Pasta is made from a mixture of water and semolina flour. Semolina is a coarse-ground flour from the heart, or endosperm, of durum wheat, an amber-colored high protein hard wheat that is grown specifically for the manufacturing of semolina pasta.
It's lower starch content and a higher protein content than all-purpose flours make semolina pasta easily digested. Farina, rougher granulation's of other high-quality hard wheat, is also used to make some pastas.
Both the semolina and farina flours are enriched with B-vitamins and iron before they are shipped to pasta plants.
There are two types of die plates used in making pasta. Teflon which gives pasta a smooth glossy surface with an almost yellow color appearance.
Bronze plates with give pasta that rough surface which I prefer. This creates a porous and slightly jagged texture which allows it to capture the sauce. The sign of a good quality pasta!
The type of pasta that you use is important to your healthy pasta recipe so pick a good quality brand or use semolina flour in your homemade pasta recipes.
Want to know the process of manufacturing pasta? It's really amazing and you can read about it here.
Yes Pasta is full of Carbs. But guess what? There are good carbs and there are bad carbs and Pasta is full of good carbs. Why do we need carbs? Well, your body needs energy and your body uses carbs as the gasoline to fuel and run the engine.
Pasta also contains only 1 gram of Fat and ZERO Saturated Fat grams! What a great way to spend 200 calories.
The average Nutritional facts of pasta for a 1/2 cup serving are:
Calories 200
Calories from Fat 10
Total Fat 1g
Saturated Fat 0g
Trans Fat 0g
Cholesterol 0mg
Total Carbohydrate 41g
Dietary Fiber 2g
Sugars 1g
Protein 7g
Pasta nutritional facts also include high percentages of Vitamins.
Iron is 10% of your daily need
Thiamin 35%
Niacin 20%
Riboflavin 15%
and Folic Acid 30%
So eat pasta guilt free in all your Italian Pasta Recipes. Pasta is very nutritional food and it's good for you too!
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