According to Oprah, the idea for the new range was borne out of her determination to find a healthier alternative to traditional mashed potatoes. Photo / Getty
According to Oprah, the idea for the new range was borne out of her determination to find a healthier alternative to traditional mashed potatoes. Photo / Getty
Oprah Winfrey has partnered with Kraft Heinz to launch a new line of "healthy" comfort food called "O, That's Good".
Products will start appearing in stores in the US this week, and will include pasta with bean puree (instead of cheese), broccoli cheddar soup mixed with butternut squash, and mashed potatoes with cauliflower, USA Today reported.
The 63-year-old TV icon, a known adept advocate and shareholder of Weight Watchers, will then appear in an ad campaign for Kraft Heinz starting October 2.
Oprah became a Weight Watchers member in August 2015, and the following month the diet company announced she would join its board after purchasing a 10 per cent share.
The host has credited the diet for helping her lose more than 18kg, but is now branching out by creating and marketing her own offerings, branded as comfort food classics with a healthy twist.
Some of the products cooked up by Oprah. Photo / Kraft Heinz
On one occasion, she traveled to Kraft Heinz's test kitchen in Chicago as part of the recipe development process, USA Today wrote.
According to Oprah, the idea for the new range was borne out of her determination to find a healthier alternative to traditional mashed potatoes - a quest which lead her to mix cauliflower and potato together in order to create a hybrid dish that was more substantive than just the vegetables by themselves, but lower in fat and calories then the original comfort food.
"I was sitting at my table in my own home and had whipped up some cauliflower, trying to make myself think I was eating mashed potatoes, but it was not working," she recounted.
"So I thought, 'What if I used a portion of the mashed potatoes and added the cauliflower? Then, I would have a substantive mashed potato-cauli dish.'"
The launch of the new line comes in the midst of a very profitable year for Weight Watchers, following Oprah's involvement.
Its stocked has quadrupled since she joined, and the diet company announced earlier this year that its membership increased by 16 per cent in the first three months of 2017, reaching 3.6 million, CNN Money reported at the time.
Oprah, too, has benefited from the endorsement: her share was worth $US43 million when she purchased it, and it has now reached $US154 million.
Heinz previously owned Weight Watchers and sold it back in 1999, before Heinz itself was bought by Kraft.
Kraft Heinz continues to make and sell a line of frozen meals called Weight Watchers Smart Ones, under a licensing agreement.
Oprah has previously sung the praises of Weight Watchers, telling People in 2016 the program is "easier" than any she's been on.
"It's a lifestyle, a way of eating and a way of living that's so freeing. You never feel like you are on a diet and it works," she added.
In an ad for the program, she professed her love of bread and said Weight Watchers had enabled her to eat some on a daily basis while still losing weight.
"This is the joy for me. I love bread. I love bread," she said. "I now just manage it so I don't deny myself bread. I have bread every day."
