New year, new you and new diet. This is a familiar refrain. A popular dieting technique is to draw up a food blacklist, in which it is common to leave “carbohydrates” or packaged foods, something that may mean avoiding pasta.
But do we really need to exclude pasta to improve our diets?
This is what we call a reductionist approach to nutrition, in which we describe a food based on only one of its key components.
Pasta isn’t just carbs. One cup (about 145 grams) of cooked pasta has about 38 grams of carbohydrates, 7.7 grams of protein and 0.6 grams of fat. In addition, there is all the water that is absorbed when cooking and many vitamins and minerals.
“But pasta is mostly carbs!” I hear you sobbing. It’s true, but it’s not the whole story. We have to think about the context.
Your day on a plate
You probably know that there are recommendations on how much energy (kilojoules or calories) we should eat in a day. These recommendations are based on body size, gender, and physical activity. But you may not realize that there are also recommendations on the macronutrient profile, or types of foods, that supply this energy.
When starting a diet, the foods to be consumed should not be chosen simply because they contain carbohydrates, but should be considered if they have proteins and vitamins. GETTY IMAGES
Fats, carbohydrates and proteins are macronutrients. Macronutrients are broken down in the body to produce energy for our bodies.
Acceptable macronutrient distribution ranges describe the proportion or percentage of macronutrients that should provide this energy. These ranges are set by experts based on health outcomes and healthy eating models.
The goal is to make sure we get enough, but not too much, from each macro. Consuming too much or too little of any type of food can have health consequences.
The ratios are also designed to ensure that we get enough vitamins and minerals that come with the energy in the foods we normally eat. We should get 45 to 65% of our energy from carbohydrates, 10 to 30% from protein, and 20 to 35% from fat.
Mangia pasta
Macronutrient ratios mean it can be healthy to eat up to 1.2 to 6.5 times more carbs in a day than protein, as each gram of protein has the same amount of energy as one gram of carbs.
Studies and research have revealed that people lose more weight when pasta is regularly listed in their diet. GETTY IMAGES
The ratio of carbohydrates to protein in pasta is 38 grams to 7.7 grams, which is roughly equivalent to a ratio of 5 to 1, which is within the acceptable range of macronutrient distribution and means that pasta actually has enough protein to balance carbohydrates.
This is not only due to the eggs that the paste contains. Wheat is another source of protein and makes up about 20% of the protein consumed worldwide.
The relationship between calorie levels and weight gain isn’t so straightforward either.
In the context of a healthy diet, people have been shown to lose more weight when their diet includes pasta regularly. And, a systematic review of ten different studies found that pasta was better for post-meal blood glucose levels than bread or potatoes.
The expert says that reducing pasta portions is a better way than excluding this food when dieting. GETTY IMAGES
Instead of giving up spaghetti, you should consider reducing portion sizes or switching to whole-grain pasta, which has a higher fiber content, which offers gut health benefits and can help you feel full longer.
Gluten-free pasta has slightly less protein than wheat pasta. So despite being healthier for people with gluten intolerance, there are no major health benefits to switching to gluten-free pasta for most of us.
With pesto and bolognese
Pasta is also not usually eaten alone. So while some warn about the dangers of blood sugar spikes when eating “naked carbs” (i.e. only carbs without other foods), this is generally not a risk to pasta.
Pasta can help picky children and adults consume vegetables that otherwisea would not consume. GETTY IMAGES
When pasta provides the foundation of a meal, it can be a vehicle to help people eat more vegetables in sauces or chunks. For kids (or picky adults), pasta sauce can be a great place to hide pureed or grated vegetables.
Not eating only pasta is also important for the protein profile. Plant foods are generally not complete proteins, which means we need to eat combinations of them to get all the different types of amino acids (the building blocks of protein) that we need to survive.
But pasta, although we often focus on carbohydrates and energy, has a good nutritional contribution. Like most foods, they’re not just macronutrients, they also have micronutrients.
One cup of cooked pasta has about a quarter of the recommended daily intake of vitamins B1 and B9, half of the recommended intake of selenium, and 10% of our iron needs.
The intake of cakes, sweets and other products with high levels of sugar is much more advisable than excluding pasta. GETTY IMAGES
The news about pasta gets even better when we eat it as leftovers.
When pasta is cooked and cooled, some of the carbohydrates are converted into resistant starch. This starch gets its name because it is resistant to digestion, so it provides less energy and is better for blood sugar levels. Therefore, leftover pasta, even if you reheat it, has fewer calories than the night before.
Look more at ‘carb’ options
There is a lot of talk about reducing carbohydrate intake for weight loss, but you have to remember that carbohydrates come in different forms and in different foods.
Some of them, such as pasta, provide other benefits. Others like cakes and treats, they add little. When talking about reducing refined carbohydrate intake, you should first think about sweets that are eaten alone, before eliminating the basic carbohydrates that are often served with vegetables, arguably the healthiest core food group!
*AndMMA Beckett is pPromotera titular of Sciences of Food and Human Nutritiona in the Faculty of Environmental and Life Sciences of the University of Newcastle (United Kingdom).
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