Defending Pasta

Fighting back against low-carb mania, a group of determined, unrepentant pasta defenders meeting recently in Rome cited the number of dietary fads – 28 in all – that have occurred within the last few years and invoked the famous observation by Sophia Loren: "Everything you see, I owe to pasta."

John Foreyt, a professor at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, and a speaker of the pro-pasta conference noted that Italians have enjoyed the health benefits of pasta for over 1,000 years.

"Pasta has been wrongly injected into the good carb/bad carb debate, and we want to dispel the notion that it should be avoided," he said in the conference's closing statement.”

The conference was organized by Oldways Preservation Trust, a Boston-based food issues think tank that stresses moderate, balanced eating – diets not overloaded with fat and protein, nor heavy with carbohydrates. It favors the Mediterranean diet, which emphasizes fish, fruit, vegetables, breads, rice and pasta.

Posted by Jim Langcuster at February 23, 2004 08:58 AM | TrackBack