We all love to flip through Bon Appetit, Food & Wine or Saveur and drool over the recipes. Not only is the photography so perfect that you could practically lick the plate, their actual dishes always impress.
I read all the major food magazines not only to drool, but for inspiration for my own recipes. One afternoon, I was looking at Food Network magazine and I saw a divine looking bowl of spaghetti with pancetta and lentils.
Then my eyes scanned down to the bottom of the page: 650 calories per serving. 650. Calories. Per. Serving. 650!
Now, don’t get me wrong: I’m not trying to rain down on Food Network magazine. In fact, just the opposite: their recipe was so mind-blowingly delicious, I had to share it with you today.
One difference, though. I Inspiralized it. This is something that’s pretty simple to do: swap out regular pasta/noodles for spiralized veggies. Thus, Inspiralizing.
Originally, I wanted to do a calorie comparison between that exact same recipe, using zucchini noodles. However, 3 oz of spaghetti versus 3 oz of zucchini noodles is kind of an unfair comparison.
Let’s look at that, for a minute, using the 3 oz:
Food Network Recipe (3 oz of spaghetti): 650 calories
Inspiralized Recipe (3 oz of zucchini noodles): 347 calories
347. Phew, much better. That’s a hearty dinner. And heck, I can categorize it in my “Under 350 Calories” tab on my recipe index.
The Food Network recipe is 95.3% higher in calories than the Inspiralized version. Here it is:
Here it is again:
This is all fun, but honestly, 3 oz of zucchini noodles isn’t quite enough to fill you up (or at least not for me, but I have the appetite of a blue whale.) I’d say 12 oz of zucchini noodles is the perfect amount (unless you’re starving or hangry – then bump it up!)
What does 12 oz mean, calorie-wise? About 50 calories. Actually, 49.
That would mean that, if you used a substantial amount of zucchini noodles to replace the Food Network recipe, the calorie comparison would then be:
Food Network Recipe (3 oz of spaghetti): 650 calories
Inspiralized Recipe (12 oz of zucchini noodles): 382 calories
382 calories. That’s still pretty good, considering all the deliciousness that’s in this pasta (a garlicky tomato sauce, pancetta, onions and lentils).
Let’s say that we’re hangry. We want a giant bowl of zucchini noodles, not just 12 oz. It’s Saturday night and we want to treat ourself. Go ahead and spiralize about 2.5-3 zucchinis.
What’s the comparison now?
Food Network Recipe (3 oz of spaghetti): 650 calories
Inspiralized Recipe (3 zucchinis): 445 calories
Honestly, even Lu had a hard time eating this bowl of pasta (it’s huge!) We had a funny conversation afterwards, after he tried the regular spaghetti version (after eating the Inspiralized one).
Lu takes a bite of the regular spaghetti, original recipe.
Lu: Oh. man *eyes roll in the back of his head*
Ali: What do you think?
Lu: I mean, spaghetti’s just so good.
Ali: I know, and I’m not trying to say zucchini pasta’s better, though. I’m Italian, that’d be sacrilegious!
Lu: Yea, but to be honest, I don’t miss regular spaghetti. It’s awesome, but there’s no point when you have zucchini noodles.
This is a classic conversation. Zucchini noodles will never BE regular spaghetti. But, your taste buds adjust when you substitute in spiralized veggies and then when you DO have a bowl of regular spaghetti again, you’ll find yourself saying, “It’s just not worth it – it’s delicious, but zucchini noodles do the trick.”
Plus, when you look down and your skinny jeans are finally fitting, you’ll be the winner. And as a disclaimer, I don’t count calories. Ever. I do it now to prove a point, but I eat clean, whole food, healthy meals without stressing over numbers or a scale. Lululemon’s Wunder Unders are often (okay, always) my best friend.
Are you convinced? What are your thoughts?
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