Why Pasta Is Good For You

By Corey Dubeau 

One of my favourite foods to eat till this day still is pasta. Whether it's just Kraft dinner (if you call that pasta) or a fancy seafood linguini, pasta is simply delicious. Should you eat a lot of it though? There are a lot of diets that exclude pasta, but however pasta offers a variety of nutritional benefits. First off, pasta is a good carbohydrate. We need carbohydrates in our body because it is a crucial energy source for red blood cells, muscles, organs and our brain. It is also an excellent source of complex carbohydrates, a macronutrient that your body needs on a daily basis to function properly. Pasta is filled with carbohydrates; every 100g serving of pasta has 54g of carbs, that's a lot! This amount is more than four times the amount in a slice of bread.

Pasta is also low in fat; each gram of pasta equals only nine calories. Whole-wheat pasta for example is low in calories and contains a ton of minerals from iron, calcium, potassium and zinc. Minerals are important for your health because they help with bodily functions such as regulating your heartbeat, maintaining muscle and keeping the structure of bones. Whole-wheat pasta is healthy and delicious, if you are not a fan of whole wheat then normal pasta is still a healthy choice paired with a healthy tomato sauce.

Pasta is rich in vitamins such as vitamin A, an important vitamin that helps promote healthy vision, skin and bone growth. It is also rich in vitamin B as well, another important vitamin that helps in metabolism, maintaining healthy skin and muscle tone, enhancing the immune system, etc. Pasta is just a healthy type of food that everyone loves to eat. Other minerals that are in pasta is potassium, which is important for cardiovascular healthy. Lastly, it is high in folic acid, or known as vitamin B-9. For pregnant women, this vitamin is extremely important because it can help prevent birth defects and anemia. For those that also have high blood sugar, or hyperglycemia, pasta has a low glycemic index, which means that it doesn't cause sugar in blood to rise quickly.

It's hard to believe something so good for you exists, but what about the costs? Pasta is one of the cheapest foods to buy and is one of the easiest foods to make. Just boil some water, sprinkle some salt in and when it's ready strain the water out and voila, you have pasta ready to be cooked with your favourite sauces and foods. There are multiple ways to cook pasta, something as simple from spaghetti with meat sauce to something exquisite such as sirloin tip fettuccine.

The Ultimate Weight Solution Food Guide by Dr Phil McGraw

By Alain Burrese

"The Ultimate Weight Solution Food Guide" by Dr. Phil McGraw came out to capitalize on Dr. Phil's bestselling "The Ultimate Weight Solution." The bulk of the book, from page 149 through page 707 consists of charts regarding nutritional content of food. The first 148 pages contain some common sense guides for losing weight and maintaining that weight loss. It's a handy reference for those who want to know the basics in the foods they are eating.

While the book is normal trade paper back size, it's not so compact as to easily fit inside a pocket, a purse, or another way to carry along with you. At a little over 700 pages, it's not something you'll carry around with you, even though there are numerous fast food entries. It's a book to keep handy near the kitchen.

After a quick introduction where Dr. Phil encourages you to get excited and then outlines the scope of the book, he launches into chapter one where he has you put your weight on project status. This is where you determine where you are at, create an environment to help you achieve your goals, prioritize exercise into your life, and create accountability. It's a good basic plan toward weight goals. Chapter two contains a three stage plan to what Dr. Phil calls weight loss freedom. There is a 14-day rapid start plan, the continuation plan, and then maintenance. Chapter three has menus for the stages. The menus are contain pretty basic dishes and guidelines.

Chapter four has some behavioral, nutritional restaurant, travel, vacation, social, and stress-eating strategies to help you with your weight loss and healthy eating. Finally, chapter five teaches you how to use the food guide that takes up the rest of the book. Besides telling you what you'll find in the guide, there are some good tips on healthy eating in this chapter.

The guide itself is basically a huge chart of thousands of entries Each entry lists the following: Serving, Calories, Protein, Carbohydrates, Fat/Saturated Fat, Cholesterol, Fiber, Sugars, and Sodium. Essentials the main things most dieters want to know about their foods. For example, the entry for a frozen, ready to bake, apple turnover lists: 1 serving would be one turnover, 284 calories, 4 g Protein, 31 g carbohydrates, 16 grams fat with 4 of those grams saturated fat, na for cholesterol, 2 grams fiber, 11 grams sugars, and 176 mg sodium.

Again, there are a lot of entries here. However, they are not as easy to find as I'd like. Part of this is because foods are divided into what are called high-response cost, high-yield foods and low-response cost, low-yield foods. So you can find beef entries on page 150 and the following pages and on page 418 and the pages that follow. So first you need to look in the contents and determine where your desired food is, and then go look through the food guide sections to find it. So there is a lot of information here, but it is not the easiest to find. Additionally, there are entries where you might have to guess what you have and how it compares to the entries in the book.

Bottom line, for the price, this book has a lot of listings and information, but you do have to work a bit to find it. I'd say a five star book for the amount of listings, but three stars for organization, so that's how I came up with the four star rating. It you have a collection of health eating books, this is not a bad addition. If you want a food guide in your kitchen, this is not bad either. You'll just have to get used to how to find the listings you need and then make the choices that best suit you. And of course, there is some good general information on diet, losing weight, and healthy eating in the first five chapters.

The Ultimate Weight Solution Food Guide by Dr Phil McGraw

By Alain Burrese

"The Ultimate Weight Solution Food Guide" by Dr. Phil McGraw came out to capitalize on Dr. Phil's bestselling "The Ultimate Weight Solution." The bulk of the book, from page 149 through page 707 consists of charts regarding nutritional content of food. The first 148 pages contain some common sense guides for losing weight and maintaining that weight loss. It's a handy reference for those who want to know the basics in the foods they are eating.

While the book is normal trade paper back size, it's not so compact as to easily fit inside a pocket, a purse, or another way to carry along with you. At a little over 700 pages, it's not something you'll carry around with you, even though there are numerous fast food entries. It's a book to keep handy near the kitchen.

After a quick introduction where Dr. Phil encourages you to get excited and then outlines the scope of the book, he launches into chapter one where he has you put your weight on project status. This is where you determine where you are at, create an environment to help you achieve your goals, prioritize exercise into your life, and create accountability. It's a good basic plan toward weight goals. Chapter two contains a three stage plan to what Dr. Phil calls weight loss freedom. There is a 14-day rapid start plan, the continuation plan, and then maintenance. Chapter three has menus for the stages. The menus are contain pretty basic dishes and guidelines.

Chapter four has some behavioral, nutritional restaurant, travel, vacation, social, and stress-eating strategies to help you with your weight loss and healthy eating. Finally, chapter five teaches you how to use the food guide that takes up the rest of the book. Besides telling you what you'll find in the guide, there are some good tips on healthy eating in this chapter.

The guide itself is basically a huge chart of thousands of entries Each entry lists the following: Serving, Calories, Protein, Carbohydrates, Fat/Saturated Fat, Cholesterol, Fiber, Sugars, and Sodium. Essentials the main things most dieters want to know about their foods. For example, the entry for a frozen, ready to bake, apple turnover lists: 1 serving would be one turnover, 284 calories, 4 g Protein, 31 g carbohydrates, 16 grams fat with 4 of those grams saturated fat, na for cholesterol, 2 grams fiber, 11 grams sugars, and 176 mg sodium.

Again, there are a lot of entries here. However, they are not as easy to find as I'd like. Part of this is because foods are divided into what are called high-response cost, high-yield foods and low-response cost, low-yield foods. So you can find beef entries on page 150 and the following pages and on page 418 and the pages that follow. So first you need to look in the contents and determine where your desired food is, and then go look through the food guide sections to find it. So there is a lot of information here, but it is not the easiest to find. Additionally, there are entries where you might have to guess what you have and how it compares to the entries in the book.

Bottom line, for the price, this book has a lot of listings and information, but you do have to work a bit to find it. I'd say a five star book for the amount of listings, but three stars for organization, so that's how I came up with the four star rating. It you have a collection of health eating books, this is not a bad addition. If you want a food guide in your kitchen, this is not bad either. You'll just have to get used to how to find the listings you need and then make the choices that best suit you. And of course, there is some good general information on diet, losing weight, and healthy eating in the first five chapters.