Does spaghetti really have 300 calories/100g?
Replies
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wilson10102018 wrote: »I have seen this argument before. Everyone thinks they need to plate a huge amount of pasta because when they go out to eat, since the pasta is the cheapest ingredient on the menu, they get a ton of it.
Just weigh out 3 oz and cook it up al dente and plate it with an appropriate amount of tomato sauce and see for yourself.
I’m not in the US and I eat out maybe twice a year, and then never pasta (not because of the calories but because I’ve not met a restaurant yet that can get a plate of pasta out of the kitchen anything more than lukewarm!😂.) so I kind of resent your implication here!
Your 3oz (which is 1.5x the recommended serving) is still too big a chunk of my 800cals/day when it’s nutritional contribution is taken into account, except very occasionally.I got a bit inspired. While wheat pasta with a cna of tuna, some ligtt mayonnaise, and a touch of hot sauce. May not be fancy but it's tasty and filling. It clocked in at around 500-550 calories, which is a below average dinner for me, and could even be worked into a 1200 calorie diet pretty easily.
Exactly! For you! Again, this is not solely directed at you but at the slightly preachy overtones of quite a few people who fail to recognise that one size does not fit all! 500-550 calories is an unthinkable amount for a meal for me and leaves precisely 250 cals for the rest of the day. Not enough to get the rest of my nutritional requirements for sure!
There is also a lot more than 56g (2oz) in that bowl 😂. One single piece of penne weighs 1g.18 -
Yes and wouldn't there be about 56 penne in that dish?
Therefore 56g if they are a gram each? How is it a lot more?
Also if the total meal is 500 - 550 calories, how can that only leave you 250 calories for rest of the day? That would be a daily total of 750 - 800 calories?
#confused5 -
paperpudding wrote: »Yes and wouldn't there be about 56 penne in that dish?
Therefore 56g if they are a gram each? How is it a lot more?
Also if the total meal is 500 - 550 calories, how can that only leave you 250 calories for rest of the day? That would be a daily total of 750 - 800 calories?
#confused
I can count at least 73 visible pieces of penne, and it’s clearly not arranged in a single layer because (who does that - on the other hand, who counts pieces of penne in a photo!) 😳there are visible ‘points’ below the surface!
If you’d read further up the thread and, indeed, further up the post you replied to you’d have seen me clearly state that my calorie limit is 800 if I want to lose even a half pound per week. As a very short woman in my late 50s I maintain on 1134 cals.
[\confusion?]10 -
One serving of pasta is pitifully small. I plan my day around eating two servings when I’m making a meal, so at least my plate is *almost* full.
Question: I’ve been measuring the cooked weight. Am I supposed to measure out the uncooked weight, and boil it separately from what I’m serving my family? I hope not. What a pain if that’s true.1 -
Doesn’t matter in which state you weigh it, as long as you’re using the appropriate entry to log it.
On the occasions I eat pasta I generally weigh it dry only because I’m often cooking for myself separately from the rest of the family anyway because I’m vegetarian and they are not, and I like my food HOT when it reaches the table and weighing it cooked takes a few seconds and a few degrees 😂
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BarbaraHelen2013 wrote: »wilson10102018 wrote: »I have seen this argument before. Everyone thinks they need to plate a huge amount of pasta because when they go out to eat, since the pasta is the cheapest ingredient on the menu, they get a ton of it.
Just weigh out 3 oz and cook it up al dente and plate it with an appropriate amount of tomato sauce and see for yourself.
I’m not in the US and I eat out maybe twice a year, and then never pasta (not because of the calories but because I’ve not met a restaurant yet that can get a plate of pasta out of the kitchen anything more than lukewarm!😂.) so I kind of resent your implication here!
Your 3oz (which is 1.5x the recommended serving) is still too big a chunk of my 800cals/day when it’s nutritional contribution is taken into account, except very occasionally.I got a bit inspired. While wheat pasta with a cna of tuna, some ligtt mayonnaise, and a touch of hot sauce. May not be fancy but it's tasty and filling. It clocked in at around 500-550 calories, which is a below average dinner for me, and could even be worked into a 1200 calorie diet pretty easily.
Exactly! For you! Again, this is not solely directed at you but at the slightly preachy overtones of quite a few people who fail to recognise that one size does not fit all! 500-550 calories is an unthinkable amount for a meal for me and leaves precisely 250 cals for the rest of the day. Not enough to get the rest of my nutritional requirements for sure!
There is also a lot more than 56g (2oz) in that bowl 😂. One single piece of penne weighs 1g.
You are eating a very low calorie diet which is not recommended or supported by this site. I stand by my comments about pasta for anyone eating at least the minimum recommended amount of calories from MFP.
For the record, it's about 90g of dried pasta. 320 calories. 100 calories from the tuna. 90 cal from mayo.15 -
Sounds about right for dry weight. Mine has 300 cal for 85g.1
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I find pasta to be a reasonable for the calories kind of food and ate it around once a week when I was losing, but I'm happy with a standard serving of the actual pasta and just bulk it up with a tasty sauce or toppings, which can be made reasonably low cal. The pasta itself is important to me for the overall meal, but I mainly like it as a vehicle for the sauces or other toppings, and so don't mind eating more of those, less of the pasta.
But for OP, as others have said, I'm guessing that you are measuring cooked rather than dry.2 -
BarbaraHelen2013 wrote: »wilson10102018 wrote: »I have seen this argument before. Everyone thinks they need to plate a huge amount of pasta because when they go out to eat, since the pasta is the cheapest ingredient on the menu, they get a ton of it.
Just weigh out 3 oz and cook it up al dente and plate it with an appropriate amount of tomato sauce and see for yourself.
I’m not in the US and I eat out maybe twice a year, and then never pasta (not because of the calories but because I’ve not met a restaurant yet that can get a plate of pasta out of the kitchen anything more than lukewarm!😂.) so I kind of resent your implication here!
Your 3oz (which is 1.5x the recommended serving) is still too big a chunk of my 800cals/day when it’s nutritional contribution is taken into account, except very occasionally.
At 800 cal, it would be hard to fit in a lot of foods, I don't think pasta would be special. My pasta dinners are about the same as any other dinners, calorie-wise (when I was losing, 500 cal, although I could make them lower). I wouldn't want a dinner too much lower in cals.
Of course, if you are so small and super petite that less than 1200 is maintenance (for comparison, I'm late 40s, and only 5'3, which I think of as kind of short, and at 125 my maintenance cals if sedentary would be about 1550, with moderate exercise, more like 2000), your overall understanding of what a normal meal size should be absolutely would be less, and then I'd assume a correct serving for you would be perhaps 1 or 1.5 oz rather than 2 (2 is the standard box serving size, and what I normally eat). 1 oz would have 100 cal, and 1.5 about 150. Servings sizes of course are going to vary based on one's overall calorie needs.
800 seems shockingly low to me, but I am assuming you are just really tiny and really do have a maintenance of under 1200, unusual as that is. But you also should be aware that if so you are an extreme outlier. I could also say that I think it's important to have a serving of nuts a day and that it fits in my cals easily, and you could fairly say that an oz of cashews is 140 cal, so you would never eat that. Same with olives, cheese, whatever else you may find hard to fit in.5 -
One serving of pasta is pitifully small. I plan my day around eating two servings when I’m making a meal, so at least my plate is *almost* full.
Question: I’ve been measuring the cooked weight. Am I supposed to measure out the uncooked weight, and boil it separately from what I’m serving my family? I hope not. What a pain if that’s true.
You measure the dry weight, so a serving is actually quite a bit bigger than you've been thinking. It's good news!
The trick for multiple servings is cook 4 servings (or whatever) and then when finished weigh the whole and take 1/4 of it.
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texasredreb wrote: »It’s a sad reality that pasta is so calorie laden.
It's not really though. There are a lot of foods that are more calorie dense. It can easily be made part of reasonable calorie dinners. You just can't eat giant plates smothered with fatty sauces
I love giant plates smothered with fatty sauces though!3 -
BarbaraHelen2013 wrote: »paperpudding wrote: »Yes and wouldn't there be about 56 penne in that dish?
Therefore 56g if they are a gram each? How is it a lot more?
Also if the total meal is 500 - 550 calories, how can that only leave you 250 calories for rest of the day? That would be a daily total of 750 - 800 calories?
#confused
I can count at least 73 visible pieces of penne, and it’s clearly not arranged in a single layer because (who does that - on the other hand, who counts pieces of penne in a photo!) 😳there are visible ‘points’ below the surface!
If you’d read further up the thread and, indeed, further up the post you replied to you’d have seen me clearly state that my calorie limit is 800 if I want to lose even a half pound per week. As a very short woman in my late 50s I maintain on 1134 cals.
[\confusion?]
Well, poster of the photo has clarified the amount so no need to count 73 pieces of penne
And yes you did state your calorie amount is 800 calories - and that is too low, even for short women in their 50's.
You may be one of the women for whom 1200 is appropriate - but no, not 800.
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Last night for dinner we had about 150 grams split between my wife and I with home made tomato sauce, meatballs and a salad. Lovely dinner. Well balanced macros and the calories fit well within the day and was very satisfying and filling.
I think, as someone mentioned above, that crazy restaurant pasta portions have distorted our perceptions. My italian grandmother would serve what looked like a 2 or 3 ounce portion. What I see in some restaurants is 6 ounce portions or more. No need.
If you are only eating 800 or so calories, guess you are out of luck in more ways that one. Nobody should be eating that little.6 -
One serving of pasta is pitifully small. I plan my day around eating two servings when I’m making a meal, so at least my plate is *almost* full.
Question: I’ve been measuring the cooked weight. Am I supposed to measure out the uncooked weight, and boil it separately from what I’m serving my family? I hope not. What a pain if that’s true.
The nutritional info on the back of the package is for dry weight. So to get the most accurate results, measuring a dry portion is the best option. If doing that is not feasible, you should weigh your cooked pasta and then convert it back into dry. The issue is that cooked weight can vary pretty widely based on cooking time, so there's not one easy way to do it. General recommendations seem to say that cooked pasta weight is about double that of dry, but for some people, it ends up being more. It is probably better to do a few tests of dry weight to cooked weight based on how you cook it, to get an approximate answer to that equation. Then you can just convert back to dry from your cooked weights going forward.0 -
Cahgetsfit wrote: »I eat at 1300 cals and eat pasta frequently. It’s not hard.
For some of us pasta is a trigger food. So it IS hard. I CAN eat a tiny little 100g serving of cooked pasta with heaps of sauce and make it fit. But it's not satisfying for me personally.
I LIKE the 3-people serving sizes in restaurants. That's how much pasta i'd eat normally prior to calorie counting.
So i'd rather eat other stuff that would satisfy me more than a piddly little tiny serving of pasta that will just leave me craving more. I cook a mean pasta. It's hard to eat just 100g of it.
But nobody has mentioned pasta as a trigger food except you. If it’s not a trigger food, eating smaller portions and fitting them into your calories is not hard.
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The biggest issue here (outside of the OP's innocent question) is people assuming satiety is universal. I can cook 56g of pasta with 100+g of vegetables and some marinara sauce, have a small serving of protein on the side, and have what for me is a filling 450 calorie dinner. It wouldn't be filling for someone else. That's real life. 1 serving of pasta isn't worth it for some people, for others it is. And I do think some folks are just conditioned to think they need a giant plate of pasta to feel full, and they would get used to a more reasonable serving with practice. Whether or not it's worth it or not for them to bother trying is up to them, of course.BarbaraHelen2013 wrote: »paperpudding wrote: »Yes and wouldn't there be about 56 penne in that dish?
Therefore 56g if they are a gram each? How is it a lot more?
Also if the total meal is 500 - 550 calories, how can that only leave you 250 calories for rest of the day? That would be a daily total of 750 - 800 calories?
#confused
I can count at least 73 visible pieces of penne, and it’s clearly not arranged in a single layer because (who does that - on the other hand, who counts pieces of penne in a photo!) 😳there are visible ‘points’ below the surface!
If you’d read further up the thread and, indeed, further up the post you replied to you’d have seen me clearly state that my calorie limit is 800 if I want to lose even a half pound per week. As a very short woman in my late 50s I maintain on 1134 cals.
[\confusion?]
It is not typical for short women in their 50's to have to eat a VLCD to lose any weight. Your situation is quite the outlier, so expecting foods to only be labeled satiating if you could eat them on an 800 calorie diet is not really useful to the vast majority of the people here.
*
Anyway, the package weight on every pasta I've seen is the dry weight. 56g dry, when cooked, will fill a typical single-serving bowl on it's own with some sauce, and a full size dinner plate when combined with lots of veggies and protein.13 -
I got a bit inspired. While wheat pasta with a cna of tuna, some ligtt mayonnaise, and a touch of hot sauce. May not be fancy but it's tasty and filling. It clocked in at around 500-550 calories, which is a below average dinner for me, and could even be worked into a 1200 calorie diet pretty easily.
Dang that looks good. Toss in some spinach or greens of choice and a few chunks of tomato. Pretty sure this is going on my menu next week.1 -
I love pasta and eat it 3 or 4 times a week. When I am not eating pasta I am eating rice. I make it fit into whatever calorie allotment that I am eating at.
This is one of my favorite low calorie pasta recipes...
Nutrition...
Serving: 1/4th of recipe,
Calories: 254kcal,
Carbohydrates: 51g,
Protein: 7.5g,
Fat: 5.5g
Recipe found at...
https://www.skinnytaste.com/angel-hair-with-zucchini-and-tomatoes-5/
The only change that I make is to use 4 zucchini instead of 2 and I also add a proteing such as shrimp, chicken or tuna. I sometimes also add spinach. I end up with a huge plate of food for around 400 calories and am able to fit it in even when I am eating at 1200 limit.
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sigh. today is the italian fest right outside of my work. giant garlic bread bowls of pasta.4
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wilson10102018 wrote: »I have seen this argument before. Everyone thinks they need to plate a huge amount of pasta because when they go out to eat, since the pasta is the cheapest ingredient on the menu, they get a ton of it.
Just weigh out 3 oz and cook it up al dente and plate it with an appropriate amount of tomato sauce and see for yourself.Yes this is it. Restaurants give us enough pasta for 3 people at least.
I did a high carb diet preparing for an event a few months ago, and that involved a lot of whole wheat pasta with some chicken and mild seasoning. It was a actually hard for me to get as many calories as I wanted, because the pasta filled me up so much more than my normal diet.
Yes, I add extra veggies to takeout Pad Thai and get three servings out of it.1
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