Want to Lose Weight? Eat Pasta, Says Greatest Study Ever

Listen, we love our zoodles, and we’re certainly no stranger to low-carb living. But there are some times in life (you know, like a Tuesday) when only a heaping mound of buttery spaghetti will do—diet be damned. And now the best study ever has found that pasta may not be as bad for your waistline as previously thought. 

For the study, University of Toronto heroes researchers examined evidence from 32 randomized controlled trials involving 2,488 participants who ate pasta on average 3.3 times per week instead of other carbohydrates. The subjects also stuck to a low-glycemic-index diet. For the uninitiated, low-GI foods are digested more slowly, which means that your blood sugar levels increase at a slower rate compared with when you eat refined carbohydrates like rice and white bread. (Pasta, by the way, has a low glycemic index.)

What they found was that not only did the participants not gain weight, but they actually lost about 1.1 pounds over an average follow-up of 12 weeks. Pretty cool, right?

Now, before you go crazy at the all-you-can-eat pasta bar, there are a few key details that are worth noting. Each serving size was equivalent to about a half cup of cooked pasta and this study looked at our favorite carb specifically in the context of a low-GI diet.

But we’re still going to use this as an excuse to whip up some cacio e pepe tonight. You know, for research purposes.

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