Jul 20
1:35 PM

A Carb Lover’s Guide: 3 Essential Rules for Eating Pasta

We eat pasta about once or twice a week in our house. I love pasta for it's taste, it's quickness to cook and it's versatility in many different dishes. I often get asked why I don't eat whole grain pasta...
We eat pasta about once or twice a week in our house. I love pasta for it's taste, it's quickness to cook and it's versatility in many different dishes. I often get asked why I don't eat whole grain pasta very often -- read on and I'll tell you why...

The number one reason I don’t eat whole grain pasta is because I prefer the taste of regular semolina and the second reason is because I don’t have to. When I say “I don’t have to” I am not singling myself (the dietitian) out. Let’s talk about pasta – the good, the bad and the reason why you may not have to force yourself to eat whole grain if you don’t want to.

Pasta is a grain and grains are an important part of our everyday diet. Half of the grains you eat should be whole grains because whole grains add more fiber to the diet in addition to naturally occurring vitamins and minerals. Grains contribute carbohydrate to our diet and carbohydrate supplies our brain with energy throughout the day. If we don’t eat carbohydrates we start to feel sluggish while at the same time our concentration and focus diminishes. For this reason it is important to meet your needs for grains each day. It is best to spread the grains out evenly over your three meals and it is especially helpful if your grains are whole grains because these digest more slowly and therefore release the carbohydrate over a longer period of time keeping you satiated and energized for longer.

Most people need about 6 ounce equivalents of grain each day – this is an amount that can easily be exceeded without proper portion control and it’s especially easy when eating pasta. An ounce-equivalent of pasta is 1/2 cup cooked.  That is a TINY serving. If I had to guess I would say the average person takes about 2-3 cups of pasta when they serve themselves (4-6 ounce equivalents). If you order pasta at a restaurant you are likely being served around 4 cups which is 8 ounces equivalents. This is just one meal and you are already at or above your daily alllowance for grains…uh oh. Not only are you eating a day’s worth of grain in just one meal, you are also overloading your body with carbohydrate. Grains breakdown into simple sugars and that is how they provide energy, but too much sugar in your bloodstream at once is not good. Your body only needs a certain amount at one time and any excess has to be cleared (with insulin) and put into storage (adipose tissue aka fat). This happens when you eat a big pasta meal and it’s not good because you have consumed several hundred calories yet you are going to feel hungry in a couple of hours because your body reacted strongly to this load you put in and worked to clear all the glucose away in order to keep your blood sugar levels in normal range.


     The first rule when eating pasta is…PORTION CONTROL!
     The second rule is…PAIR WITH PROTEIN.
     The third rule is…FORTIFY WITH FIBER.

The first rule should be of no surprise – you just read how easy it is to eat a day’s worth of grain in one pasta dish so scale back the number of scoops you take. Start small (1-1.5 cups) and eat slowly. If you are still hungry (which you won’t be if you follow rule #2 and rule #3), you can take another small portion (1/2 cup) 20 minutes later.

Pair your pasta with protein (meat or beans) and fortify it with fiber (vegetables) so that it becomes a more filling meal that digests more slowly. When the meal digests more slowly, you avoid the rapid rise in blood sugar and resulting overzealous insulin response. The meal will  break down over time leaving you feeling full and energized for several hours after you eat it. Protein can be chicken, beef or beans and fiber can be vegetables cooked into the dish or consumed as a salad on the side. Fiber can also come from whole grain pasta but you should not east more pasta to get more fiber…the portion control rule is still in effect. Since I pretty much always have the protein and vegetables as a part of my pasta dish, I have not taken to eating the whole grain pasta. The majority of my other grains are whole and so this is one thing I choose to go white on.

Pasta is not the enemy – it can be your good friend if you learn how to eat it right! 

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