Ingredient Review - Whole Wheat Pasta

Pasta is a staple ingredient to most diets around the world.  It's a very simple, very versatile item that can go into anything from main dishes to soups to desserts to snacks. It's a great provider of energy, and it's very easy to digest.  However, these great points to it can make it easy to overdo it on pasta.  The excess energy contributes to the obesity of America.  But there are healthier options to help make this less of a problem.  When I went on my big diet, one of my changes was switching from normal white pasta into whole wheat pasta. 

Whole wheat pasta is healthier than white pasta for a couple reasons.  The biggest one being the fact that the flour that the pasta maker uses isn't artificially bleached.  The bleaching process to turn ground wheat flour into the white flour that most of us are very familiar with takes with it a lot of the minerals and vitamins that are in the wheat. Wheat pasta is also very high in fiber, which is an indigestible carbohydrate.  This means that you have the mass in the pasta from the dietary fiber, but the calories are not available to use by your body, as it cannot break that part of the mass down.  It's a great way to fill you up without putting on the excess weight. 

One of the great things about wheat pasta is that it has quite a variety, maybe more so than eating white pasta.  Different companies have provided different ways of making it.  My personal favorite is Racconto's 8 grain pasta.  In addition to the fiber it is packed with vitamins and minerals that just aren't there in white pasta.  It also doesn't taste much different than it's bleached counterpart, so you can cook it right into your favorite dish and enjoy it just the same as you would have enjoyed your white pastas.  A nice plate of 8 grain rigatoni, a light layer of tequila butter sauce, and some margarita shrimp and some simmered broccoli florets, and you have a healthy meal fit for a king.  So next time you're in the pasta aisle, give it a try.  Make it for the family, and don't tell them.  I guarantee they go back for seconds, and don't even know the difference.