Spaghetti Squash--too good to be true?

#1

A couple of days ago I cooked spaghetti squash for the very first time. It’s a vegetable, so proponents of high-fiber diets would, I suppose, promote it. To me it was delicious, so I figured there has to be something wrong with it. I thought I could detect a level of sweetness. When I looked up its nutritional value, it doesn’t seem to have much.

So is spaghetti squash something that folks on the Keto diet promote or is spaghetti squash to vegetables what bananas are to fruit? Just curious what folks who are into reading nutritional labels think about it.

(KM) #2

Spaghetti squash is relatively low carb; some disagreement but it seems to be somewhere around 10 total grams per cup (including fiber carbs, which some people don’t count). The recommended carb load is 20g or less per day, your personal limit may be different from that. Spaghetti squash should be manageable for most people, but of course you need to take into account what you’re serving it with / what else you’re eating in a day. (it’s not “a banana” but it’s not a raspberry, either. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:)

(Bob M) #3

I’ve had spaghetti squash a bit. It’s not bad in carbs, even when paired with something like Rao’s sauce. Sadly, it doesn’t seem to agree with me. Or at least last time I had it, I had some issues.

#4

I never get this “too good to be true” things. My healthy, affordable and lowest-carb items are SUPER tasty. My main item is the one I find the most delicious in existence. Why wouldn’t it be…? I am lucky but still. Keto food is often quite delicious. And vegs are carby but some aren’t very much. Usually the less carby ones have less taste but that can work out… I never cut out vegs just because they grew below earth or had much carbs per 100g, I didn’t care about that! I cared about the joy they brought and if they cut fit into my keto :wink:

Squash is low-carb enough that it may work if you eat it in moderate amounts. But those may be plenty for some people. I noticed not everyone consider 1000g vegs minimal - as I did in the past…
I played with planning days a lot, trying to figure out which vegs in how big quantities may give me the most flavor and joy… I liked to combine my vegs so I got a little volume and nice flavors.

Nutritious wise, apart from carbs, I don’t know, I ate vegs for joy, mostly. (It probably isn’t good if a vegetarian doesn’t eat vegs anyway… :thinking:)
I got my nutrients from my animal products and oily seeds, mostly.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #5

Spaghetti squash is about 7% carbohydrate by weight. However, 1.5% is fibre, bringing the digestible carbohydrate down to 5.5%. As long as you can eat it and stay within your carb limit, why not?

#6

I’ve eaten a lot of it, no real complaints, I also always (and still do) roasted butternut squash. Pretty much treat it like cubed up potatoes, I season them up and air roast them.

You gotta realize Keto has a LOT of people that absolutely go ZERO on many things for one reason or another, sometimes legit ones, sometimes crazy reasons that don’t matter. You do you, if you like it, if it fits into your diet, eat it. Pay attention, see if there are any negatives from it (shouldn’t be with that) and go along with your day.

(Bob) #7

Some spaghetti squash here and there should be just fine for you. I used to eat it when I was keto. I’m carnivore currently but that doesn’t mean I would turn my nose to it now. I’ll have some again some day and will have a clean conscience about it when that time comes :wink:

(Marianne) #8

[quote=“Shenanigans, post:1, topic:120849”]
A couple of days ago I cooked spaghetti squash for the very first time. To me it was delicious[/quote]

Did you put anything on it? I bet it would be delicious with butter and/or parm.

(Geoffrey) #9

I used to eat it when I ate veggies and I liked it but the stuff I put on it to make it palatable would put me in a tailspin today.
If you can fit it into your diet requirements then have fun with it.

#10

I posted the first note on Spaghetti squash 25 days ago, and since then I’ve eaten a lot of it. I was listening to advice by some gastroenterologists on YouTube that advocate a high-fiber rather than a merely a low-carb one. I had reached the edge of the diabetic level of glucose. In two months’ time on a high-fiber diet (meaning lots of veggies (beans, spaghetti squash, oatmeal, etc.), low to no simple carbs, and some meat, my A1C dropped below even the prediabetic threshold and I lost five pounds. I still have HBP but plan to lose more weight to see if I can rein that in as well. So all in all, I’d say spaghetti squash is a pretty good addition to my diet.

#11

For me butter and cinnamon are sufficient to make it taste even better. I know most people use cinnamon for desserts, but I’ve found it’s also pretty good in chicken salads and spaghetti squash. :slight_smile:

(Marianne) #12

I’m sure you are right. My mother used to make acorn squash and put a pat of butter and maple syrup in the well. Delicious. Yours is the keto friendly version.

(KM) #13

Funny how our tastes change. If I’m really going off piste and decadent, I will bake half a sweet potato and slather it with butter and cinnamon, it’s like candy to me now.

#14

Oh… I never tried that and now we have a sweet potato (I have my offish times, I go for carnivore on March again… sigh). A tiny one for us two :slight_smile: It’s enough as it’s so super sweet but it’s sweet potato so of course. I never saw any in my first decades, it’s still a novel exotic thing to me (as I did low-carb and could do better with my carbs so very rarely ate some) but it’s so good and smells great and flavorful that it was perfect alone. It doesn’t mean a little cinnamon and especially butter wouldn’t be a good idea :wink: Especially butter. These sweet potatoes are really perfectly flavorful. I ate less tasty ones, some weren’t even really sweet. Some people started to grow them in the village and once I saw a ton of it in many big mounds, various colors and taste, we tried a few different kinds! The supermarkets only has the pale pink/red one with orange inside and it’s so, so good… Too sweet, though. But tiny amounts help with that.
Sweet potato chips are great too but I dislike the mess with a lot of oil (at least 100g, I have a tiny pot for that purpose. well actually it’s to boil 5 eggs but I have another egg boiling pot so…). I may get an air fryer soon! I will do my best to stay away from chips (I am not used to eating them so maybe it won’t be hard but who knows?) but I have my off days either way… Off carnivore, not off keto, preferably but sweet potato fits keto so easily when one considers fried pork with eggs a decent meal :smiley: Vegetarian keto didn’t give me this wriggle room.