Pasta and diet compatible?
Last reviewed: 17.10.2021
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The small glycemic index allows sometimes to eat pasta, including those who follow the figure.
For those who are "sitting" on a diet, carbohydrates - this is the main taboo, but not all of them can hurt.
For example, consider all the well-known and popular pasta - pasta, noodles, spaghetti, etc. Products made from wheat, rich in gluten (the so-called solid varieties) have a low glycemic index. This means that after they are consumed, the level of glucose in the blood will increase gradually and will not reach high numbers.
If you make a choice between pastry and pasta, it is better to give preference to the latter: carbohydrates from them are not absorbed immediately, but gradually enter the bloodstream, therefore do not create a load for the pancreas. As a result, the immune system does not strain, the metabolism does not suffer, since there is no need to direct all forces to utilize large amounts of sugar. Many nutritionists consider carbohydrates from pasta made from durum wheat to be relatively safe.
Why did the word “relative” appear? Indeed, noodles and noodles do not pose a danger to metabolic processes occurring inside the body, so they should not provoke the appearance of excess weight. In order to be convinced of this, physicians representing St. Michael's Hospital and the University of Toronto, studied thirty scientific papers on dietary nutrition. In these papers, careful observation of patients who followed a diet using foods with a low glycemic index was described.
The study as a whole covered information on two and a half thousand patients. All of them have made adjustments to their diet, replacing the so-called fast carbohydrates for pasta. The average amount of pasta consumed per week for each person was almost three and a half servings. The average portion was about half a cup with a capacity of 250 ml. What did the researchers find in the end?
According to the results of a cumulative analysis of the work of nutritionists, experts confirmed: pasta and other types of pasta do not lead to weight gain. Even more: patients who had pasta in their diet had dropped at least 500 g within three months. Of course, it is necessary to take into account that people ate not only noodles, but the diet menu was different for everyone. And about the physical loads of the subjects, the researchers kept silent.
Now back to why pasta can be considered "relatively" safe. The fact is that these products themselves will not be harmful if they are added to the diet in reasonable amounts. Well, if the spaghetti will be seasoned with vegetables stewed in a small amount of water, a small amount of hard cheese. However, fatty sauces prepared on the basis of cream and oils can increase the caloric content of a serving several times. This moment must be taken into account when preparing the diet menu.
Details about the study can be found on the pages of the BMJ Open (https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/8/3/e019438).
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