Konnyaku Noodles

I recently discovered Konnyaku/Shirataki noodles, and I wanted to tell you about them a bit because I think they're cool haha. C: You can get them from the Japan Centre for about £1.

Basically, these are noodles made of konjac yam plant, and their selling point is that they have practically no calories or carbs.  You can use them in place of noodles or spaghetti in many dishes to create a lower calorie version, which is great if you're on a diet but still want to eat big meals.

Preparation is really easy. After draining the water from the packet, you'll notice that they smell quite bad, so you have to rinse them then put them in boiling water for about 5 minutes. After that, just drain the water and they're ready!

They have no actual flavour of their own, so I highly recommend that you add some kind of sauce or other food with a strong flavour. However, they do absorb other flavours quite well. I can't cook to save my life, so I just put some pasta sauce on mine, then added some left over salmon that needed to be used up.

So, this meal only comes to about 300 calories! (I realise that it doesn't look very appetising, but I'm sure anyone who's a decent cook can make something much better.)

Good points:

• Very low calories and carbs.
• Can easily be used instead of pasta or noodles.
• Easy and quick to prepare.
• Very filling.

Bad points:

• They have an odd, slightly unpleasant, chewy texture, a bit like jelly cubes (but you get used to it).
• They smell awful at first.
• They don't provide any nutrition.

-Finlay