Toss all your noodles and buy these instead.

May 8, 2016 Ashley 0 Comments

Okay, I’ll admit it.

Sometimes “zoodles” just don’t cut it.

I mean, don’t get me wrong – spiralizing veggies is great. But sometimes I just miss the feel of real noodles, all balled up in my ramen like squishy yarn or yards of miniature intestines. But, as much as I love noodles, they love making me look like the opposite of a noodle if I indulge as much as I’d like to. Conundrum, right? Well, it would’ve been, had I not stopped by the vegan fridge section recently and found the best kept secret ever. (Well, maybe the second best kept secret – right after Eminem’s daughter – who we all had no idea was hot ’til her prom pictures surfaced.) And that my friends, was something called….

Shirataki noodles.

I remember it like it was yesterday. (Mostly because it was.) It’s advertised as low carb and vegan? Iron fortified too? Instinctively, I snatch up and turn over the bag – scouring the backside’s fact section for faults. How many carbs? How much sodium? But, within moments, my brain did that thing my laptop does when I have too many tabs open at once (kinda like now; should be happening any moment). And I had good reason for this cerebral freeze up. The label was missing the entire inimical line up you’d usually see:

Now, if you’re the sea-food type (see a food and eat it sans gandering at the snack facts), then allow me to compare.

Here’s the body bill a batch of usual noodles will rack up:

Or as SFgate puts it:

“One brand of shirataki cites just 15 calories and 4 grams of total carbohydrates in a 2/3-cup portion — 113 grams — of which 3 grams are fiber. That leaves just 1 gram of net carbohydrates. In comparison, a slightly smaller 100-gram portion of conventional spaghetti contains 158 calories, 30 grams of total carbs and only 1.8 grams of fiber. Many conventional Asian noodles fare even worse in comparison, so substituting shirataki for other types of noodles can painlessly shrink your caloric intake and help promote weight loss.”

I know, right? The former’s a proverbial wet dream that meets the needs of both my inner girl-glutton and the vain casing that armors her which reluctantly relinquished conventional ramen many moons ago. Low carb? Low sodium? What the eff is in this if not the familiar ingredients we all know so well? (Namely shame and impending treadmill penance?)

I’ll tell ya what. (Because I Googled it, so now I’m a professional.) What it is, is this dietary fiber called glucomannan – which comes from something called the konjac root. Boasting more than 16 amino acids, it also comes chock full’ve several vitamins and minerals. Now, even though I needed no further reason to keep reading instead of pausing to enjoy a vat of these vitamin infused delicious, inanimate worms immediately, I proceeded with my online perusal anyway. Ya know, for you guys. And what’d I find? A whole cascade of supplemental excuses to be eating these things as frequently as possible – like dropping weight, decreasing cholesterol, diabetic control, and delivering serenity to your effed up belly.

Aside from the comparatively reduced carbs, that fiber’s part of what’s going to help you lose weight. Assuming Shirtaki’s what you’re using in lieu of the loser noodles you used to eat, you’ve already replaced the bad guys. What’s more, the fiber fills you up and leaves you feeling fuller longer.

Then, there was this 2008 study showing that glucomannan (that main ingredient we just covered) can amend cholesterol levels beautifully. Not only that, but it also plays referee to blood sugar, making sure shiz doesn’t get out of whack – an especially attractive facet for diabetics.

(A nice recap for you literary skimmers.)

And, finally, comes the prebiotic quality.

What’s a prebiotic, exactly? Well, for your gut to be happy, it’s gotta have a community of lovely gut bugs residing in gastro town (probiotics). But, as you know, fine upstanding citizens won’t stand for settling down in a town that’s crappy. Enter prebiotics – the foods that act like gastrointestinal interior designers that go all fairy godmother on your internal environment. By sprucing up the place, foods like Shirataki noodles make a haven for beautiful bacteria to turn the inside of you into utopia.

So, not only does it serve as the perfect unsucky substitute for those slow boiled bags of butt broadeners and thigh thickeners – but it also has all these additional health selling points? Quells cholesterol issues? Seizes diabetes? Vanquishes my voracious appetite? Even turns my tummy into prime real estate for benevolent bacteria?

That’s it. I’m calling for a name change.

We’ve already got angel hair pasta.

My official moniker for shirataki is “god pasta”.