A huge bowl of pasta may be great comfort food, but it isn’t exactly health food. New local supplier Veggie Noodle Co., however, is trying to change that with packaged spiralized vegetables that may be the best of both worlds.
The organic veggie “noodles” are available in zucchini and sweet potato spirals, and have a shelf life of a week. There is no chemical treating or processing involved. While spiralized vegetables are nothing new, they are not the easiest cut to churn out daily from home. Consumer machines exist, but it takes a good amount of effort to prepare the vegetables for spiralizing and then to clean afterwards.
Veggie Noodle Co. presents itself as a timesaving alternative. Founder Mason Arnold, also the founder of local organic food delivery service Greenling, stumbled upon this concept three years ago. Through a series of medical checkups, Arnold and his family members were diagnosed with gluten sensitivity, which significantly limited their diet.
“With food processing, some form of grain or gluten or dairy is in the vast majority of products out there,” Arnold says. “With kids who are notorious picky eaters, we had to start getting really, really creative with what we cooked.”
When Arnold first tried veggie noodles as part of a cleanse, he thought it was amazing because they could mimic regular noodles depending on the cooking method. But there was no ready-to-eat option available. So he decided to take matters into his own hands, and launched his company several months ago.
According to Arnold, veggie noodles are much easier to sauté and cook than actual pasta, but the major benefit is that people with restrictive diets or allergies can start eating spaghetti again.
Currently, only zucchini and sweet potato are available as they are the most versatile vegetables for recipes and are also widely available in local farms. In the future, the company intends to sell the ready-to-eat veggie noodles in salads or accompanied with sauce. Eventually, they hope to use different vegetables as the base.
Veggie noodles are available for order on Greenling, in Whole Foods Market Downtown, and will be stocked at Wheatsville Co-op South Lamar location tomorrow. Recipes on how to prepare the veggie noodles are available online.
This article appears in July 17 • 2015.