Difference Between Whole Grain Pasta and Regular?

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auteurfille22
auteurfille22 Posts: 251 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I've long been told that eating whole grain pasta is better for you than eating the regular. I've always basically taken it as true word, but it occurred to me today to check the actual boxes and compare side by side. I don't know if it's just the brands I have, but it seems like the difference isn't that great. There are 210 calories in one serving of the regular, and 200 in one serving of the whole grain (serving size is the same). There's 42 grams of carbs in the regular and 40 in the whole grain. There's a little more dietary fiber in the whole grain but also more sodium. So am I just missing something very obvious that makes the whole grain pasta better? Something I didn't think to compare? I'm sorry, I'm not very knowledgeable in nutrition and the like yet, and I'm hoping someone can tell me why whole grain really is better for you than the regular pasta (since I'm someone who greatly prefers the taste of regular and my hungry inner self is trying to justify eating it!).

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  • hmahjoub96
    hmahjoub96 Posts: 14
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    i've found from many sources that whole grains work to decrease your chances of heart disease and cancer
  • mjrkearney
    mjrkearney Posts: 408 Member
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    There are a lot more nutrients in whole grains that get processed or bleached out of, well, non-whole grains. That's the main difference I see between "good carbs" and "bad carbs"- what else you're getting out of it.
  • CynthiasChoice
    CynthiasChoice Posts: 1,047 Member
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    I'm curious too.I just compared the grams of sugar and protein and found that the white pasta has one gram less sugar and one gram more protein than the whole wheat. Go figure.

    The only benefit I see is one gram more fiber in the whole wheat. I think that pasta, whether it's whole grain or white, is a processed food that should be on the "treats" list, not on the healthy food list.

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