If asked to pick just one food that you couldn’t live without, what would it be? I would be hard pressed to single out just one. But for sure, pasta would be near the top of the list. I can’t imagine a world without pasta. And after doing a little research, I don’t think many other Americans could either. According to the American Pasta Report, a survey commissioned by the National Pasta Association, 84 percent of consumers consider pasta to be a healthy food and an important part of a well-balanced diet. And 77 percent of the more than 1,000 surveyed said they eat pasta at least once a week ,a third of them having it three or more times.
Even more revealing is that sales of pasta products in the
U.S. Including frozen and refrigerated pasta, canned pasta, soup mixes and prepared dinners rose 5 percent last year to $6.4 billion, according to Kansas City, Mo.-based American Italian Pasta Co., the nation’s largest manufacturer of dry pasta. That comes after sales had been falling 1 percent to 2 percent annually for years, according to Carol Freysinger, spokeswoman for the National Pasta Association.
The increase in pasta consumption can be attributed partly to a struggling
U.S. economy. More people are turning to casseroles, pasta salad, good old macaroni and cheese and soup to stretch their food dollars and as well as becoming more health-conscious.
So, with all of this pasta being consumed in the
U.S., what is the most popular variety? According to the report, spaghetti is the personal favorite of 40 percent of respondents, followed by lasagna (12 percent), macaroni and cheese (6 percent), fettuccine (6 percent), linguine (3 percent), elbows (3 percent), pasta salad (3 percent) and angel hair (2 percent. Nutritionally, pasta is a low-fat, high-carbohydrate food. It’s very low in sodium, and non egg varieties are cholesterol-free. Per cup, enriched pastas are an excellent source of folic acid, a good source of other essential nutrients, including iron and several B vitamins, and contain only 211 calories.
Also, as a food that is low on the Glycemic Index (low GI foods are digested more slowly) pasta provides a slow release of energy without spiking blood sugar levels. And pasta also is one of the foods the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Dietary Guidelines recommends eating six to 11 servings of daily. Can you live with that?