Easing Your Way into Low Carb Living

The humble zucchini

Have you decided to change your diet but find it hard to go “cold turkey” on the foods you’re trying to eliminate?

I have a confession to make – ME TOO!!!!

My way of eating is so ingrained (no pun intended about ‘grain’) in my lifestyle that I’ve been re-visiting my NLP training manuals and audiobooks to find some answers to implement on myself to change the way I look at food and release the hold it has over me.

In the meantime, the best suggestion I can make to get started is to see where you can substitute out some of the processed carbs for a more natural version. For example, in my Spaghetti Bolognaise, I have substituted the spaghetti for finely julienned zucchini – it looks like green spaghetti, has a great texture and tastes fantastic (probably better than the spaghetti). You can find the recipe for my Low Carb Spaghetti Bolognaise here.

Another great substitution is cauliflower in place of rice or potatoes. To make cauliflower rice I lightly buzz cauliflower florets in my bamix mill until it’s the size of rice (my mill is little so I do it in multiple batches, if you have a food processor, you can do it all at once). I then gently cook the cauliflower “rice” in salted water or stock until it’s the right firmness – keep tasting to get it to a point you like. Drain and serve.

For the potato substitution, I cook cauliflower florets in milk (just covered) until it’s soft (the smaller the size of the cauliflower pieces the quicker it will cook). I pour off half the milk and set it aside and then blend the cauliflower with the remaining milk to give a mashed potato like consistency – you can add some more milk if you need a looser consistency. The first time I made this, it was way too runny and was more like a cauliflower slurry on the plate, but practise makes perfect. Good for Shepards Pie, or as an accompaniment to a yummy Indian Curry.

If you want something really comprehensive, then check out this post of Primal Subsitutes for Non-Primal Foods on the blog Mark’s Daily Apple.

What substitutions do you use to help you?