Last updated on May 20th, 2017
You can do a lot of things with “cabbage flower” on a low-carb, high-fat (LCHF) diet: steam it, roast it, mash it, rice it, or just eat it raw.
Of course, one drawback to raw veggies, including cauliflower, is that they’re harder to fatten up that way. But a good, fatty dip will do the trick.
I’ve never had cauliflower deep-fried or baked, but I suppose those are possibilities, too. I’m not sure what you’d bread it in, though — crumbled pork rinds, perhaps?
Oh — you can also eat cauliflower pickled. (I don’t, but you can.)
Cauliflower comes in a variety of colors — such as orange, green or purple — but we always get the basic white. This is Anita’s decision. She does most of the produce shopping, and refuses to consider anything but white cauliflower. I don’t think she trusts the gaudier colors. They don’t seem natural.
Used to be, we ate cauliflower steamed, with butter or cheese-sauce on top, and maybe mixed with broccoli — which is in the same family of plants, along with cabbage, kale and brussels sprouts. (Ain’t Wikipedia wonderful?)
These days, we often eat cauliflower mashed or riced — and I suppose that’s where Anita’s rule of only buying the white variety makes sense. The final product looks more like the mashed potatoes or rice it is replacing.
Personally, I like the flavor of mashed cauliflower better than that of mashed potatoes, and I avoid a lot of starchy carbs.
Very recently, we’ve tried packaged mashed cauliflower from the frozen food aisle. Specifically, we’ve had the Green Giant variety. The flavor and texture are good. Of course, the ingredients include a few we would not include in our homemade version, such as Vitamin A Palmitate and Modified Rice Starch. The net carbs in the Green Giant mashed are just 5 grams per serving, but a serving is a measly half-cup. So, double the net-carbs to 10 grams, and the calories to 160 — still not bad (compared to mashed potatoes with three times the net carbs), but homemade mashed cauliflower could easily do better.
Like green beans and broccoli, cauliflower is a BYOF veggie — “Bring Your Own Fat.” There is essentially no fat in cauliflower until you mix some in. Otherwise, a cup of raw cauliflower contains 5.3 grams carbs, 2.5 grams fiber, and 2 grams protein. Cauliflower is a good source of vitamin C, and a decent source of several B vitamins and vitamin K.
Hi Jim, great to have you posting again. I was wondering why the posts seemed to have dried up. Not unlike your self I have wandered a bit from the path of LCHF and the weight has crept up. So the timing is good as I need a little motivation to drive it back down again. I am revisiting some of your fundamental posts etc. Thanks for the good work.
Peter.
Hello, Peter — Sorry to have been away so long, but it is good to be home! For me, a big part of losing weight or maintaining a healthier weight has been just thinking about what I’m doing. I think best when I am writing and trying to communicate with people. Good luck to you, and thanks for the positive feedback.