Spaghetti Squash

I will pretty much try ANY new vegetable or fruit on this {clean eating} journey.  I figure, what do I have to lose? You can't go wrong with too many vegetables or fruits to choose from to create unique healthy meals.

Spaghetti squash is something I hadn't tried before, until now. It's time to start caring about every single calories I take in so I can drop these dreaded last 10lbs! I usually eat whole grain pasta but then I'm left with an upset and bloated stomach and exhausted from the carb crash. This is not the case with spaghetti squash. It has a mild sweet taste that is different from regular spaghetti.

Spaghetti Squash

My daughter thought it tasted great! She thought it was really cool as I showed her the magic of the squash turning into "spaghetti". Next time I'm serving it to my 3 year old too (I wasn't in the mood for an argument this time around). If I can pass this as spaghetti to him I will be impressed.

Now, on to the awesome news. An average spaghetti squash has 165 calories. That's for the ENTIRE squash and it makes a lot of "spaghetti". Just ONE cup of regular spaghetti contains around 220 calories versus 42 calories a cup of spaghetti squash. If you were to just replace one cup of pasta with squash once a week for a year, that would be 8,544 calories (2 lbs weight loss per year). These numbers are for those that actually eat ONE cup of pasta. I am sure many people eat way more than one cup per serving. 

There are many techniques to cook spaghetti squash. One way is to microwave it. Here's a great video explaining that method.

I, personally, choose to cut it in half lengthwise and removed the seeds and pulp. Then I placed the squash rind side up in a baking dish and baked it at 375 degrees for 30-40 minutes.

I am happy to report that this vegetable experiment was a success. I will be using spaghetti squash instead of spaghetti pasta many times this coming year.  That alone should help me with my weight loss goals. Plus, my daughter is excited to share the news of how cool spaghetti squash is to her friends.