What ever happened to the low carb craze

I love Dreamfields lo-carb pasta, I get it at ShopRite. If they stopped carrying it I would order a case too. All the other lo-carb pastas are crap - DF really tastes like pasta should. Roger, I promise to do my share to help keep them in business.

i suspect that durum semolina pasta (many italian brands and a few american) has, or should have, a better glycemic index number than regular old spaghetti - but I can't immediately find that as the chart I found doesn't distinguish them.

Dreamfield has only 5 grams of digestible carbohydrate per 2oz. Other pastas are somewhere around 35 grams and all of it goes directly to your belly or hips. I can eat Dreamfield every day for a week and not gain an ounce.

Exactly. It tastes exactly the same, and after cooking, it looks exactly the same. Before cooking, it seems slightly more translucent, but since I don't eat raw pasta. . . .

How about wheat pasta? I've been eating that, it's pretty good.

The whole wheat is not the same, still big carbs - plus it tastes wheaty. Dreamfields tastes like the wonderful white gluey stuff, but you don't have to worry about the weight gain.

Is it? I haven't tried it, as I just hate the texture of wheat bread. I'd give it a shot, but I've got 20lb of pasta on the way.

Happy eating, roger. Can you order more?

Roger, I don't know if the wheat pastas are OK for diabetics, but if you're going to try some buy Barilla Plus. I think of all the "healthy" new pasta brands it tastes the best. It is not lo-carb, just higher fiber and in some cases they've added Omega-3 oils.

Well, here's a slightly old article on the subject -

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3289/is_7_173/ai_n6127353/print

Relevant quote -

He also explains that some types of pasta could be less healthy than others. "Semolina is the 'gold' from durum wheat. However, semolina is expensive, and many U.S. pasta makers use durum wheat flour instead or substitute semolina with a percentage of white flour. Doing so will reduce pasta quality and could increase the GI of the pasta. High-quality semolina is not easily metabolized into glucose because it is very "compact and dense," resulting in a low glycemic index, notes Chen. Chen suggests the solution is not to stop making pasta, or to make low-carb pasta, but to start making pasta that is made from high-quality durum semolina.

Eoe, I can order as much as I want. More to the point, I can order as much as I can afford. I might mention that the shipping on twenty pounds brings the cost to about $70.00. On the other hand, twenty pounds of spaghetti comes to lots of meals. Lots!

Fiber is good Green Witch, and if it increase, something else must be displaced. Speaking of pasta, that something is likely carbohydrates.

Thanks for the article, Osso. Is it just possible that I have developed a taste for something that isn't downright unhealthy? By the way, your noodles are the best I've ever eaten.

A comment on that stuff we call wheat bread. I read labels, and they're all "wheat bread". Rye bread, potatoe bread, multigrain, you name it, the principle ingredient is always wheat. I seem to recall that rye is way lower on the glycemic index than white wheat bread, which is fine. It's great stuff to sit around and eat with nothing but butter. It does not go well with peanut butter.

Thanks, that's sweet!

That dish (fresh fettucine with Hazan's bolognese sauce) are sort of rule breaking for me, in that fresh pasta is not ordinarily made with semolina, and certainly not by me. On the other hand, I've not looked up to see if some people use it - hmmm. (I've jars of unbleached white flour and semolina for different kinds of breadmaking, plus sometimes other flours.)

I have some past history of terrible pasta, once at a friend's house (her mother made it, we were in high school, I could hardly make a dent in the plate of over cooked horribleness, really icky and not only for the sludge but because that friend was shy, etc.)....... and once by me, when hub and I had some friends over and the world series was on. I over-cooked it, I thought only a teeny bit slightly, but yaaaaak. I should have thrown it out and started again, but I didn't have the personal fortitude. Learned that lesson.

There are lots of brands of ital 100% semolina dried pasta, de Cecco and Barilla being pretty big companies, with lots of stores having other brands. I happen to not like Venezia brand, might have been my cooking though - and I'm also not sure they have 100%.
Bio-naturae has been good...

I think I've tried some american 100% semolina brands in California and been happy, but not run across them in New Mexico. On the other hand, I've only been to Whole Foods once in my advancing-on-two-years here; not been to Trader Joe's here (same problem, miles away); went into Wild Oats once, when I visited in 2005. So, haven't really checked out possible sources of US semolina pasta.


You might not like semolina pasta, Roger - it's a little different.

I tried to make rye bread once... that was hilarious. Did have a friend that made it about once a week, before work..

I like some of the dense whole grain breads, but hate hate hate air filled dark beige "whole wheat bread". And I always cringe in folksy healthy restaurants that put their hamburgers on "whole wheat dreck". Not that most white flour buns are any good either.

Ran into a tasty loaf of pumpernickel bread, more airy than I was used to in my childhood, but still not that balloon stuff.... but that was at Keller's, not a chain market.

And our Raley's has turned into Albertson's and they have a Pan Bigio that is damn near as good as my own. That's made with semolina, I can tell, though I can't tell the percentage - it makes the world's best toast, hands down.

Coupla points:

Quinoa doubles as a fibre and a protein. You only need half a cup per serving. Cooks up like rice and makes a fab salad, with feta, peppers, pecans, and some kind of tangy dressing (lemon, olive oil, honey).

Wild rice pasta - gotta watch it when you're cooking it because it can go from al dente to mush in a coupla minutes, but great fibre and no flour. Check it out.

I don't do carbs only because I don't care for them. Don't much like potatoes, bread, pasta... but I do like rice, so I've gone into the wild or brown rice.

Have you tried Lotus Foods rices, Mame? I like their bhutan red rice, their black forbidden rice, their cannaroli (I know that's spelled wrong).

No, I haven't, osso, and I'm sure where I'm now living they won't have it (they barely have quinoa), but I'll be sure to look for them when I'm next at Whole Foods... they'll have them for sure.

I love new foods so thank you!

If you do get them, their website has recipes. Me, I just make stuff up... as in, red rice seems to go with red onions, perhaps red cabbage, perhaps hot ital sausage...

Roger, when you run low, you can buy Dreamfields at Amazon.

Bulkfoods.com has the following special grains in many forms, as well as the usual more common ones:

quinoa
rye
barley
buckwheat

They also have semolina flour if you are into making your own pastas.


They also have quite a selection of sugar free candies if you're looking for good prices on that too.



I'm expecting delivery of some of the quinoa, rye and barley grains in a couple days and I'll let you know if there are problems with the quality. I don't expect any. I've been quite happy with the spices, herbs and trail mixes I've gotten from them so far.

Their prices on herbs and spices are quite good. Comparing theirs to Pensey's the quality is the same and I get double (sometimes triple) the quantity for the same price.

Oh, also for any orders over $50 shipped to the US, there is no shipping fee.