Dr. Gourmet's Food Reviews

Previous review (04/20/12)

Last week marked a return to the land of the pocket sandwiches after avoiding them for a couple of years. Amy's Pizza in a Pocket sandwiches were fairly good - surprisingly so after having some particularly terrible ones from the iconic Lean Pockets brand.

Ordinarily we try to avoid repeating a brand or a particular type of food too soon after a previous review. We figure you probably don't want to read about the same thing week after week, and certainly the tasting panel here at Dr. Gourmet prefers some variety as well. But after our positive experience last week with the Pizza in a Pocket sandwiches, I admit I was feeling a little optimistic when I spotted this week's Pizza Wraps from Glutenfreeda.

A gluten-free pocket sandwich? Our reviews of burritos from Glutenfreeda have been pretty good, overall: while the Beef and Potato Burrito was a bit dry, the Vegetarian Bean and Cheese Burrito was good as was their Chicken & Cheese Burrito. With that kind of track record I was hoping for another two positive reviews.

The first thing you should know about these Pizza Wraps is that they don't actually have pizza dough or anything like it for the wrapping, unlike the Amy's products. On the front of the label it says quite clearly "Pizza Wrap," but on the back, in the ingredients, the first item is "Gluten-free flour tortilla." This is actually the same tortilla that Glutenfreeda uses in their burritos, which is made with white corn masa flour and yields a soft, tender tortilla which compares well with tortillas made with wheat flour. That's the good news.

The bad news is that these are salty. Really salty. The first thing I tasted upon trying the Pesto Chicken Pizza Wrap was not the pesto (nearly undetectable anyway) or the good chicken flavor or the white rice adding volume to the filling, it was the salt. And although this particular wrap has only 450 milligrams of sodium in its 240 calories and 4 grams of fiber, you can definitely taste every single milligram. In fact, if I ignored the label and took a bite with my eyes closed, I could easily believe I was eating something from Taco Bell (and that's not intended to be a compliment, either to Glutenfreeda or to Taco Bell). Leave this one on the shelf.

The Italian Sausage Pizza Wrap is also actually a burrito. With 570 milligrams of sodium (230 calories, 4 grams of fiber), I expected this would be saltier, and it was. As one taster put it, "Did that just dehydrate my entire body?" Italian sausage tends to be salty, but this is Bonneville Salt Flats salty. Looking at the ingredients, it's easy to see where they went wrong: not only is there added salt in the tomato sauce (of which there is little in the wrap), but they also have salt in the sausage (to be expected; it's sausage, after all). The kicker is that the final ingredient in both wraps is "garlic salt." As long-time readers of Dr. Gourmet probably know, I like my spices to contain nothing but spice so that I can better control the amount of salt in my food. Looks like Glutenfreeda would do well to keep that in mind.

Two thumbs way down for Glutenfreeda.

Read all our reviews of Glutenfreeda products »

Reviewed: April 20, 2012