Considering the popularity of pasta and the wide range of menu options it provides, it would be helpful to know if it is also a good source of carbohydrates. Of course, there are different types of pasta and different types of carbohydrates. Understanding these differences and recognizing where the greatest benefits are helps you to make good nutritional choices.
What are Carbohydrates?
Carbohydrates, formed by sugar molecules, involve the combination of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. A wide collection of foods contain carbohydrates, including breads, beans, milk, potatoes, soft drinks and pasta. Once in the body, the digestive process involves carbohydrates being broken down into single sugar molecules--small enough to enter the bloodstream. These sugar molecules--combining to make glucose, or blood sugar--provide much needed energy to cells throughout the body.
Carbs as Part of a Balanced Diet
Despite popular weight loss diets of recent years that advocate the removal of carbohydrates from your eating habits, most nutritional specialists do not recommend such a move. These specialists contend that carbohydrates provide important fuel for the body, preparing it for physical activity and aiding proper organ function. They also make the clear distinction that the best sources of carbohydrates are fruit, vegetables and whole grains and acknowledge that less desirable types of carbohydrates increase the risk for diabetes and heart disease when eaten in excess.
Bad Carbohydrates
Carbohydrates that can create health risks when eaten in large quantities are almost all highly processed foods. They include white bread, white rice, pastries, sugared sodas and candy. Unfortunately, these types of food are widely used. A concerted effort--along with awareness of facts--is necessary to fill your diet with the good, rather than bad, carbohydrates. Pasta figures prominently in this process of nutritional decision making. In short, depending upon the type of pasta you choose, you might be adding beneficial carbohydrates to your diet, but you might also be heaping more of the less-desirable carbohydrates onto your food intake.
Types of Pasta
When it comes to choosing the type of pasta to include in your diet, you want to focus on the ingredients involved in creating the pasta. Whole grain pasta will serve your nutritional needs far better than pasta that is made from processed, enriched grains. Such distinctions are fairly easy to spot in food stores by reading the packaging. Restaurants, however, are less likely to make this information as available. It's a good idea to ask your server when ordering a meal about the type of pasta being used in order to keep your nutritional decision making power intact.
Glycemic Index Values
An additional tool to make judgments about the value of different pastas is the glycemic index value. The glycemic index, or GI, is a fairly new way of looking at carbohydrates and has to do with their immediate impact on your blood glucose levels. Carbohydrates that convert to glucose quickly are assigned a higher GI value and are not as healthy as carbohydrates that more gradually feed the glucose level. Therefore, the lower GI value, the more desirable the carbohydrates. These lower GI values are found in fruits, vegetables and whole grain foods--including whole grain pasta.
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