Pasta cravings

2

Replies

  • neanderthin
    neanderthin Posts: 10,210 Member
    edited September 2022
    s calor
    kshama2001 wrote: »
    Thanks everyone! definately some things to think about.

    That being said, does anyone know of any types of pasta with less calories, that still tastes like pasta?

    60g pasta have less calories than the 100g pasta and taste just the same, cheers. j/k

    While you might be kidding, reducing portion sizes of proper wheat pasta is actually what I do.

    I'm a chef by profession and at my restaurant I use either 55 or 75g's for serving sizes. Portion size is a funny thing depending on who's cooking but pasta is way over portioned from my observations as well as whatever is in the pasta. It should be about the pasta because each shape has a distinctive taste and mouth feel and that aspect of pasta seems to have been abandoned and generally all I taste is what isn't the pasta, as well as the quality of the pasta, it's getting better but a decade ago it was difficult to find a decent pasta, too bad really. I'm low carb but I will always make and eat pasta occasionally.
  • snowflake954
    snowflake954 Posts: 8,399 Member
    s calor
    kshama2001 wrote: »
    Thanks everyone! definately some things to think about.

    That being said, does anyone know of any types of pasta with less calories, that still tastes like pasta?

    60g pasta have less calories than the 100g pasta and taste just the same, cheers. j/k

    While you might be kidding, reducing portion sizes of proper wheat pasta is actually what I do.

    I'm a chef by profession and at my restaurant I use either 55 or 75g's for serving sizes. Portion size is a funny thing depending on who's cooking but pasta is way over portioned from my observations as well as whatever is in the pasta. It should be about the pasta because each shape has a distinctive taste and mouth feel and that aspect of pasta seems to have been abandoned, as well as the quality of the pasta, it's getting better but a decade ago it was difficult to find a decent pasta, too bad really. I'm low carb but I will always make and eat pasta occasionally.

    I agree with you. When I returned to the US 35 yrs ago for vacations, good pasta was not available (EVOO same thing--small towns in Minnesota just didn't have that stuff). I had to bring my own because I brought my Italian husband and little kids and they were used to quality. Then things started to change and I even found American brands of hard durum grain pasta.
    There still aren't the choices we have in Italy. I buy a high medium quality pasta here. The difference is discernible. I love Rummo, especially their big tubular pasta. I also love a quality whole wheat pasta (a low quality breaks up in boiling water).

    Yes, portions in the US are too large. Here, 100g is considered normal, but I prefer 50g for myself. Sauces here are also lighter, generally.
  • nsk1951
    nsk1951 Posts: 1,304 Member
    It takes time and effort, I know from personal experience. For example, at one time .. when I was eating as much of anything I wanted when I wanted it without heading the overfull pains from my mid-section ... I once went to a restaurant that was having a food challenge ... Eat the entire plate of spaghetti and they would give you another plate, free! ... And I hadn't eaten all that day because of being to busy at work to stop for lunch, so I thought, "Hey, I love spaghetti with red sauce, why not go for it" .. and I ordered that challenge meal. Out came a very full plate of spaghetti piled high and I dug in. Eventually I ate all of it and out came a second plate ... and also all the cooks and chef to see who ate that original pound of pasta serving. ... I was sooo embarrassed. They wanted to take a picture of me because no one had been able to complete the full plate before. Ugh!

    Now a days, I still love my pasta, but eat it in 2-3 ounce servings (1 to 1.5 portions per the box label) instead of a quarter or half a box at a time. I do it by only cooking as much as I am going to serve myself for my meal. And I eat pasta 2-3 times a month.

    Of course, if you are cooking for a family that makes it hard to cook just one serving. But if you eat alone, like I do, then it's an easy transition if you just cook up what you intend to eat at that meal.
  • neanderthin
    neanderthin Posts: 10,210 Member
    edited September 2022
    s calor
    kshama2001 wrote: »
    Thanks everyone! definately some things to think about.

    That being said, does anyone know of any types of pasta with less calories, that still tastes like pasta?

    60g pasta have less calories than the 100g pasta and taste just the same, cheers. j/k

    While you might be kidding, reducing portion sizes of proper wheat pasta is actually what I do.

    I'm a chef by profession and at my restaurant I use either 55 or 75g's for serving sizes. Portion size is a funny thing depending on who's cooking but pasta is way over portioned from my observations as well as whatever is in the pasta. It should be about the pasta because each shape has a distinctive taste and mouth feel and that aspect of pasta seems to have been abandoned, as well as the quality of the pasta, it's getting better but a decade ago it was difficult to find a decent pasta, too bad really. I'm low carb but I will always make and eat pasta occasionally.

    I agree with you. When I returned to the US 35 yrs ago for vacations, good pasta was not available (EVOO same thing--small towns in Minnesota just didn't have that stuff). I had to bring my own because I brought my Italian husband and little kids and they were used to quality. Then things started to change and I even found American brands of hard durum grain pasta.
    There still aren't the choices we have in Italy. I buy a high medium quality pasta here. The difference is discernible. I love Rummo, especially their big tubular pasta. I also love a quality whole wheat pasta (a low quality breaks up in boiling water).

    Yes, portions in the US are too large. Here, 100g is considered normal, but I prefer 50g for myself. Sauces here are also lighter, generally.

    Cheers. I use Rummo for a 55g portioned capellini in a tomato sauce with micro planed parmigiana, and agree with you, a good mid quality and the cost works for me for that dish without compromising taste. For other dishes I may use different brands. For example when using orecchiette I find DeCecco to have the best and for say a carbonara I'll use a bucatini or spaghettoni from la Molisana, using brass extrusion. I know in Italy orecchiette is generally purchased fresh, but here in Canada it's just not available in bulk for restaurants . And of course if I make my own pasta I use a 00 and only yolks and water. Oh, and I have tried to make orecchiette by hand, but not very successful and certainly not up to the level of nonna, lol.
  • Hiawassee88
    Hiawassee88 Posts: 35,754 Member
    @snowflake954 Did your mother ever fix a can of stewed tomatoes with pasta, in a pinch. We used to have that. No zoodles for me, Maw. You can call them a healthy canvas for sauce, but it's an impasta.
  • glassyo
    glassyo Posts: 7,739 Member
    @snowflake954 Did your mother ever fix a can of stewed tomatoes with pasta, in a pinch. We used to have that. No zoodles for me, Maw. You can call them a healthy canvas for sauce, but it's an impasta.

    Cute :) And I'm sitting here thinking I'm even happy with spaghettios.

    When I first started watching my calories, pasta had to go. One of the very few things I "cooked" was some kind of noodles with butter and parmesean cheese but, once I started counting points/calories it had to go. I know myself too well :) And, when I get some sort of pasta in front of me now, that pre-diet girl comes back in full force.

  • snowflake954
    snowflake954 Posts: 8,399 Member
    @snowflake954 Did your mother ever fix a can of stewed tomatoes with pasta, in a pinch. We used to have that. No zoodles for me, Maw. You can call them a healthy canvas for sauce, but it's an impasta.

    My Mom was not a great cook--she says so herself. I was the oldest with 5 brothers after me. I started to learn to cook at an early age. I took after my grandmother. Mom's mom was a great cook and did it for a living plus she had 10 kids. My mom canned tomatoes and made sauces with that.

    Funny. I use canned tomatoes all the time, or puree'd tomatoes in glass jars. Everyone in Italy does. Fresh tomatoes have a fantastic sun ripened flavor in the summer. Winter tomatoes are grown in greenhouses and are not the same. Peeled, canned marziano tomatoes are the best.

    Pour a little EVOO in a pan and heat it up. Throw in a peeled garlic clove or 2 and lightly brown it. When golden--toss out and add tomatoes. Add a little salt and pepper. Simmer about 15 or 20 min on low heat. When your pasta is al dente, strain in a colander and then put it back in the deep pan you boiled it in. Quickly pour on the tomato sauce and mix gently. Add fresh torn basil leaves and mix again. Serve and add grated Parmigiano Reggiano on top.

    That's my basic recipe and then I change it up as needed when I'm using tomatoes.
  • Hiawassee88
    Hiawassee88 Posts: 35,754 Member
    edited September 2022
    @snowflake954 That's a beautiful recipe. Maw just threw the canned tomatoes in with the pasta. No EVOO or tiddlywinks, used as a side dish.
  • snowflake954
    snowflake954 Posts: 8,399 Member
    That recipe is my Italian MIL's. fex6apbzes7g.jpg
  • nooshi713
    nooshi713 Posts: 4,877 Member
    edited September 2022
    I love reading about all of your suggestions for pasta recipes.

    Mmm pasta.

    I don’t feel pasta is that bad. In Greece and Italy they eat pasta and are some of the healthiest people……

    I agree that portion sizes are probably the main problem here. Also, the added cream and too much cheese.

    Our favorite pasta is with red sauce. My usual portion is 2oz/56g dry. Occasionally I will have 3oz. My red sauce has a ton of veggies like portobello mushrooms, bell pepper and onion.

    Sometimes for a quick fix, it is just olive oil, tomatoes, garlic, basil, and alway red pepper for kick. I do grow it all myself in the garden except the mushrooms. Usually I add a touch of Parmesan or pecorino Romano which don’t have many calories. It is very healthy and tasty, imo.
  • Jthanmyfitnesspal
    Jthanmyfitnesspal Posts: 3,522 Member
    That being said, does anyone know of any types of pasta with less calories, that still tastes like pasta?

    I don't think it's the "taste" of pasta that we like, it's the "feel" of pasta. It is high in complex carbohydrate: "starch," a chain polymer of glucose. Once eaten, it is broken back down into glucose and readily metabolized. For that reason, it's a great source of energy. If it's not used, your body stores that energy very efficiently in our miraculous fat cells for later use.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,183 Member
    That being said, does anyone know of any types of pasta with less calories, that still tastes like pasta?

    I don't think it's the "taste" of pasta that we like, it's the "feel" of pasta. It is high in complex carbohydrate: "starch," a chain polymer of glucose. Once eaten, it is broken back down into glucose and readily metabolized. For that reason, it's a great source of energy. If it's not used, your body stores that energy very efficiently in our miraculous fat cells for later use.

    The fat from the Parmigiano Reggiano sprinkled on top - or from the EVOO or meatballs involved - will be stored as fat in preference to the carbs, though. 😉
  • acpgee
    acpgee Posts: 7,952 Member
    In our household a serving of pasta is 50g to 75g dry weight. We do the small serving when we are having a second protein+veg course which is our normal menu style. We only do 75g when pasta is a one course meal with something like Marcella Hazan's Bolognese sauce. When we have pasta followed by a secondo it is usually one of the easy sauces that can be made in the 10 minutes it takes for pasta to boil. These are typicallt cacio e pepe, aglio e olio, amatriciana, carbonara, American vodka sauce, Nerano, Norma, arrabiata, puttanesca.
  • Hiawassee88
    Hiawassee88 Posts: 35,754 Member
    edited September 2022
    https://www.tastingtable.com/764058/types-of-pasta-and-when-you-should-be-using-them/
    We didn't have any pasta growing up, it was just spaghetti then. It always hits the spot and rates high on the list of uncomplicated, comfort food.
    b8pdjlrowfnd.png
    Isabella Rossellini
  • LenGray
    LenGray Posts: 857 Member
    FWIW, I made lasagna for this week and was surprised at how few noodles I used. I was halving it between my dad and I (my half was vegan, his wasn't) and I miscalculated how many noodles I'd need and added about half of the amount I was supposed to, so about 6 lasagna sheets.

    I'm sure that it helped that I had tons of tofu ricotta, spinach, mushrooms, and sauce to fill it out, but the lasagna still felt satisfyingly noodle-y, even with only half the noodles. Maybe cut down a bit on the noodles, up the veggies, and see if that fits your calories a bit better?
  • springlering62
    springlering62 Posts: 8,415 Member
    edited September 2022
    LenGray wrote: »
    FWIW, I made lasagna for this week and was surprised at how few noodles I used. I was halving it between my dad and I (my half was vegan, his wasn't) and I miscalculated how many noodles I'd need and added about half of the amount I was supposed to, so about 6 lasagna sheets.

    I'm sure that it helped that I had tons of tofu ricotta, spinach, mushrooms, and sauce to fill it out, but the lasagna still felt satisfyingly noodle-y, even with only half the noodles. Maybe cut down a bit on the noodles, up the veggies, and see if that fits your calories a bit better?


    Funny you posted this. I made the exact same mistake earlier this summer, and it was so good, I intentionally did it on the next batch. Don’t even miss the missing pasta.

    I only use the “uncut” Mozzarella balls now, too. They are about 20 calories less per serving than part skim shredded and taste waaaaay better. It’s a PITA to shred but by cutting half the lasagna noodles and changing cheese, that’s a pretty considerable savings there.

    @Jthanmyfitnesspal i bet you’re a fun guy at parties. Or pasta dinners. Come on over!
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,937 Member
    acpgee wrote: »
    In our household a serving of pasta is 50g to 75g dry weight. We do the small serving when we are having a second protein+veg course which is our normal menu style. We only do 75g when pasta is a one course meal with something like Marcella Hazan's Bolognese sauce. When we have pasta followed by a secondo it is usually one of the easy sauces that can be made in the 10 minutes it takes for pasta to boil. These are typicallt cacio e pepe, aglio e olio, amatriciana, carbonara, American vodka sauce, Nerano, Norma, arrabiata, puttanesca.

    I do this as well, even with similar weights per portion. And I love pasta and find it very filling. A good parmigiano on top and I'm in heaven. Plus it totally fits my idea of quick and easy dishes. Cooking doesn't need to take a long time. Hmm.. if I'd not cooked a Slovenian bean soup I'd make pasta now!

    (btw, 'red sauce' sounds kind of offensive used in the same sentence as pasta. I dunno... )
  • sugarfreesquirrel
    sugarfreesquirrel Posts: 268 Member
    It looks like I've been eating too much pasta, I'll try and cut back to 50-75g
  • Jthanmyfitnesspal
    Jthanmyfitnesspal Posts: 3,522 Member
    It looks like I've been eating too much pasta, I'll try and cut back to 50-75g

    In general, me too! I'm 10-15 lbs above my preferred weight. A bit too much good food and drink over the last year! 🤤

    @AnnPT77 : I think it's a really complicated question about whether fats or carbs are more likely to be stored as fat. Your body breaks both down in the digestive tract and absorbs them. Fats break down more slowly than most carbs (particularly when they're refined). My feeble understanding is that any extra nutrients will be converted to body fat. It's really a philological miracle that we can do that, but many of us have found the limits to its benefits!
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,183 Member
    It looks like I've been eating too much pasta, I'll try and cut back to 50-75g

    In general, me too! I'm 10-15 lbs above my preferred weight. A bit too much good food and drink over the last year! 🤤

    @AnnPT77 : I think it's a really complicated question about whether fats or carbs are more likely to be stored as fat. Your body breaks both down in the digestive tract and absorbs them. Fats break down more slowly than most carbs (particularly when they're refined). My feeble understanding is that any extra nutrients will be converted to body fat. It's really a philological miracle that we can do that, but many of us have found the limits to its benefits!

    Sure, in the abstract, any/all nutrients can be broken down and stored as fat, in a calorie surplus. The point is that fat is generally the preferred macronutrient to be stored as fat, in the human body.

    Think about it: Natural selection favors things that are efficient routes to survival. It has a higher energetic cost to convert carbs or protein into fat in order to store those calories as fat. Fat intake requires minimal conversion, so it's efficient to store it preferentially when a mix of macronutrients is available.

    Putting it another way, de novo lipogenesis (making fat from carbs in the body) is less common. While there are complexities (aren't there always?), this is taken as a given in most nutritional research, when it comes to typical reasonably-healthy humans. A couple of completely random examples referring to it almost as an aside:

    From https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/74/6/707/4737384, noting that oxidation means burning for short-term energetic use:
    In the hierarchy of fuels, dietary carbohydrate appears to have a higher priority for oxidation than does dietary fat; when both are present, carbohydrate is chosen.

    From https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10365981/, noting that DNL = de novo lipogenesis, CHO = dietary carbohydrates:
    Eucaloric replacement of dietary fat by CHO does not induce hepatic DNL to any substantial degree. Similarly, addition of CHO to a mixed diet does not increase hepatic DNL to quantitatively important levels, as long as CHO energy intake remains less than total energy expenditure (TEE). Instead, dietary CHO replaces fat in the whole-body fuel mixture, even in the post-absorptive state.
    . . .
    It is concluded that DNL is not the pathway of first resort for added dietary CHO, in humans.

    It's motherhood and apple pie info, basic.

    I injected here (in my PP) mostly as a mild joke, TBH - assumed most people knew this.
  • neanderthin
    neanderthin Posts: 10,210 Member
    edited September 2022
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    It looks like I've been eating too much pasta, I'll try and cut back to 50-75g

    In general, me too! I'm 10-15 lbs above my preferred weight. A bit too much good food and drink over the last year! 🤤

    @AnnPT77 : I think it's a really complicated question about whether fats or carbs are more likely to be stored as fat. Your body breaks both down in the digestive tract and absorbs them. Fats break down more slowly than most carbs (particularly when they're refined). My feeble understanding is that any extra nutrients will be converted to body fat. It's really a philological miracle that we can do that, but many of us have found the limits to its benefits!

    Sure, in the abstract, any/all nutrients can be broken down and stored as fat, in a calorie surplus. The point is that fat is generally the preferred macronutrient to be stored as fat, in the human body.

    Think about it: Natural selection favors things that are efficient routes to survival. It has a higher energetic cost to convert carbs or protein into fat in order to store those calories as fat. Fat intake requires minimal conversion, so it's efficient to store it preferentially when a mix of macronutrients is available.

    Putting it another way, de novo lipogenesis (making fat from carbs in the body) is less common. While there are complexities (aren't there always?), this is taken as a given in most nutritional research, when it comes to typical reasonably-healthy humans. A couple of completely random examples referring to it almost as an aside:

    From https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/74/6/707/4737384, noting that oxidation means burning for short-term energetic use:
    In the hierarchy of fuels, dietary carbohydrate appears to have a higher priority for oxidation than does dietary fat; when both are present, carbohydrate is chosen.

    From https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10365981/, noting that DNL = de novo lipogenesis, CHO = dietary carbohydrates:
    Eucaloric replacement of dietary fat by CHO does not induce hepatic DNL to any substantial degree. Similarly, addition of CHO to a mixed diet does not increase hepatic DNL to quantitatively important levels, as long as CHO energy intake remains less than total energy expenditure (TEE). Instead, dietary CHO replaces fat in the whole-body fuel mixture, even in the post-absorptive state.
    . . .
    It is concluded that DNL is not the pathway of first resort for added dietary CHO, in humans.

    It's motherhood and apple pie info, basic.

    I injected here (in my PP) mostly as a mild joke, TBH - assumed most people knew this.

    Dietary fat has no option, its normal metabolic pathway is storage into adipose tissue. It's excess energy from carboydrates that increase DNL, therefore eucaloric replacements of dietary fat with carbohydrates will not increase DNL very much and adding charboydrates to our diet doesn't increase DNL as long as energy balance is in the deficit territory and one of the reasons sugar (charboydrates) are the primary fuel from stored glycogen, so of course DNL which is a very expensive metabolic event isn't the first resort for energy (ATP) in humans or adding glucose. I'm having a hard time understanding the point you're trying to make. BTW your first link was a good read, thanks I haven't read that before.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,183 Member
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    It looks like I've been eating too much pasta, I'll try and cut back to 50-75g

    In general, me too! I'm 10-15 lbs above my preferred weight. A bit too much good food and drink over the last year! 🤤

    @AnnPT77 : I think it's a really complicated question about whether fats or carbs are more likely to be stored as fat. Your body breaks both down in the digestive tract and absorbs them. Fats break down more slowly than most carbs (particularly when they're refined). My feeble understanding is that any extra nutrients will be converted to body fat. It's really a philological miracle that we can do that, but many of us have found the limits to its benefits!

    Sure, in the abstract, any/all nutrients can be broken down and stored as fat, in a calorie surplus. The point is that fat is generally the preferred macronutrient to be stored as fat, in the human body.

    Think about it: Natural selection favors things that are efficient routes to survival. It has a higher energetic cost to convert carbs or protein into fat in order to store those calories as fat. Fat intake requires minimal conversion, so it's efficient to store it preferentially when a mix of macronutrients is available.

    Putting it another way, de novo lipogenesis (making fat from carbs in the body) is less common. While there are complexities (aren't there always?), this is taken as a given in most nutritional research, when it comes to typical reasonably-healthy humans. A couple of completely random examples referring to it almost as an aside:

    From https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/74/6/707/4737384, noting that oxidation means burning for short-term energetic use:
    In the hierarchy of fuels, dietary carbohydrate appears to have a higher priority for oxidation than does dietary fat; when both are present, carbohydrate is chosen.

    From https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10365981/, noting that DNL = de novo lipogenesis, CHO = dietary carbohydrates:
    Eucaloric replacement of dietary fat by CHO does not induce hepatic DNL to any substantial degree. Similarly, addition of CHO to a mixed diet does not increase hepatic DNL to quantitatively important levels, as long as CHO energy intake remains less than total energy expenditure (TEE). Instead, dietary CHO replaces fat in the whole-body fuel mixture, even in the post-absorptive state.
    . . .
    It is concluded that DNL is not the pathway of first resort for added dietary CHO, in humans.

    It's motherhood and apple pie info, basic.

    I injected here (in my PP) mostly as a mild joke, TBH - assumed most people knew this.

    Dietary fat has no option, its normal metabolic pathway is storage into adipose tissue. It's excess energy from carboydrates that increase DNL, therefore eucaloric replacements of dietary fat with carbohydrates will not increase DNL very much and adding charboydrates to our diet doesn't increase DNL as long as energy balance is in the deficit territory and one of the reasons sugar (charboydrates) are the primary fuel from stored glycogen, so of course DNL which is a very expensive metabolic event isn't the first resort for energy (ATP) in humans or adding glucose. I'm having a hard time understanding the point you're trying to make. BTW your first link was a good read, thanks I haven't read that before.

    I made what I meant as a mild joke after people on the thread were talking about pasta with parmesan, etc., with asides about fat gain from eating the pasta - that the parmesan's fat was more likely to end up stored as fat than the pasta itself. Thought everyone knew that, took it for granted. That drew a "it's really complicated, nutrients get broken down and absorbed", who-knows kind of reply, so pulled a couple of random links to illustrate how known/assumed that is. That's all. No point beyond that.

    Obviously - simplistically - no calorie surplus, no net storage of any of the nutrients into adipose tissue.
  • neanderthin
    neanderthin Posts: 10,210 Member
    Gotcha lol. Went right over my head until I reread. Cheers.
  • acpgee
    acpgee Posts: 7,952 Member
    It has been a long time since I was last in Italy but I remember Primo portions of pasta served to be rather modest. We are going to Bologna on Monday and will try to remember to photograph my restaurant pasta portions while I am there.

    This is how we typically eat pasta in my household. The brown butter and sage saucing the potato gnocchi is not low calorie, I'm afraid, but very quick and easy. Gnocchi was made with two medium potatoes cooked in the microwave, half a beaten egg and two tablespoons of flour and took 10 minutes to hand knead and roll. It was a little bigger than our normal portion of dry pasta, as quantity was dictated by the size of the potatoes. I might try kneading in the food processor next time to speed things up, which risks creating rubbery rather than pillowy gnocchi. A small secondo of some air fried drumsticks and asparagus followed.

    8gjj976z10w2.jpeg
    xfm5h3o2fntb.jpeg


  • ehju0901
    ehju0901 Posts: 394 Member
    It looks like I've been eating too much pasta, I'll try and cut back to 50-75g

    I regularly eat too much pasta. It tastes so good! It's a hard habit to break, but I've been trying to start with a generous salad like 30 min-1 hour before the pasta. Give your body time to digest the salad, and then you will feel fuller when you start eating the main course.

    Is it realistic to do this for every meal? Probably not, but I think it's a good idea to try.
  • acpgee
    acpgee Posts: 7,952 Member
    Day 1 of vacation in Bologna, and our first serving of pasta is bigger than I remember from other cities. This was tortelli with ragu eaten as a single couirse meal at lunchtime. I was a little disappointed, as i prefer my pasta very hard, Naples style. So fresh pasta as opposed to dried is always a little soft for my taste.
    5rswuqc8o1kz.jpeg
  • perryc05
    perryc05 Posts: 226 Member
    I agree with many here -- it's all about portion size and what you have it with. I limit myself to 90g-125g per serve and try to incorporate a good amount of vegetable content into the sauce.
  • kcole2467web
    kcole2467web Posts: 2 Member
    I'm not sure if someone said this but Banza pasta is made with chickpeas and to me, it tastes exactly like normal pasta. It is also high in protein if you're trying to get protein up and it is more filling to me than pasta made with flour. I can have 4oz of it with some sauce and an additional protein and be full. (28g protein in 4oz topped with 4oz chicken breast - 31g protein - and Rao's marinara sauce is my favorite way to eat it. That's a total of about 60g of protein not too high in calories). Try it out!
  • acpgee
    acpgee Posts: 7,952 Member
    @neanderthin
    That carbonara looks great and a reasonably sized portion too.

    Day 2 of vacation in Bologna and my one course pasta lunch was tortollini in brodo with a side of grilled veg. Double the portion from what I remember from the last couple pre-pandenmic trips to Lombardy and Sicily.
    augl93ts6mxb.jpeg