I like pasta. How can anyone not love all those crazy shapes and the crazy names that go with them. I don’t crave it but do really enjoy it. It is one of my weaknesses that I still have some some pasta once or twice each week. Pasta is one of the few non-whole foods that I still eat regularly.
When I say pasta, I mean pasta made with durum wheat semolina, a highly refined grain. It is so refined that the government requires it to be fortified with some of the major vitamins stripped away during processing. I don’t think this fortification does much good as none of the less known nutrients are present to provide the full synergistic package as intended by nature. But only semolina pasts is real pasta to me.
I have tried a huge variety of “healthier” pastas over the years. From whole wheat to whole multi-grain, corn pasta, brown rice pasta and buckwheat pasta and quinoa pasta, and none of them has the mouth-feel and flavor of “real” semolina pasta. So I just eat it less often than I once did. And I also make sure to camouflage this refined grain.
Camouflage consists of strategies to never eat pasta alone. Add pasta and fresh basil to mushrooms, onion and peppers sauteed in grass-fed butter or olive oil. Make cold pasta salad with raw garlic, green onion, fennel and grass-fed sour cream or balsamic vinegar and avocado oil. Add pasta to a soup or serve under a stew. Go traditional and serve pasta with tomato sauce, grated pecarino Romano cheese and chicken sausage.
You get the idea. Just don’t eat plain pasta with its high glycemic index and questionable nutrition. Add some fat, maybe some protein and plenty of healthy whole foods to that pasta. The glycemic index drops, the nutrition goes up and the pasta is still in there!
Eventually I might drop refined pasta from my diet entirely. For now, I still like it occasionally and use it as a treat to myself. I also stay mindful of what it is and what it represents and make sure to eat it in moderation.