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Health & Fitness

Zero Calorie Noodles? Shirataki!

Maybe you’ve seen the strange bags of what looks like noodles floating in water in the market, as I have, but haven’t been brave enough to buy them or even know what to do with them. It’s hard to continually ignore a package that proclaims, “Zero Calories, Gluten Free, Vegan, Soy Free, Cholesterol Free” for very long without saying to yourself, “What the heck is this guilt-free food?”

These odd little packages of noodles or pasta are generically called “shirataki” pasta. Shirataki, meaning “white waterfall” in Japanese, are thin, translucent Japanese noodles made from the konjac yam. This “yam” is not really a yam as we know it in the United States, but is the bulbous root of the plant, which are pushed through a grid of sharp blades to produce noodles. Or they dry the yam and grind it into a “flour” and make the noodles from it. Konjac is grown all over Asia and is also used to create a vegan substitute for gelatin and a vegan substitute for alternative seafood product like scallops, crab, shrimp etc. 

Most of the root of the konjac plant consists of glucomannan, which is a water soluble fiber, making these noodles very high in dietary fiber—one of it’s claimed health benefits.  Products containing glucomannan are sometimes sold as nutritional supplements for constipation, obesity, high cholesterol, acne and diabetes and, although there have been clinical reports supporting these benefits, the FDA has not approved it for treatments of these medical conditions. Canada’s health department has authorized some products containing glucomannan for the purposes of appetite reduction, constipation and high cholesterol.  Shirataki-style noodles are also made from tofu, which have a different nutritional content.  They can be found in both dry and wet forms.

Read More About Shirataki Noodles and recipes using Miracle Noodles:   http://veganamericanprincess.com/zero-calorie-noodles-shirataki/#sthash.5y6dLHxt.dpuf

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