(Thinkstock)We’ve swapped our white pasta for the whole-wheat variety.
And now, we’re going to start cooking it al dente, too.
Leaving a little crunch in your noodles — al dente pasta ranks lower on the glycemic index than the overcooked variety — can make your body work slightly harder at digestion, subsequently encouraging you to eat a little less later in the day.
“When pasta is firm, the digestive enzymes in the gut take longer to break down the starch into sugars, so they’re released more slowly into the bloodstream, filling us up for longer and making it easier to control our weight. If it’s overcooked, the GI increases, so the starch is more readily broken down into sugars,” the Daily Mail reports.
[See also: Drunken red spaghetti]
The same “al dente” rule should apply to veggies, too. Overcooking vegetables can saturate the soluble fibre.
To make sure you don’t overcook your pasta, start checking on it a few minutes before the suggested cooking time is up.
If al dente pasta is one of the “perfect pasta” secrets — and it’s good for the waistline — what’s not to love? Besides, it cuts a few minutes off your cooking time.
How do you like your pasta? Looking for more pasta tips? Check out the video below.
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