give us a review or at the Nutrition Couch podcast and we will see you same time, same place next week for our product review and in the meantime, we will see you on Sunday. Thanks for listening, catch you guys next week.