Eating For Health

How healthy is the pasta in your spaghetti, macaroni and cheese, rigatoni, and other pasta dishes?   So many people have been avoiding pasta as it is a “carb” and they think carbs are unhealthy.   Americans still enjoy their pasta as we eat about 20 pounds of it a year.   How healthy is pasta? Pasta provides a lot of nutrition.   Not just carbs but also protein, about 5-7 grams of protein in a cup of cooked pasta.   The flour used to make pasta is a high protein durum wheat flour which is higher in protein than other types of flour. If you want to add more nutrition to your spaghetti or pasta dish, add some whole wheat pasta.   We usually use about ¾ white pasta and about ¼ whole wheat pasta.   Some people use all whole wheat pasta but it is a taste one needs to get used to.   Most people hardly notice if you add just a little whole wheat pasta.    Even the white pasta provides some fiber.   And pasta is enriched w...

How healthy are your bones?   We just did an assessment of calcium and vitamin D intake in the nutrition class I teach.   Students analyzed how much calcium and vitamin D they were getting in their diet every day.   Not surprisingly, almost every female student had a low intake of calcium and a very low intake of vitamin D.   People in their 20’s should actually be banking calcium in their bones to make them stronger.   Your bones can be thought of as a calcium bank .   In your 20’s you make more deposits of calcium than withdrawals.   That is, if you are getting enough calcium in your diet. This strengthens one’s bones. Around age 30, your bones should be packed with calcium and this is called Peak Bone Mass.   From then on, your bones break down a little and you begin losing some of your bone mass. But having adequate calcium in your diet and enough vitamin D, you can replace most of what you lose every day.  But too many of us aren...