Pasta makes me happy.

I hope there is a lot of pasta in heaven. I think plates full of pasta made in many different ways with different types of meats and vegetables is just about the best food imaginable. When I was a kid, if you asked me "Sarah, what is your favorite food?" I would tell you, macaroni and cheese. Unless I happened to be in the mood for some ice cream or pizza, which in that case, my preferences might have changed. But for the most part, it would be mac and cheese. Macaroni and cheese is a delightful comfort food. I loved it so much, that sometimes my brother and I would make it for an afternoon snack, and together we would eat the entire box with a glass of grape kool-aid! How I managed to stay a size 4 throughout high school eating like that, I cannot tell you. Fast metabolism I guess. Surely, I could not eat that way now and expect to stay out of the range of morbidly obese. Anyway. As I was saying, mac and cheese used to be my absolute favorite.

Now, I can't choose a favorite. I just love pasta. Spaghetti, ziti, shells, lasagna, penne, ravioli, fettuccine, linguini, rigatoni, tortellini, rotini, and macaroni. With lots of different sauces, meats and veggies like tomatoes, mushrooms, broccoli and etc. I recently started creating pasta dishes with whole-wheat pasta. It may sound weird, but honestly I can't tell much of a difference. The color is different obviously. And the texture might be a little different but not much.

A few years ago, American eaters went on a big no-carbohydrate diet kick. The main culprit was that guy Atkins. He convinced everyone that they could have as much protein as they could hold, but they would still be able to loose weight because they were not eating carbs. Well, it worked pretty well for a lot of people. A lot of people lost weight, and even today dieters continue going on these kind of diets and successfully loose weight. However, there are some major drawbacks to this diet.

Drawback number 1: Large quantities of animal fat is not so great for your heart.

Drawback number 2: People were able to loose the weight, but then once they started eating carbs again, they gained the weight back.

Drawback number 3: Grouchiness. Consuming little to no carbs zaps your energy and makes you very grouchy.

So, health experts started noticing these drawbacks and started doing some more studies. They soon found out that the key is not to eliminate all carbs from your diet, but instead to eat the right kind of carbs. You know, instead of snacking on a bag of potato chips pick up a small bowl of popcorn. (Disclaimer: I am not talking about popcorn dripping with high fat butter and covered with half a pound of salt! Light popcorn or lightly salted should do the trick.) Instead of white rice, try brown. Instead of white wonder bread, try whole wheat. (Make sure it says 100% whole-wheat on the bag. If it just says wheat, you are not getting much extra nutrition.) These are good carbs! They give you energy, and don't make you grouchy. Who wants to be grouchy anyway?

So grab a bowl of whole-wheat pasta and eat to your little healthy-heart's content!