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...

Good news for consumers.   Many manufacturers and fast food restaurants are making healthful changes in their food offerings.    In the last few weeks, Kraft, Chipotle, and Pepsi have made announcements about upcoming changes.   What drove these changes?   You the consumer, did by requesting healthier options.    It is usually the government forcing manufacturers to make changes and now with social media, the consumer is in the driver’s seat.   So what is changing? Kraft Macaroni and Cheese:     has announced it is going to make macaroni and cheese without the synthetic colors or artificial preservatives.   This change won’t take place until early 2016, but is good news for consumers.   Last March, a Change.org petition requested Kraft remove dyes from its mac and cheese.    This petition garnered over 365,000 signatures so carried a lot of weight with the company.   Before complying, Kraft went to the s...