Healthy Ways to Eat Pasta
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Pair your pasta with veggies and lean protein for a healthier meal
There's no reason to swear off pasta. Carbs are back in style, but only when consumed in a healthy way
A few years ago, admitting to eating pasta was almost like confessing to a crime. Happily, the low-carbohydrate craze has finally passed and delicious, nutritious, family-friendly pasta is back on the menu.
As with many foods that are high in carbohydrates, too much pasta can contribute to weight gain, especially if served in an unbalanced way – without vegetables and lean protein.
To have your pasta and eat it too, consider these healthy approaches:
- Make vegetables the star of the meal. Try a tasty tomato sauce with sautéed vegetables and lean meat added, served on a bed of pasta. Ensure the vegetable portion is larger than the pasta portion.
- Make a lighter version of your favourite cream sauce by using chicken stock and evaporated milk. Drizzle it over pasta tossed with grilled salmon and at least three vegetables.
- Go easy on the extras, like grated cheddar, parmesan or rich cream sauces.
- Try using whole grain pasta for added fibre.
- Add pasta shapes (like mini shells or bowties) to vegetable-based salads.
Originally published in Wellness Matters, Canada Wide Media’s quarterly newsletter on health and wellness.
I must admit to a continuing and ever increasing annoyance with the mix-up between "lower fat" and "healthy", as if they were synonymous. They are not. Fully educated folk like dietitians and nutritions, upon whom many rely, quote such misnomers verbatim, suspending their critical faculties.
Carbs are about glucose and insulin control, and not about whether more or less fat is consumed with them (except of course in that usually added fats will actually *lower* the glycemic response to carbs, but hey, let's not let metabolic facts get in the way of a fast article).
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