I was looking for something to have instead of chips and decided to cut a couple of carrots into chips, tossed them in a little extra virgin oil and roast in the oven, they were really tasty but then I started reading a bit more about carrots and basically any vegetable grown under the ground and I am undecided if this was a good move on the BSD ? any comments, thoughts, ideas ?

Well, they are better than potatoes! And it depends what else you’ve eaten, but broadly speaking all underground veg are best avoided during your 800 phase of the BSD. It won’t do any harm and they have vitamins in so I wouldn’t stress unduly but maybe not be planning on having any more as standard, unless that’s where you want to spend your carbs, of course.

During my intense middle phase of BSD I did not eat any root veg, which is as advised in the book. Now I have the odd bit of carrot if it’s in something, like I have the odd bit of onion and other higher carb veg and I am still losing weight. But I go out of my way to focus on eating the green stuff like spinach, watercress, green beans and red peppers etc which are lower carb. And I really don’t eat many carbs apart from veg and the bits in dairy. Oh, and dark chocolate 😬

Hi Benns, most people on BSD either limit or avoid carrots as you say, because they are underground veges. Sadly, they contain a lot of sugar! The figure I found was 9.6g gross carbs, 6.8g net per 100g of carrot. If you are not counting carbs it won’t worry you but many people here try to keep carbs under 50g a day or even less.

If you’re looking for a chip alternative I’ve seen posts raving about celeriac chips? I’ve never had celeriac at all but it might be worth a try. Or if you type ‘chips substitute’ in the search box, top right, I’m sure there are lots of suggestions.

Good luck 🙂

Weigh them. There are 7 grams of carbs, 5 from sugar, in 100 grams. Carrots are heavy so 100 grams is a tiny amount. I’ve eaten exactly three times in my 14 months on the BSD, 50-gram servings of raw organic carrots cut into sticks. I gained two pounds overnight all three times. Could have been a coincidence, but I see no reason to take the chance. Get your Vitamin A elsewhere (spinach, kale, broccoli).

Celeriac is, unfortunately, fairly high in carbs. 8g (roughly) per 100. Unfortunately another root vegetable. I find that if I feel desperate for a carb type meal adding konjac noodles to a stir fry helps to bulk it up. The texture is not ideal, nothing to compare to luscious carb noodles, but definitely hits the spot for me.

I quite like konjac noodles. The texture is greatly improved by drying them in a hot pan on their own before you add them to the stir fry. Alternatively, add them to a soup like pho, faux ramen or a Buddha bowl type thing where the wetness won’t be an issue. Konjac powder is an amazing miracle product too. Zero carb, high fiber and thickens liquids like nobody’s business.

Weirdly, it’s derived from the root of a Japanese vegetable in the sweet potato family, which means konjac products are kind of root vegetables!

Esnecca, I have been following Dana Carpender’s recommendation (a low carb blogger for about 10 years now) to do it the lazy way: rinse off well, drain, and throw them into a class bowl and microwave for 2 min. It does the same thing as your fry pan….drys them out and they shrink a bit and end up with a more interesting texture that sauces stick to a bit better.

On your recommendation that I saw somewhere back, I have ordered a package of the kelp noodles from Axxxxn. Tried a pretty decent Asian grocer in my area but no luck, they only had the shiritaki. Anxious to see what they are like. Do they need any special prep?

Oh cool! I think you may be the first person to actually take the kelpen plunge and I’ve been haranguing people to try them for a year. 😀

They do need some prep. They have to be drained and rinsed and detangled (they come out of the bag in one giant knot). Then you have to soften them because they’re crunchy and plasticky and don’t really work as noodles unless you’ve going for a chow mein sort of vibe. After much trial and error, I found the easiest method is to fill a large bowl with warm water and a tablespoon of baking soda. Stir to dissolve the soda. Plop the noodles in and give them a stir with hand just to make sure they’re nicely spread out in the bowl. Let it sit for 3 minutes. Rinse and drain. That’s it. Set them aside until you’re ready to add them to the sauce. You can nuke them in the same bowl right before you sauce them if you want to get them piping hot, but no more than 30 seconds or they run the risk of softening too much.

Alternatively, you can dress them raw in something with a decent amount of acid and just let them stew in the fridge overnight. I’d done that before with a dressing of fresh ginger, scallion, garlic, rice vinegar, toasted sesame oil, hot chili oil, fish oil, soy sauce and sambal oelek dressing and it came out unbelievably delicious. I could have eaten just like that (and I do fairly frequently), but I like to gussy it up a little for dinners with my OH. I’ve topped it with fresh spicy steamed shrimp, the chopped green end of a scallion and one tiny little fresh habanero for a touch of extra color and kick. I’ve also done vegetarian versions with tempeh, mushrooms, 2 oz of snow peas (gotta be vigilant with them sugars), alfalfa sprouts, bok choy and avocado.

Esnecca, THANK YOU ! I adore seaweed salad and it sounds like the cold dressed konjac has that vibe, and topping with some shrimp is brilliant….sounds like a great way to make a full meal out of it with a bit of protein.

Was thinking it might sub well for Asian noodle dishes like Dan Dan noodles (topped with a spicy pork sauce). Any other warm uses that you feel they were particularly suited for?

I am an anxious for them to arrive, but they are shipped directly from the vendor and won’t be here until next Tues. Just gives me more time to plan what to do with them. I have a hair apt in the town next to us which is the area’s biggest Korean community. Will check at grocers there today to see if they might have them…and at a much lower cost than off the web.

Greetings, All! My comment has nothing at all to do with “Carrots”, just dropping in
to say how delightful it is see all this enthusiasm for creative cooking! We all follow
Esnecca around the forums, some just to see what she’s having for dinner!

Luvtcook, your username is an understatement. I wish the two of you would enter your recipes
in one dedicated space. I’m always afraid that I’ll miss something! I can so relate to your
unwillingness to “wait” for the kelp noodles to arrive. I’m that way in all other aspects of
my life except food. When I had my interior design practice, I’d never take no for an answer
when I was executing a design, and would basically go to the end of the earth to find a
fabricator with the ability to provide what I was after. Same situation recently when a
clothes order was missing a particular thigh length ruby jacquard cardigan/jacket. When
I followed up on it I found out it was sold out until Jan. 1st. Not willing to accept this,
I called all JJill stores in a 30 mile radius, and located the last one in stock at the Greens
Farms mall in W. Hartford. Maybe I should post it on the fashion thread. Maybe I’m just
too stubborn for my own good?

Keep up the inspiration, everyone!

Allie

Luvtcook, I am a seaweed FREAK and eat seaweed salad at least twice a week. I basically use the same dressing with some slight alterations (freshly squeezed ginger juice instead of minced fresh, for example), so your instincts are spot-on. I think it was just a typo, but to clarify, I dress raw kelp noodles with the above recipe and put them in the fridge overnight to cook in the acidity, not konjac. Konjac is already soft and doesn’t need overnight marinating. If you do the baking soda trick with the kelp noodles, they are ready to go. You can still use the softened ones as a cold noodle, but the next day they’ll have softened even more thanks to the dressing’s action so it doesn’t work for me as a make-ahead thing. If you don’t want to wait overnight but want that cold noodle combo, use the baking soda trick, nuke the noodles for 15 seconds just to dry then, and then just toss them in the dressing. Top with a sprinkle of fresh sesame seeds and fresh green onions for crunch.

Thank you, Allie. I had almost finished a long post starting the Low Carb Cooking 101 thread when I mistakenly hit something on my keyboard that backed me out of the post so I lost it, darnitall. I’ll start over again shortly. Then Luv and I will have a place to put all kinds of recipes, although I’m sure we’ll keep posting them as relevant in other threads too. We can’t help ourselves. 😀

I limit carrots to half a small one, sliced in a stirfry along with other veg, or raw grated in an oriental coleslaw, but celeriac I use more freely. I cut them into chip sized pieces, microwave for a couple of minutes, then either roast in the oven, or pan fry on medium heat in a little oil, til golden on all sides. Good with any cooked meats. I also do a celeriac rosti – a few cubes of pancetta (I cut normal cubes into two or three pieces so it distributes better), a small finely chopped shallot, and grated celeriac. Pan fry in a little oil, pressing the mix down and turning til it’s cooked and golden – as it cooks, it starts to hold together a bit. Have this with a fried egg on top for breakfast – yum! (And it can’t be too high in carbs, as my latest Hb1ac was 32!)

You can get celeriac rice from supermarkets now which is quite nice if you are looking for a risotto replacement. I prefer it to cauli which is very definitely better mashed or roasted.

Esnecca, BINGO. Found the kelp noodels, although they were labled as Sea Tangle, but looked like the picture of the kelp noodles when I Googled it the other day. Took a shot and bought them….and Googled Sea Tangle when I got home. Yes mam, we got a match.

Also bought several other seaweed products I had never seen before. Plain old dried kelp squares (about 2″ squares). Soaked them and then sliced them as thin as I could and threw them into hot chicken broth for lunch. I was very satisfied with those….pretty darn good substitute for traditional fine egg noodles but much more nutritious. Also got some dried wakame for making salad….bought a bag of salted wakame as well to see how it might differ. Also purchased a bag of frozen fernbrake (found out its bracken fern for non Asians) but discovered a lot of info on line that it is thought to be highly carcinogens if not cooked properly. Not going there. Will content myself with trying your recipe tonight for the kelp noodles and some wakame salad tomorrow.