Augment Your Pasta With Hearty Healthy Sauces

Pasta is becoming more and more popular because many Americans want to increase their consumption of high-fiber foods. An important source of dietary fiber, whole-grain pasta is delicious served hot or cold and easy to prepare. If you belong to the growing group of pasta advocates, try whole-wheat pasta as a regular alternative to the white flour pasta available commercially.

The Advantages of Whole-Wheat Pasta

The advantages of whole-wheat pasta are numerous. First, pasta made from whole-wheat flour contains a minimum of 10 percent of dietary fiber compared to pasta made from white flour, which has only 0.3 percent. Second, because whole-wheat pasta is made from the whole grain of durum wheat, it provides essential vitamins and minerals not found in white flour pastas. A third advantage concerns digestion. Like other foods made from whole-wheat flour, whole-wheat pasta is digested more slowly than white flour pasta. Consequently, your body receives a constant, even and long-lasting supply of glucose. When glucose enters the bloodstream too quickly, your body cannot handle it all at once and converts the excess into fat.

What About High-Fat Sauces?

The problem with pasta made from either whole-wheat or white flour, is not the pasta itself but the sauces poured over it. The most popular sauces contain high amounts of oil, eggs, cheese and other ingredients which some nutritionists warn against, especially for people who want to limit consumption of cholesterol and fat. Indicative of the increasing demand for lower oil sauces is that well-established restaurants are starting to offer them as part of their regular menus.

According to Joe Patti, owner of La Famiglia, in Beverly Hills, his lower fat sauces are very popular with his clientele, whether they are young or old, proof positive that you can avoid and limit high-fat and cholesterol ingredients and still have tasty, attractive sauces. You can prepare them yourself if you follow a few easy rules. Either adapt your own favorite recipes or try some of those provided below. The result will be sauces fuller in flavor and lower in fat. You'll love them.

A Few Easy Rules

* If you are concerned about cholesterol and fat, avoid sauces that call for butter, cream or other rich milk products.

* Don't use recipes that call for egg yolks.

* Avoid using cheese as the main flavoring.