What Are Good Carb Alternatives?

High-carb foods are everywhere and many are at the top of people’s favorite food lists. Pasta, potatoes, and sweet treats all are forbidden. You don’t have to suffer and give everything up. There are good carb alternatives that can replace the foods you love and often contain a lot of beneficial nutrients. Some are simple. Instead of eating low-fat yogurt, choose the unaltered type, full-fat. When companies remove the fat, the yogurt tastes awful, so they add other ingredients, like sugar, to improve the taste and texture. Some contain 9 grams of added sugar or more.

Alter the way you make your favorite high-carb dish.

Do you love mac and cheese? You can cut the carbs by reducing the amount of macaroni you use, and replacing it with vegetables, like cauliflower, broccoli, or beans. Other low-carb additives include chicken, tuna, or hard-boiled eggs. Zucchini noodles—zoodles—and other vegetable noodles are good substitutes for flour noodles. Spaghetti squash is a natural alternative that’s lower in calories and great with garlic butter, or spaghetti sauce.

Cauliflower and portabella mushrooms are exceptionally good.

Is pizza a favorite? Not a problem. Make a cauliflower crust pizza and skip the flour. If you aren’t excited about cauliflower crust pizza, made with cauliflower and cheese, consider a portabella mushroom crust for individual-size pizzas. Bake the mushrooms first, add toppings and broil for a lower-carb pizza with mushrooms on the bottom instead of the top.

Cut out the bread and make a lettuce roll-up.

Bread is high in carbs, so simply cut it from your diet. Rather than a wheat burrito, sandwich bread, or a bun, make a roll-up with lettuce, Chinese cabbage, or Napa cabbage. Add your favorite sandwich filling, such as turkey or thinly sliced beef, and roll it. You can make it a dipping sandwich with a side dip that makes adding mayo or sauce unnecessary. It’s easier to eat without the condiments inside it. You can even make BLTs and use mayonnaise as the dipping sauce.

• A replacement for pancakes that you’ll love is made with oatmeal, eggs, vanilla extra, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cottage cheese. Process in a blender and cook as you would regular pancakes.
• Mashed potatoes may be off-limits, but mashed cauliflower isn’t. You don’t have to be on a low-carb diet to get benefits from substituting half the potatoes with cooked cauliflower.
• A replacement for hash-brown potatoes is grated golden egg summer squash. It tastes like potatoes but is far lower in carbs. Grate the squash, mix with egg, make patties, and fry.
• Butternut squash makes a delicious substitute for potatoes if you want fries. It also is loaded with carotenoids and potassium. You can peel them or leave the peels on to cut prep time.

For more information, contact us today at Prime Fitness Studio