Italian cuisine is well known to be relatively healthy. dr bob stumbled into Italy relatively early in life and has been heavily influenced by over four decades of authentic Italian cooking/eating in Italy, but with age, we have tried to increase the nutrition value of our pastas compared to our younger days. And pasta is a big part of Italian food!
With the new century and the carb revolution, the market delivered new and better pasta products. Now a quarter century later, these products have evolved. Why do we care?
Ask Google: Is whole wheat pasta healthier than regular pasta? Answer: YES! Now AI will even answer this question for us.
There are whole wheat and other healthier options, like a farro flour pasta, or various gluten free grain or high protein varieties. Another consideration is the fact that in Italian recipes typically veggies dominate the dish and not the pasta if even smart carb intake must be limited. Big jars of American pasta sauces are definitely not the way to go. In Italy, sauce is always incorporated with the pasta much more sparingly and there is a lot more imagination in making pasta dishes with healthy vegetables than you would guess looking at a typical American supermarket pasta isle. We never buy those jars! Well, almost, we did try a Trader Joe lemon pesto sauce once.
We also love risottos with veggie based mixins, but arborio and the higher end risotto rices are white rice, hence highly refined. We have not given up risotto, but try to do some farrottos with the much healthier farro. And of course grain bowls are terrific, which can use farro or whole wheat orzo plus lots of veggies. Black or red rice salad is also a healthy whole grain alternative, both preferable to refined white rice.