KTK-Nutrition

How healthy is the pasta in your spaghetti, macaroni and cheese, rigatoni, and other pasta dishes?   So many people have been avoiding pasta as it is a “carb” and they think carbs are unhealthy.   Americans still enjoy their pasta as we eat about 20 pounds of it a year.   How healthy is pasta? Pasta provides a lot of nutrition.   Not just carbs but also protein, about 5-7 grams of protein in a cup of cooked pasta.   The flour used to make pasta is a high protein durum wheat flour which is higher in protein than other types of flour. If you want to add more nutrition to your spaghetti or pasta dish, add some whole wheat pasta.   We usually use about ¾ white pasta and about ¼ whole wheat pasta.   Some people use all whole wheat pasta but it is a taste one needs to get used to.   Most people hardly notice if you add just a little whole wheat pasta.   Even the white pasta provides some fiber.   And pasta is enriched with some B ...

So many people “avoid carbs” and avoid grains.   The latest diet craze is to go low carb.  Is that the healthiest choice for a longer life?  Are some carbs healthy?   Absolutely.    If you are watching carbs, you should watch to see you add whole grain carbs to your diet.   Whole grains aren’t carbs to avoid but to add to your diet.   A recent Harvard study on Whole Grains found that people who ate whole grains lowered their risk of heart disease.   How much whole grains did they eat to lower their risk of heart disease?   The more they ate they lower the risk 5% lower risk of heart disease for those eating 1 ounce a day (1 slice of whole wheat bread) 8% lower risk for those who replaced one serving of refined grains with one serving of whole grains every day   20% lower if a serving of red meat was replaced by whole grains Whole grains contain all parts of the grain including the bran.   The bran is rich in B vit...