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Low-carb Alternatives for Pasta and Noodles.
2024 is upon us. I know it is typical to wait until the new year to implement new year’s resolutions, but I’ve already started mine because I’m taking advantage of the time off I have from work. My first goal is to increase my protein because I know I’m not eating nearly enough. My second goal is to apply castor oil to the sunspots on my face daily so that they’ll disappear. Allegedly castor oil can be used to remove dark spots/sun spots/age spots.I’m skeptical of it, but there’s a lot of information on it so I’m trying it out. Both of my resolutions are for improved health. If your resolutions include improved health, maybe I can help!
Over the past several years there’s been a lot of talk about low-carb this and keto that. There are so many products on grocery store shelves with the keto and paleo labels on them. Some are legitimately healthy, while others are highly processed junk that should not be considered a healthy food. Hint: if a product has 20+ ingredients, it’s likely not as healthy as it claims to be! The easiest way to cut down on carbs is to swap out wheat, corn, and rice based products for vegetables.
When going low-carb, it’s best to focus on adding in whole foods to your diet rather than using the “keto” versions of wheat pastas and breads. If you absolutely need bread in your life, look for locally made sourdough bread with just a handful of ingredients. Sourdough is easier to digest due to the fermentation process that the dough goes through. During fermentation, the probiotic bacteria predigests the starches and sugar. This is also why consuming sourdough bread doesn’t spike blood sugar as rapidly as regular white bread does! If your goal is to lose weight, ditch the bread and just eat the food that goes in between the slices. If your goal is to improve your heath without focusing on the scale, then swap out whatever bread you’re currently using for a quality sourdough. Even the ancient sprouted grains breads have way too many ingredients.
Here are the simple swaps you can make to increase your vegetable intake while simultaneously decreasing simple carbohydrates.
Replace traditional pasta like spaghetti, fettuccine, linguine, etc with spaghetti squash or spiralized zucchini! If you really want that pasta feel, spaghetti squash or spiralized zucchini is the way to go! Spaghetti squash is awesome because after you roast it, all you do is pull out the meat with a fork and it separates from the shell resembling pasta or noodles. I’ve made dinners like spaghetti and meat sauce, chicken alfredo, lemon garlic shrimp pasta, and Filipino pancit with this squash.
When the Veggetti spiralizer came out, I was sold!
Side note– it’s pronounced with a hard g like in ‘spaghetti.’ I saw the device in stores before seeing the commercial, so I was reading it with a soft g like in ‘vegetable.’ Oops and ew!
Spiralizing zucchini takes much less time than roasting a spaghetti squash and you don’t even have to cook it if you don’t want to. I usually sauté them in a pan for a few minutes with avocado oil to heat them up a little bit. If you cook them for longer, you run the risk of them becoming too soggy and releasing a lot of extra water. If you don’t have a spiralizer, you can use a regular vegetable peeler to achieve a similar shape. I was doing that for a little while. It was more work and not as aesthetically appealing.
Another thing you can do with zucchini is slice them thin lengthwise, and use the slices in place of lasagna noodles (or is it pasta?).
Those two are my favorite pasta swaps, but when I first started following The Primal Blueprint, I was eating a lot of spaghetti and meat sauce by just subbing the spaghetti with steamed frozen broccoli. It’s a really easy swap that requires the least amount of prep. If you’re a busy person with little time to cook, you could easily just get a steam bag of broccoli and throw on meat sauce. I was doing this back when I worked until 6 or 6:30 and didn’t get home until about 7. Quick, minimal prep meals were a must for me.
There is a company that has mastered making pasta dough from almond flour and I love their products! The downside is that they’re pricey. It’s nice to have “normal” lasagna and pasta dishes every so often, but on a regular basis I’d rather have more vegetables in my diet.
I shared two methods to cook spaghetti squash here.
That’s all I have for now! Let me know if you’re going to give this a try, or if you have any other ideas for healthy food swaps.
Cheers!