THD Journey: Zucchini Spaghetti

Zucchini Spaghetti

There is this diet that was ever the first specific diet that I ever considered trying. I used to say "I'm on a diet," where basically I meant I limited my food intake to create a negative balance of energy, so that my body would use the fat reserves for energy. The disadvantage of that dieting mode was I would often end up with vitamin/mineral deficiencies, that I would actually manifest symptoms (like weakened gums).

The Harcombe diet is the first diet I tried because most of the author's convictions were in congruence with mine: we both do not see saturated fats as bad for health (I blogged before defending the coconut from attacks by others, saying it is saturated fat and is therefore bad); we like combination of fat and meat; we like cooking from scratch and serving real foods; we don't like counting calories; we would like to be able to consume meat as much as we can (more so than sugar).

The author is from UK, and the only thing I did not really like in the diet plan was, her carb allowance for phase 1, which was a measly 50 g of BROWN rice, which was a major change for one like me who grew up eating rice almost every meal.  But I gave it a try as her rationale was sound. I began my journey last Friday. I actually posted in a note on fb how I ate and how I felt per day. On phase 1 (which lasts 5 days), combi of fat with carb (protein is automatically considered to be with fat) is allowed, but with limited carb. On phase 2, there should be NO mixing. A meal will either be fat(+protein) OR carb(+protein).

I will continue to share my progress on my fb note, but this blog will be the repository of recipes I come up with in this journey.

Ingredients: 


Zucchini Spaghetti: 


The spaghetti sauce is totally homemade:
1 pint of homecanned tomato sauce (no additives; plain tomatoes reduced by simmering; processed by boiling water bath per USDA guidelines)
3 tbsp chicken oil (home-rendered from chicken skins of homeraised chickens)
3 cloves garlic, minced
half yellow onion, minced
dash of each of ground basil, parsley, savory, and oregano
kosher salt and pepper to taste



Instructions:


Sautee garlic in oil for about 2 minutes, add the onions and sautee an additional 3-5 minutes or until transparent. Add tomato sauce. Season with herbs, S&P.

I cut the above in two. I used half of it (1 cup) to mix in about 1 cup of roughly chopped chicken meat (leftover from rotisserie that I cooked last Friday). (The other half of spaghetti sauce I will use for something else at a later time.).

Serve the spaghetti sauce with chicken over a bed of zucchini spaghetti.

Note: I used a special gadget, the plastic spiral vegetable slicer, to make the zucchini spaghetti.