Any positive nutritional value of pasta?

Post Reply New Topic

Spaghetti, Macaroni,etc.

It should be fat free and whole grain. If it is, it's healthy.

If you need carbs, personally I prefer whole wheat or Ezekiel (multi-grain sprouted) pasta. But potatoes imo are better for carbs, lower GI index. But, nutrition is quite a variable subject. Yeah, carby foods like that are good, IF you're doing a sport requiring a lot of endurance, ie, endurance running, OR if you're more type I (slow twitch) muscle fibers, as those muscles are fueled by glucose. Type II muscle fibers, or fast twitch, are fueled by creatine, which normally comes from meats. Fast twitch is like, weightlifting, plyometric jumps, etc.

I've kinda researched this today, I pretty much had no carbs today aside from whatever's in cabbage/veggies, and I did sweet in my lifts. Why? Because meat contains creatine, which fuels the fast twitch muscles, and I'm probably a good deal of fast twitch muscle. One way you can know if you're fast twitch or slow twitch is calf muscles. If you got huge calves without working them out, then you're naturally more fast twitch, as the calf muscles are worked out walking. In the 1700s in fact, calf muscles used to be like biceps basically are today, girls would look at guy's calf muscles, and guys would put pads in their socks to make it look like they had huge calf muscles. It was a correlation of "this guy has huge calf muscles, he'll be awesome working in the field." Muscle makeup is basically genetic, though, and sorta hard to change through exercise (if it can be at all is debatable) so most people just naturally gravitate toward sports that prefer their muscle types.

So, the answer is...depends. I'd say don't eat white pasta, it's garbage, though.

Potatoes are better because they aren't processed. If you have a choice between eating something that's processed and something that isn't, you are better off going with the thing that isn't.

Stay away from pastas made with processed wheat or white rice flours. Pastas made with whole grain flours, including whole wheat and brown rice flours are okay. So is pasta made from whole grain, multi grain flour, or made from quinoa flour. Potatoes in the skin are good, too. Just scrub the traces of dirt off before cooking them, and then you can eat the skins, too. They have more nutrients in their skin.

It spikes your blood sugar more than sugar itself and contains chemicals which bind to minerals (iron, for example) and prevent your body from absorbing them. No, the fiber in the whole grains does not slow down the absorption enough to make it better than sugar.
On top of all that many people also have a sensitivity to gluten and other similar compounds. Go with potatoes instead.