Goodles about to be better? With their purchase by Italy-based Barilla, renowned for high-quality and innovative consumer pasta, it’s a collaboration waiting to happen. Health food mac & cheese brand Goodles upgraded with Barilla expertise and reach? Pasta perfettissimo!
While Barilla has been boiled in controversy by dipping into the waters of culture wars, it came out al dente and emerged with new pastas and toothsome products. These range from a high-end organic al bronzo line, to campanelle that doesn’t brag about being al bronzo, to stars that hit shelves in time for the US bisesquicentennial, to gluten-free options that are edible to gluten-lovers, to protein-enhanced options for protein maxers, and other delightfully well-executed products for pasta lovers like myself.
Enter Gal Gadot, the wonderful Israel actress who herself is no stranger to controversy yet is nonetheless just like any other mom trying to feed her kids something easy and healthy. She got in early on Goodles, which is heathfood pasta in the sense that it’s designed with protein- and fiber-maxxers in mind with enough added nutrients to make your daily multivitamin redundant if it wasn’t already.
Each serving has two servings each of 14g of protein, 8g of fiber, “21 nutrients from plants” despite some of those nutrients coming from mushroooms; mushrooms are not plants despite having often been classified as such. And yes, it’s kosher. As for plant-based, the Vegan Is Believin’ variety and the gluten-free Vegan Be Heroes round out their offerings, there are also gluten-free versions of several of their dairy options.
If that isn’t enough they also have varieties with premade sauce, varieties that resemble spaetzle, microwave cups that you should both try and donate to your shul’s holiday food drive, as well as plain boxed protein pastas that only have minimal crossover with Barilla’s shapes. I’ve only ever tried their normal boxed Mac & Cheese, which comes in both normal flavors and slightly more adventurous flavors like smoked gouda, pesto, and even hatch chile.
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And this is where I feel Barilla has a chance to better Goodles’s offerings, as a writer with over four decades of experience eating health food and pasta. I actually love Italian cooking, to the point that in addition to my chumashim I also have “The Pasta Bible” by Jeni Wright as well as Donna Klein’s invigorating “Vegan Italiano” cookbook. While I might not know from pasta like a chef, an experienced food writer, or an Italian I do know that a bit better pasta brings any dish that much closer to being perfetto.
If I was to judge Goodles only on the strength of its pasta, I would say it’s only Okayles. Part of this is the size of some of the pasta I’ve had (the spirals were unsatisfyingly on the small side) and the texture that seemed to lack the consistency I’ve come to expect from pasta. I would have to try it again to judge the flavor, since when I’ve had Goodles before I used Canadian brand Yofiit’s mixed-legume plantmilk that at the time imparted a noticeable bitterness that I’m not sure I can attribute to the Goodles.
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While I suspect the flavors might not be quite what a regular eater of Kraft or Manischewitz might expect, the real area of improvement would be the integrity of the pasta in order to appeal to more customers that Barilla (making its supply chain regenerative) will surely want to reach.
Thus bringing nearly 150 years of pasta excellence to the present is almost certainly going to give Goodles a bigger bite of the market. Barilla certainly seems to think this will satisfy a hunger in the market, having watched Goodles rise as companies like Kraft and Velveeta have been left with a smaller portion of the market. Whatever comes next has executives at both companies excited, especially at the chance to give more consumers a good taste of this healthy pasta. Buon appetito!
