2 quick questions

[Ruff]

2 quick questions.

1. is grey garden pumpkin a veg or a starch, and ditto for spaghetti squash.

2. can I preload with a cooked veg instead of soup or salad? I have a cabbage gluten my garden, and I could preload with a bowl of steamed cabbage?

Thank you
Katie.

[bunsofaluminum]

2 quick questions.

1. is grey garden pumpkin a veg or a starch, and ditto for spaghetti squash.

2. can I preload with a cooked veg instead of soup or salad? I have a cabbage gluten my garden, and I could preload with a bowl of steamed cabbage?

Thank you
Katie.

I never heard of grey garden pumpkin, but I'd be inclined to think of spaghetti squash as a non-starch because it doesn't have the same texture as say butternut or acorn squash. But there are others who can answer that better, I'm sure.

On the second question I'd say a big "yes"...cooked cabbage is a green leafy veg, and other than it being cooked, it would be a bit like a big bowl of salad, wouldn't it? It reminds me of Pink Rose who used to eat a wedge of steamed green cabbage for his "first course" of every meal. Then his starches, which he considered dessert.

[Mark Cooper]

I'm not familiar with grey garden pumpkin either, but I'm assuming that it is fairly similar to standard pumpkin? Although Dr. McDougall includes pumpkin (along with other winter squashes) in the list of starch staples, pumpkin is closer to non starchy vegetables in terms of calorie density: pumpkin (cooked from fresh) is ~91 calories / lb, with 1.7g of starch. Spaghetti Squash is ~123 calories / lb, with 2.9g of starch. In comparison, potato (boiled with skin) is ~345 calories / lb, with 59.2g of starch. Personally, I would treat pumpkin and spaghetti squash more like non starchy vegetables. Jeff discusses this in greater detail here.

Cooked, non starchy vegetables can work as a preload; wildgoose discusses the concept in this post.

[Ruff]

thank you both for you help, and the links, mark.

Obviously pumpkins vary around the world. I have a lot of pumpkins and have made pumpkin and carrot soup and and dehydrated it into 'cup-a-soup' powder. This is obviously great for pre-loading soup, as all I have to do is put a few spoonfuls in a cup and pour on the boiling water. I can also rehydrate the soup with more or less water, so I can have runnier cup-a-soup for preload purposes and thicker for if I want soup for lunch. I shall make (yet) another batch forthwith!