Pasta, Pasta, and Pasta...Us Italians Love It. & Many Ask me Can i eat it.

I get this question all the time “can I still eat pasta? And how can I measure it?”

Well, I do not cut out carbs. Carbs are EXTREMELY important especially if you are active. You just have to know how to limit your intake.

On the box, it will say a portion size is around 2oz!!
FYI--That 2-oz. portion refers to the dry, uncooked pasta...

Lets be honest…. That truly isn't all that helpful when trying to figure out how much pasta (cooked) you can have for the calorie count on the box label!

We did a full-scale investigation of this last year, and came up with some GREAT info. And since you (and lots of others!) are still baffled by pasta portions, I'm rerunning our findings here and now...

Servings per container: While the nutritional panels stated the boxes contained "about 7 servings," we found that they contained closer to 6 servings. What does this mean? Simply dividing the box into portions according to the approximate "servings per container" won't necessarily give you the correct serving size.

When cooking pasta…
A single 2-oz. serving of  dry penne cooked up to a cup. Both the cooked spaghetti and the elbow mac measured in at a cup per serving as well

Dry pasta tips…
If you do not have a food scale,, or do not feel like using one, and you are wanting to cook a single serving of pasta…remember this:
A 2-oz. serving of uncooked elbow macaroni comes to just shy of 1/2 cup. The same amount of dry penne measures in at a little over a  1/2 cup.

As far as spaghetti… there really is no easy cup measurement for uncooked spaghetti.


WITH THAT BEING SAID…..Pasta will  generally double in size when it cooks, SO… a cup of cooked pasta is a good ballpark for a single serving size!


ALSO- (saving the best tip for last)If you're eating at a friend or family members house or even a restaurant and need to estimate that 1-cup serving, always remember it's about the size of your fist.

Keep in mind that each cup of pasta has around 200 calories. This is extremely good to know, considering most restaurants serve up at least FOUR fistfuls per order.

For you gluten free people out there, like my siblings. Try Trader Joes Brown Rice Pasta (my twin says it one of the better ones she has tried) please follow the same rules, I mentioned above.

I always cook a usually half a box of pasta and/or a full box and then measure it out, for our family dinners and then lunch portions the next day. However, if it is just you or your significant other and you. Do what my twin does, she gets out her food scale and measures 4oz (2 oz each) for her husband and her. Then, she cooks it and divides it in half.  
Like my twin, some people only cook enough for that meal. My twin always wants seconds on the pasta, but when she only cooks 2 ounces, she can't go back for seconds, there is no more. So then,  she is forced to move to salad or a protein!

So my friends, eat some pasta! But, remember 2oz dried, 1/2 cup dried or 1 cup cooked. Or, if your out to dinner 1 fist full of pasta. Oh yea, there is nothing wrong with asking the waiter or waitress to bring you a half portion of the pasta, you might not get a discount, but your body will be better for it.

There you go, have a little pasta this weekend! Manga!

-Till next time Annamarie