Guess How Much Pasta Italians Eat Every Year?
… and other fun facts about our favourite food!
What shape, what sauce?
One of the reasons there are so many different shapes of pasta is that the weight, texture, size and shape of the pasta all contribute to the way it holds the sauce. Certain shapes of pasta are better paired with certain sauces. Creamy sauces such as alfredo cling well to long, flat noodles like fettuccine. Short, tubular shapes pair better with thick, chunky sauces like meat or tomato vegetable.
It’s more than a carb
Pasta contains protein! We often only think of pasta as a carbohydrate, but it also contains protein. One cup of cooked spaghetti can have as many as 8 grams of protein.
The Italian way may be better
Italians eat the most pasta worldwide – about 60 pounds of pasta per person per year. Most Italians eat pasta every day but they keep their portions in check. A portion in Italy is about a cup and the meal includes a small portion of meat and a large portion of vegetables and salad. In Canada we typically serve 3-4 cups of noodles covered in cheese, meat or both.
April Fools’….and spaghetti?
On April 1 in 1957, the BBC made everyone believe that spaghetti grows on trees. At the time, spaghetti was considered to be an exotic delicacy in Britain. A television program explained how severe frost could impair the flavour of spaghetti and how each strand always grows to the same length. This is believed to be one of the first times television was used to stage an April Fools’ hoax. Pasta has since become well known and well loved all over the world …a joke like this would no longer fool anyone.
Pasta can make you happy and healthy
Everyone loves the taste of pasta but did you know that the carbohydrates in it can increase the body’s production of serotonin, the neurotransmitter that triggers feelings of happiness? Happiness can taste good and it can also be good for you. Pasta is a healthy carbohydrate and a central component of the Mediterranean diet – one of the best lifestyle diets for managing a healthy weight. Keep pasta as part of a healthy diet to ensure physical and emotional well-being.