I am so confused about pasta

sleepytexan

2 oz. dry pasta = about 200 calories. You must weigh it dry; cooked weight varies depending on how long you cook it.

Vailara

Just put it in a bigger bowl if it doesn't look right. 2 oz dry pasta isn't really a huge amount for a main meal, to have with a little bit of sauce. It might be a lot if you are having it as a course in a meal, rather than the meal itself. I try to have a portion of around 50g, which is just under 2 oz. I like to eat my pasta in a big bowl, rather than a small bowl. I'm not sure why!

psychic_atrophy

very enlightening

mmapags

A portion is 3 to 4 ounces per person for adults. 300 to 400 calories per serving. Pasta is 100 calories per ounce. You measure dry. The cooking adds no calories. You add calories for any sauce based on what that sauce is. I am a professional chef.

THIS is why servings sizes have gotten so weird. The box will say 2 oz dry is a serving, which comes out to about 1 cup cooked depending on how you like it. But here's a chef saying that 3-4 oz dry is an adult serving in a restaurant.

Pasta is not all that bad for you (eaten in moderation of course) but here in America we've made it into a main dish, when most other countries use it as a side dish.

There is a difference between serving size on a package and functional serving size. Any main course, whether it's Pasta, rice, meat, veggies is portioned at 3 to 4 oz. per person. Half that as a side. That is not the huge servings you see in some restaurant chains today. They are putting out 6 to 8 oz. when they serve pasta. Why, I have no idea! It affects their cost and increases thier wasted. Food manufaturers play all kinds of games with portion size ad nutritionals listed on packaging for either regulatory compliance or, more likely, marketing reasons. What they list as a portion is not usually accurate. Something to be aware of when counting calories.

morgaine108

Having a family and being very much on the go, I gotta have my pasta days cause it is so easy and fast. Plus, we had a camp out for our Cub Scout pack last month and they gave me the remainder of the giant bottle of sauce purchased from Costco....so....yeah, I got alot of pasta sauce to use up. I know, weird to have pasta on a campout....but not my choice. I think it is mostly done because of cost.

maricash

A portion is 3 to 4 ounces per person for adults. 300 to 400 calories per serving. Pasta is 100 calories per ounce. You measure dry. The cooking adds no calories. You add calories for any sauce based on what that sauce is. I am a professional chef.

THIS is why servings sizes have gotten so weird. The box will say 2 oz dry is a serving, which comes out to about 1 cup cooked depending on how you like it. But here's a chef saying that 3-4 oz dry is an adult serving in a restaurant.

Pasta is not all that bad for you (eaten in moderation of course) but here in America we've made it into a main dish, when most other countries use it as a side dish.

Yup - and its why so many of us think that a "normal" serving of pasta looks small. We have become so used to seeing the plate piled way too full. It's also possibly why we are all here trying to figure this all out now.

Here is my question though. In my home, there are 3 adults, a teenaged boy and a baby. When we cook spaghetti, we usually prepare 6 servings - one each for my daughter and I, 2 servings for each guy. Baby isn't eating it yet. Ok, so if we weigh it prior to cooking, how on earth do we easily know how much makes up one serving after its cooked? All we have been doing is measuring it out by the cup, one cup being one serving. Are we doing it right or not???

I usually weigh it before I cook it to get the right amount and then weigh it after it's cooked to portion it out. If you make the same type of pasta all the time you could just test it one time and then use volume. That is, cook the amount you normally do. Then weigh the cooked pasta. Then weigh a cup. If, for example, you get 600 grams cooked total and a cup weighs around 100 grams, then a cup would be a serving. But, if you are doing what you do now (1 cup each for two people, 2 cups each for 2 people) and you are using up all the pasta that you made, then you probably are already portioning it out correctly. Also, I chose 100 grams at random -- I don't know if that's what a cup would actually weigh.

OP: I usually make 3 ounces of pasta and find it to be a pretty good amount. I think all the rhetoric about "carbs" has made people assume bread and pasta are just packed with calories, but I have found that I can eat a pretty satisfying portion of either without eating an unusually large number of calories.

75in2013

100g pasta raw/uncooked ~365kcal
100g pasta cooked ~150kcal

I prefer to measure pasta uncooked. It's easier.

I use 100g-125g per person as a side dish.

msbunnie68

100g pasta raw/uncooked ~365kcal
100g pasta cooked ~150kcal

I prefer to measure pasta uncooked. It's easier.

I use 100g-125g per person as a side dish.

100g uncooked is a serving size here in Australia. A packet of pasta here is 500g so it recommends a packet cooked serves 5. I find that in reality, once the sauce etc is added, a packet of pasta serves 6.

Pasta is not the devil incarnate. It has been given a bad image by the pro- low carbers. What you need to watch is what is going ON your pasta.

IronSmasher

These kind of threads always make me fear humans.