If you’ve ever tried to cut back on pasta or noodles for the sake of your health, you know how hard it can be to give them up. Whether it’s a steaming bowl of ramen on a cold night or a quick stir-fry after work, noodles have a way of finding their place on the table. While strolling through the pasta aisle, you’ve probably noticed that most noodles share the same basic makeup such as flour, water, and a whole lot of starch. That starch is part of what makes pasta comforting, but it’s also what can quickly spike blood sugar levels. For anyone keeping an eye on glucose or cholesterol numbers, that can be a problem.

Thankfully, there’s a noodle-like food that doesn’t play by those rules. It’s low in starch, almost calorie-free, and made from a plant you might never have heard of called konjac. Often sold as shirataki noodles, these translucent strands look like a lighter cousin of glass noodles but their origin and nutritional profile are entirely different.

What Makes Shirataki Noodles Unique

Shirataki noodles come from the root of the konjac plant (Amorphophallus konjac), which grows in parts of Asia. The root is rich in a type of soluble fiber. Manufacturers grind the dense starchy root of the konjac plant into a flour, mixing it with water, and forming into noodles shapes that keep their form even when boiled.

Unlike traditional wheat or rice noodles, shirataki noodles are made up of around 97% water and a special type of soluble fiber known as glucomannan.

This composition is the reason a single cup contains about 20 calories—a fraction of the calories found in regular pasta—and why they have minimal impact on blood sugar levels.

While shirataki noodles are not a major source of vitamins or minerals, the glucomannan they contain is where their potential health benefits lies.

How Glucomannan Supports Blood Sugar Control

Soluble fibers like glucomannan slow down digestion by creating a gel-like texture in the stomach and intestines. This means that carbohydrates from your meal are broken down and absorbed more gradually, leading to smaller and slower rises in blood glucose.

A meta-analysis in the journal Nutrients reviewed six randomized controlled trials and found that participants consuming glucomannan had lower fasting blood sugar levels as well as reduced post-meal glucose spikes. This makes shirataki noodles particularly appealing for people managing insulin resistance, prediabetes, or type 2 diabetes–though it should complement, not replace, other evidence-based dietary approaches.

Glucomannan’s Effect on Cholesterol

The same gel-like action that slows carbohydrate absorption also affects cholesterol metabolism. By binding with bile acids in the gut, glucomannan helps the body excrete cholesterol rather than reabsorbing it.

A review in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition analyzed 12 clinical studies and concluded that consuming about 3 grams of glucomannan daily from konjac root could reduce LDL cholesterol (“bad” cholesterol) by roughly 10%. For context, a single cup of shirataki noodles contains around 6 grams of glucomannan enough to reach this threshold in one serving.

Practical Considerations Before You Swap All Your Pasta

While shirataki noodles have clear advantages for those aiming to lower carbohydrate intake or manage cholesterol, they are not a direct replacement for the nutritional profile of regular noodles. Because they are extremely low in calories and carbohydrates, they won’t provide the same energy boost you might expect from a pasta-based meal.

Additionally, introducing large amounts of fiber too quickly can cause digestive discomfort, including bloating or gas. It’s best to increase fiber gradually so that your gut bacteria have time to adjust and digest fiber accordingly.