Turning Japanese?

This weekend I went to the local Japanese market in San Diego. It was the first time that I’d been in an Asian market for some time. Though I love Asian food (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Malaysian, Thai), my low-carb diet makes it difficult to find anything to eat in such places, so I haven’t had reason to go to one.

Until yesterday.

The thing that brought me there was, ironically, my low-carb diet. For some time I had been aware of a particular Japanese flour that is made from yam. It’s Japanese name is konnyaku, and in English it’s called konjac or glucomannan. This flour is virtually all indigestible fiber, so it has an extremely low carb count. Further, it has the unusual property of dramatically expanding as it’s digested. Supposedly, the stuff swells to 15-50 times it original size (claims vary), so it keeps you full. It also has the usual benefits of fiber (absorbing toxins, slowing down the assimilation of calories, etc.).

Low carb count + keeps you full + usual benefits of fiber = something dieters will want to use, therefore, they do.

I’ve used konjac before as a nutritional supplement in capsule form, but I’ve never known how to find the foods Japanese make from it. Well, the other day I got a name–shirataki–which is a kind of noodle made from konjac. Armed with this knowledge, I knew what to ask for at an Asian market, and so I went to the local Japanese one.

It turns out that there are a bunch of different kinds of shirataki noodles. They comes in different thicknesses and flavors. They also have cakes (i.e., slabs) made of the stuff and dumplings. (I’ve also seen references online to deserts made from it, but didn’t see those at the market). I got a couple of kinds of noodles and some dumplings and a salad mix that has glucomannan strips in it (as well as picking up some seaweed flakes and dried “sea vegetables”).

If the nutritional lables on the products are to be believed, these products have digestible carb counts as low as one gram per serving, and they are much, much more like typical spaghetti than the current low-carb pastas (which tend to be a little heavier and stiffer, though still quite edible).

Early results are quite promising. The taste and texture of the noodles is excellent, and it certainly seems to be living up to its promise of keeping you feeling full. As a starting experiment, I’ve only eaten very small portions of the noodles (a normal size portion might be too much, given how much the stuff swells up), but have felt quite full for quite a long time.

Unfortunately, I haven’t found a way to order the noodles online (perhaps because they come packed in water; they don’t seem to be available dry). But if you are dieting–whether you are on a low-carb diet or not–and you live near an Asian market, you might want to see if you can find some konjac noodles or other products to try. The words to look for are: shirataki, konjac, konnyaku, glucomannan, or simply yam. You may need to ask a salesperson for help, as most of the labels will be in Japanese (except for the nutritional labels stuck on by the importer).

Be sure to check the nutritional labels if you are on a low-carb diet just to make sure you’ve got the right stuff. Other Japanese noodles are very high in carbs. While at the store, I read one food label on a bowl of noodles that had over 100 carbs in it! (For me, that’s three to five days worth of carbs in one bowl!)

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live." View all posts by Jimmy Akin