<p>H and I have been on a low-carb regimen lately, so I have been slowly but surely ridding our pantry of high-carb stuff. Tonight I came across two cans of pumpkin and am wondering if any of you cooks can recommend something low-carb to make with them. Everything that I think of involves multiple cups of sugar . . .</p>
<p>How about pumpkin soup? Delicious, no sugar added. Here’s a recipe with some fat (from the cream), but low-carb. You can probably substitute a lower-fat dairy product if you prefer. </p>
<p>[Pumpkin</a> Soup Recipe - Allrecipes.com](<a href=“http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/pumpkin-soup/Detail.aspx]Pumpkin”>http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/pumpkin-soup/Detail.aspx)</p>
<p>You can make a pumpkin pie without the crust using a sugar substitute. For sugar substitute, I’ve been using Whey Low lately (buy at Whole Foods); or you can use Splenda, but I don’t care for the aftertaste.</p>
<p>I have also made a pumpkin chili. Just use your regular chili recipe but with a cup of pumpkin added. It imparts an unusual but tasty flavor.</p>
<p>Yeah. Pumpkin soup. Probably not real low-carb because I suspect that the pumpkin is fairly high carb, but still, there’s no sugar or other added carbs beyond the pumpkin.</p>
<p>Here’s Bobby Flay’s version, which is pretty straight forward:</p>
<p>[Mesa</a> Grill’s Pumpkin Soup with Mexican Cinnamon Creme Fraiche and Toasted Pumpkin Seeds with Spinach, Pear and Pancetta Salad Recipe : Bobby Flay : Food Network](<a href=“http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/bobby-flay/mesa-grills-pumpkin-soup-with-mexican-cinnamon-creme-fraiche-and-toasted-pumpkin-seeds-recipe/index.html]Mesa”>http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/bobby-flay/mesa-grills-pumpkin-soup-with-mexican-cinnamon-creme-fraiche-and-toasted-pumpkin-seeds-recipe/index.html)</p>
<p>There are million variations. I’ve also had an Indian curry flavored version.</p>
<p>We have low-carb discussion on the diet/exercise thread. We’ve had a lot of them recently (I’m a recent convert 10 pounds ago).</p>
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<p>I still am a little fuzzy on where the low-carb line is exactly, but according to the label on my cans of Libby’s pumpkin, a serving (half cup) has 9 carbs and 5 grams of fiber. That seems pretty good for a vegetable.</p>
<p>Well, a few of us on the other thread are aiming for 33% carbs. Some diets have you at much lower percentages. The lower percentages scare me a bit. I always have Livestrong running so it’s easy to look things up. A generic cup of pumpkin puree comes in at 0.6 g fat, 19 g carbs and 2.7 g protein. BTW, high-carb foods don’t scare me away - I just eat smaller portions. You can always balance out with a few eggs, turkey bacon, tuna, chicken, steak or protein bars.</p>
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<p>As understand it, though, the grams of carbs alone are not the important number–the important number is net carbs (carbs minus fiber), because fiber offsets the insulin effect of the carbs. So a cup of pumpkin would have about 9 grams of net carbs (19 g carb minus 10 g fiber). And fiber can be a scarce commodity on a low-carb diet.</p>
<p>I haven’t heard that one. It would make for a good topic on the other thread.</p>
<p>I usually go with apples, bananas and whole wheat bread for fiber.</p>
<p>Net carbs are what one counts if diabetic. Pumpkin is generally considerd one of the good vegetables for that reason. Low carb pumpkin uses include pumpkin soup–I like curried, myself–and pumpkin cheesecake made with artificial sweetener (and no crust). There are many recipes out there. My one caveat would be that the typical recipe using Splenda in a cheesecake uses about 1 1/2 cups. It is WAY too sweet to my taste. I would cut it back to 3/4 cup, or maybe 1 cup. Xylitol is a sweetener that can be used in baking that many prefer to splenda, if you can get it.</p>
<p>Bananas are very high carb, a real no-no for diabetics. Most whole wheat bread is quite high carb, too. It is essential to read the labels. Apples are good: a 100 gm apple has about 15 gms net carbs. That’s a small apple.</p>
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<p>That’s correct. Net carbs are the important thing. Fiber is not digested. Canned pumpkin sounds like a winner!</p>
<p>I was guessing as I didn’t have a can of pumpkin to go look at. I was going by the nutrtion info for some pumpkin soups which seem to run about 25 g of carbs per cup. That’s about like split pea soup, which I eat regularly – also moderately high carbs offset by a good bit of fiber.</p>
<p>Speaking of fiber and carbs. I’ve been taking the psyllium husk fiber capsules and decided to try the psyllium husk powder dissolved in water because it’s a fraction of the cost. I thought it was the same stuff, but I get it home and the powder has sugar it – and not an insiignificant amount, it’s the first ingrediant listed. Oh, well. I guess I’ll use this for a while and wait for the two-for-one sale on the capsules. If I’m going to eat sugar, I’d rather eat it something a little tastier than a glass of fiber dissolved in water!</p>
<p>Livestrong has the fiber numbers. I guess that I will have to update my mental algorithms for nutrition with this information. I don’t recall the issue of fiber in the other thread. I guess that I can be a bit more generous on the whole wheat bread.</p>
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<p>Once I started paying attention to net carbs, I was surprised by how little fiber there is in whole wheat anything. For example, Pepperidge Farm 100% Whole Wheat Bread has 15 g carb and only 2 g fiber.</p>
<p>Wow; I checked out Trader Joes breads on Livestrong - they had two breads around the 50% level (fiber was 50% of carbs). The vast majority had single-digits percentages. I also checked Matthews and it was pretty low. Looks like I need to watch for high-fiber foods.</p>
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<p>My reaction precisely. Just goes to show you how good of a job the wheat industry has done convincing us that wheat is a good source of fiber, when really it is not.</p>
<p>It’s quite difficult in general to find foods with a high fiber/carbs ratio. Libby’s pumpkin happens to be one of them. I’m going to checkout the two breads at Trader Joes with high ratios. Pistachio nuts are pretty good though not 50%. Artichokes are good too but they are seasonal. Apples and Bananas are listed as high-fiber but their ratios are low so I guess you get a lot of fiber but you have to take a lot of calories with it.</p>
<p>I have found that almonds and berries are pretty good in terms of net carbs.</p>
<p>BC:</p>
<p>The “high fiber” breads and cereals usually have fiber added. Just like taking a spoon of metamucil powder and sprinkling it on your cereal.</p>
<p>Yeah, I saw that in the ingredients. I can live with that.</p>