I advise everyone who wants to achieve a normal body weight and stay healthy follow my simple eating rule: Eat six fist-sized servings of vegetables every day and enough protein to feel grounded, focused and steady. Fist-sized is a portion the size of your fist or what you can pick up with your fist.
So what about pasta, grains and potatoes? They are entirely optional. I advise anyone wanting to lose weight to avoid them near totally. Why? Cardiothoracic surgeon, Steven Gundry, MD said it best in my article last month. Anything that tastes sweet, including flour, pasta and starches, activates the “store fat for the winter program.” The winter famine never comes these days, so we get bigger and fatter.
Yet, I find it hard to give up pasta’s convenience, and there’s nothing I like better than a cold tomato sauce over noodles now tomatoes are in season. I’ve found a terrific solution. A $30 device called a spiral slicer can convert a medium to large zucchini into beautiful long curly strings that look like noodles. The best part, it’s a serving of vegetables, not starch! This spring, before zucchini were in season, I did the same with kohlrabi, a space alien vegetable of the broccoli persuasion and a persistent find in my weekly CSA bag. These “noodles” can be done by the time the water for pasta has started to boil. That’s quick! There’s no need to cook zucchini “noodles.” They’re perfect raw.
For between $30 and $100 a mandoline can slice zucchini into “lasagna” or “ravioli.” I just spread the lasagna fixings or ravioli stuffing between layers of thinly sliced zucchini. I don’t cook the “pasta,” but you certainly could. I suggest using cooked fillings, brushing the top layer of "pasta" with olive oil then baking the final product until warm and golden.
Here’s a raw pad thai recipe I can’t get enough of from happyfoody.com. Chuck those rice noodles! You’ll be begging for those extra zucchini this summer!
Pad Thai
Makes 2 – 3 servings.
3/4 cup raw almond butter
1/2 cup fresh orange juice
1 T minced fresh ginger
1 T nama shoyu (natural soy sauce)
1 T miso (optional)
1 t minced garlic
2 T honey/agave nectar
1/8 t cayenne pepper
1 large or 2 medium zucchini
Sea salt to taste
Blend the first eight ingredients in a food processor or blender until smooth. Adjust thickness by adding more almond butter or orange juice.
Slice the zucchini “noodles” in a spiral slicer. Pour the sauce over them to marinate for 10 minutes. Place the noodles on serving plate and top them with a mixture of the following:
- Sprouts! Mung bean sprouts are the best…so crunchy and perfect for this dish, but other sprouts are great too.
- Julienned red and yellow peppers
- Shredded carrots
- Shredded napa cabbage
- Grape tomatoes
- Scallions
- Fresh Cilantro
- Fresh Basil
- Fresh Mint
This work by Bethany Klug is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
