My wife and I have been moving towards a more plant-based, less processed diet. When we began this move some years ago we made the mistake (in our opinion) of adding more traditional flour pasta - as a base for our cooked veggies/sauces.
More recently, we’ve been eating more lentils and beans, and whole grain rice. Switching to those, we are able to eat as much as we wish - getting the feeling of satiation, and have lost weight while doing so. (We had both disliked the feeling of hunger or “going without” from many other “diets.”)
Relatively recently we discovered lentil and chickpea pastas.. It seems like the best of both worlds. The ingredients/nutrition info seem to indicate it is essentially the same as the beans themselves. But we were wondering whether something is lost during the processing of the beans into flour, such that we ought not think this a “free ride.” Don’t want to end up like Kramer gobbling his “fat-free” yogurt!
My only thought is that I’d certainly like to try the lentil one. I’ve had chickpea past in the past. Was underwhelmed. But for those with gluten issues, it’s probably a godsend.
ETA: Was just informed that we have lentil pasta in the pantry. I’ll get back to you.
I saw something about lentil pasta a while back. Couldn’t find that report but this article says about the same thing., it’s good and healthy. You’ll react to it the way you would react to eating lentils and chick peas in other forms.
ETA: The cost of manufacturing pasta is very low. Since the lentil and chickpea version is similarly priced it is likely almost identical to the process of making wheat pasta.
My wife pays a lot more attention to nutrition science than I (and also has more health concerns than I).
But when we read The China Study and Forks over Knives, etc., we increased our pasta intake. Later, she came to understand that refined white flour is essentially sugar.
IMO, the lentil/chickpea pastas are a great substitute for regular pasta. Not sure why more folk don’t eat them. But I wondered if somehow the act of grinding it into flour derived some of the nutrition, as flour compares to whole wheat.
To my palate, they are pretty bland. I’m sure I could tell one from the other in a blind test, but they certainly have less taste than - say - some of the spinach, tomato, etc flavored pastas. They are pretty cheap and widely available at basic supermarkets. Give them a try and let us know what you think!
A very good substitute for wheat pasta. To me, the biggest difference is the “tooth-feel.” They are somewhat more “chewy.” But I haven’t noticed them significantly detracting from or adding to the flavor of whatever we serve with them.
I’d recommend pea pasta if you see it; though as it tastes quite strongly of pea it’s not perhaps suitable for every dish. It’s quite funny too, having a traditionally bland carb replaced with sweet green vegetable flavour.
Black bean pasta on the other hand, I found to be quite vile.
When I was dieting, I actually found the fresh shirataki noodles with tofu to work quite well in Asian style dishes. You do need to rinse them a bit and they have, for lack of better word, a sort of “fishiness” to them, but I found they went great with Chinese and Thai stir fry-type dishes. I’m not sure they’d make a great spaghetti substitute, though, or work really well for Italian-style pasta sauces, but I could be wrong.
(Note, that I’m talking about tofu shirataki, not the plain shirataki. Those are so-so, but much less satisfying, and less pasta-like.)
