Pasta has always had a bad reputation: too high in calories, indigestible and above all, banned in most diets.
Unjustified criticism, and the new wave of dieticians are raving about durum wheat semolina, which is the staple ingredient in pasta. A dough is 4/5 of semolina and 1/5 of water! The proportions are legal and unavoidable. You can add milk, gluten, eggs, pulses, vegetable extracts, herbs … As long as you indicate it. On the other hand, no other additive is authorized.
Every October 26, for 15 years, the world has celebrated World Pasta Day, to which doctors now subscribe. Guarantee of a real full of energy, this excellent food must find its place in the basic diet of the family, especially at the time of the examinations. Good news for all children: the simple dish of spaghetti that made mothers feel guilty is a thousand times more healthy than steak-beans or other pizzas and hamburgers …
Talking about pasta means first of all twisting the necks of two stubborn legends. First of all, they absolutely do not make you fat, if you consume them in normal quantities. Cooked pasta provides 110 Kcal per 100 grams, almost two and a half times less than bread. On the other hand, the diet is less friendly with what can accompany them: the excess of sauce, fresh cream, bacon or grated cheese, which makes all the difference between the very good and the very bad.
Another injustice, contrary to popular belief, they are not contraindicated in diets against cholesterol. There is, in fact, only 1/7 of an egg in a normal ration. Not enough to make it a forbidden dish… Quite the contrary! By reducing the secretion of fats by the liver, by participating in the lowering of cholesterol, they are even indicated in the diet of those who suffer from heart disease.
Pasta is low in fat and a lot of sugars, but not just any: slow sugars that are digested very gradually, releasing constant energy in our blood, without panicking our body like when we eat a Piece of sugar. Hence their name, and especially their energy interest, which is well known to all sportsmen, in particular cyclists, who are great consumers of it.
Another advantage: when we eat pasta, we have little or no desire to eat fatty or sweet foods. Those who want to lose weight should therefore not hesitate to favor them, but in reasonable quantities! The more so – and it is much less known – that there is in this food as much protein as in eggs and almost as much as in meat. What is more, better quality.
Pasta is very digestible by nature. Al dente cooking, which keeps them a certain consistency, is certainly the best way to prepare them. Overcooked, therefore very hydrated and slippery, they do little to stimulate chewing, which is essential for good digestion, because saliva indeed contains an enzyme whose role is to predigest these slow sugars by preparing their decomposition into simpler sugars.
Conversely, you should avoid undercooked pasta that the enzymes cannot break down.
Finally, the last advantage, during cooking, they are loaded with water: twice their volume. Which, especially in elderly people who drink little, represents a significant fluid intake.
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