Here’s another food  you probably thought you could never see again on a healthy eating plan — pasta.  Most pasta, when cooked al dente, is low to low/moderate on the glycemic index.  That doesn’t mean that your whole diet can consist of pasta, but it does mean that pasta can be a good switch for a higher glycemic side like rice or potatoes.  It also means that you can use favorite recipes with pasta and low glycemic sauce ingredients.

Spaghetti, for example has a low GI number of 23, which puts it on the green list.  It has  220 calories for a one-cup serving, though, so it is not a low calorie food.

Things to avoid:

• Pasta cooked to mush.  It becomes high glycemic when it is overcooked.
• Processed pasta dishes, like boxed macaroni and cheese.  The sauce and additives make it high calorie and sometimes high glycemic.
• Lots of pasta.  Too much can move it to the high glycemic category.  Stick with a single serving.
• High glycemic sauces.  Check out the ingredients in the sauce. If they are high glycemic and/or very high calorie, you certainly aren’t going to lose weight with them!

Pasta won’t help you lose weight quickly.  You can do that by a stricter plan of lean meat and veggies.  We are talking life-long healthy eating, though.  You won’t eat a restrictive diet all your life.  Pasta in moderation can be a part of that plan.

Eating to live and living for Christ,
Susan Jordan Brown