Spaghetti. Mmm. 

Spaghetti and I go way back. When I was growing up in Baltimore in the 60s, I'm pretty sure that we had spaghetti at least once a week. I have vivid memories of that big stainless steel colander being upended and the squiddy plop of noodles sliding onto a plate. And superball-sized meatballs mired in Ragu sauce that seemed to glow with a low dose radiation luminescence. 

Ah, the fond memories of the lower middle class child.

And more recently, spaghetti was one of the few meals I could actually prepare with confidence and serve to my children without fearing that they would suffer or die due to my incompetence in the cooking arena.

But those spaghetti noodles pack a pretty good wallop on the caloric register.


Let's just say, for instance, that we want to eat 219 grams of spaghetti.  That's quite a bit more than the Recommended Serving Size (according to The Box, which suggests you only want 56 grams of the stuff), but you know that that's not enough for you, right? 1  So we'll ramp that up by a factor of 4-ish. Now try not to be too overwhelmed by this . . . but that spaghetti quad-serving is going to cost you 704 calories. Yeah, I know. But we've got a ways to go yet. I mean, you gots to have the red sauce, right? Let's go healthy on this one . . .  stick to the serving size suggestion . . . and just take one half of a cup of Trader Joe's Spaghetti Sauce--or, more accurately,  Trader Giotto's Tomato Basil Marinara Sauce, which adds a mere 90 calories to the bill. And of course we need a little bit of meat, right? Let's keep it modest and say 135 grams's worth of meat. That'll give you about four modest meatballs. And it will cost you 448 calories, but it will be worth it, foe shoe. 

Our total? 1,242 calories. Hmm. Might want to pass on the garlic bread and drink water instead of Coke.

It wasn't all that long ago that that would have seemed like a reasonable dinner for me. Well, okay. It would have been more reasonable with a slice of garlic bread. Specifically New York Texas Toast Garlic Bread . A mere 160 calories there. And a glass of Coke . . . just 140 calories. So another 300 calories there, and a grand total of 1,542. 

Which is just a little bit less (192) than I ate all day yesterday.

Hmmpf.

So I haven't eaten spaghetti lately. 

But I love spaghetti.

And then one day whilst Krogering, I spotted that thing which is called Spaghetti Squash. I'd heard of this thing before . . . I think I even ate it once or twice . . . but I'd never bought it and prepared it before. I decided to be adventurous. And you know what? It was goooood. Like spaghetti, but with a nice, crisp texture. And you know what else is nice about it? It tastes great with tomato sauce. And you know what else? 219 grams of it only puts 68 calories into your gut. Mmm-hmm. 68. So you see where this is going, right? But let's make it better. Let's take out that hamburger meat (448 calories) and replace it with 50 grams of Morningstar Farms Grillers Crumbles and 85 grams of Brussel Sprouts . . . which will give you 70 calories and 40 calories, respectively, for a total of 110 calories. 

Grand total of this version of spaghetti and meatballs? 268 calories. Shit, man, you could go ahead and add that garlic bread and a Coke and still be cruising. Not my thing, but it is A thing . . . and I think it's proof that you don't have to starve or suffer in order to eat better and put fewer calories into your stomach.

Hmm? Oh. Fuckin' A it was good. Here, check this out:

That's a lot of food, man. And I could have piled in some more of the fake meat, or course, but (1) I like Brussel sprouts and (2) I like to get as much bang for my gram buck as I can manage, and that means using vegetables as often as possible, doesn't it?

It's made a big difference to me. 

Just sayin', sir.

1  Oh, you think so? Okay. I'm thinking you probably don't know how small one ounce is. But if you want to be that way, that one ounce of spaghetti is still going to cost you two hundred calories. Keep that in mind as you do the add-ons.