What I Ate Today: Hey Shank! Does Pasta Make You Fat?

(To all you Young Punk Resident Evil and Call of Duty Players out there…Kneel down before the God Father of Modern Video Gaming!)

Hey Shank,

I need to know if pasta makes you fat! My Meathead Personal Trainer, King Koopa, told me that if I want to be lean and healthy I can never eat pasta again:

(Authors note: Never trust a personal trainer with horns on his shell. Actually you should never trust a personal trainer with a shell period.)

My problem is I want to lose some weight but I don’t know if I can take this anymore. First my Girlfriend Princess Peach got kidnapped for like the 100th time and now I am told I can’t even have a bowl of Ronzoni:

(Somebody ought to tell Mario what this little Tramp is up to.)

Shank, you need to set things straight. If I have to keep eating turtle soup, mushrooms and stars for the rest of my life I am going to go Postal and start stealing coins. Please help!

Signed,

Super Mario

(If he just went low carb, this all could have been avoided!)

Hey Super Mario,

Hope all is well in The Mushroom Kingdom. Remind me later to tell you something about that girlfriend of yours. Now to answer your question, no, eating pasta does not make you fat.

Now if you want to look like this guy, minus that stupid expression on his face:

(This one is for Alexandra. I heard she was having a rough day.)

Or this guy:

(This one is for my most loyal reader Robert.)

Or if you want to look like any guy who can iron his shirt without taking it off I would suggest you skip your daily trip to the Olive Garden Never Ending Bowl of Pasta Buffet.

However for us mere mortals and the mere mortal goals that we tend to have there is absolutely no need to cut pasta out of your diet unless you are under the direction of a physician to do so.

Pasta does not make people FAT. When it comes to Pasta what makes people FAT is that they either:

1. Eat too much relative to their daily caloric needs.

2. They put too much high calorie “stuff” like creamy sauces, cheese or fatty meats on their pasta which once again equates to being too many calories for their daily needs.

3. Pasta is a “Trigger Food’ for them.

(When I say “Trigger Food” I do not mean that it turns you into this guy. On a side note I think we just lost Robert and Alexandra.)

What “Trigger Food” means is there are some people when they start eating pasta they feel they cannot stop because too many happy hits start going off in their brain (think like a heroin addict). In this case, minus some serious Psychological Intervention, they should either avoid eating pasta altogether or save it for a very special occasion. When I say special occasion I mean like a Birthday or Religious Holiday. ”Thursday” does not count as a special occasion.

(OK you Cave man types. You got me on this one. If you eat this much pasta, obviously minus the flavor of human feet, you will become overweight.)

If you fit into either group one or two here are my suggestions (you group three people need to consult with somebody who doesn’t wear shorts for a living):

1. Go and buy yourself a freaking food scale!

(This is Marc, Kelly and George of Ace Housewares in Princeton, N.J. If you need a food scale and you live in the area go see them about picking one up. Tell them Shank sent you! If you don’t live in the area then I don’t know what the hell to tell you. I very rarely leave Princeton let alone my house.)

(This is my baby! The OXO Digital scale with infrared scanner, a compass in the stock and a thing which tells time. Ok. so there is no compass let alone a stock but this sucker works really well and has done so for a very long time.)

An average serving size of Pasta for a small person (150lbs or less) ranges from anywhere between 100 to 150 grams. For somebody larger it goes up to 150 to 200 grams and for those with high activity levels or someone trying to gain weight that number can go as high as 250 to 400 grams.

Regardless of what size you choose the only thing I can assure you is that whatever winds up in your bowl will really piss you off!

(That’s all the Pasta my chubby ass gets! Noooooooooo!)

That is because most people have no clue what a real portion size looks like. The bottom line unless it has been confirmed by medical testing you can pretty much say screw your Thyroid, screw your genetics and screw whatever the new flavor of the month “Sell my Bull Crap Book” might tell you, most people in this Country are overweight because they simply eat way too much and that is especially true of Starchy Carbohydrates like bread, rice, pasta and potatoes.

2. Unless it is a special occasion (there is that whole pesky moderation concept again) the only thing you should put on your Pasta (if you want to lose weight) is:

A. Air (or a variety of your favorite spices/sea salt)

B. Between 25 to 100 grams of a non Alfredo/non cream based sauce like a Marinara, Arrabbiata or Classic Red.

C.. A small portion of grated cheese (When I say small I mean like two tablespoons worth. It shouldn’t look like it’s raining lactose on your dish)

D. Use no sauce and instead just allow the marinade that is on whatever protein you are eating to flavor the dish

E. A TEASPOON of olive oil. Please note I said a teaspoon and not the dumb ass “Gobs of butter and olive oil like they do on the Food Network”:

(First off, I hate your show. And second, stop smiling at me. There is so much olive oil and butter in that thing you could put my Pasty White Half Scotch/Irish Butt in that bowl and it would taste good.)

In conclusion my Compadre Mario, to demonize one food, let alone a group of foods as the role reason for why people are overweight is just plain stupid and misguided. More often than not it’s not the food that is the problem. The problem is the person that is eating it.

I hope that helps.

Yours in Chocolate Chip Cookies,

Mike Cruickshank