Legume pasta: better than pasta but not legumes

Four to seven servings of legumes a week: that is AESAN's recommendation for your health and that of the planet.

If your diet doesn't reach those numbers even if you count the salted peanuts in your appetizer, why have you forgotten about them?

Because they are vulgar, because you mistakenly believe that

they make you fat

, or because you find it difficult to cook them?

No problem: the food industry comes to the rescue to get Schröndinger's legume: the legume that is not a legume, the pasta that is not pasta;

the best of each world.

Legume pasta!

Yes, made with 100% legume flour: eating this has to be just like chickpea stew, but with more desire.

I'm afraid appearances can be deceiving.

Is it legally pasta?

We know that you don't go to the supermarket dressed in a toga and with the BOE under your arm checking if each label complies with the regulations.

But the names matter a lot because they generate expectations in consumers that can tip the balance towards the final objective: that we put the product in the cart.

If they didn't have influence, do you think meat producers would fight in Europe so that soy protein balls couldn't be called meatballs?

Or that a battle would have been fought to be able to add fats other than cocoa butter to chocolate and still call it chocolate?

Well no.

It is done because the name is accompanied by intangible attributes that imply finding a place in your little consumer heart, or being relegated to the mental section of “I want to and I can't”.

'Legume pasta' does not fall within the legislation that applies to the pasta we know, those traditional macaroni, spaghetti or noodles.

'Traditional' pasta is legally a 'food pasta' that is characterized by being made from semolina, semolina or durum, semi-hard or soft wheat flour to which water is added (and may contain other ingredients, including legumes, but the base is the wheat).

If you are thinking about what happens with 'pasta with vegetables': pasta with tomato or spinach is authentic pasta for all purposes, for the legislation and for your diet.

Adding 2% vegetables to the pasta is not going to change anything other than the color, so don't expect it to be equivalent to one serving.

The typical colorinespixabay pasta

It is time to make one thing very clear: legume pasta tastes like legumes.

It seems obvious, but more than one feels that

we have been deceived

when you put the spirals of chickpeas with tomato in your mouth and they taste... like chickpeas with tomato.

From here on, if

you look at

the packaging of those lentil

fusilli

that you have decided to eat, you will find that the term “pasta” is used - correct because it describes the product -, but it has lost its last name “alimenticia”, which only It applies to “real” pasta.

Is it really equivalent to eating legumes?

Let's go with the nutritional ranking: as stated in this study on structural, culinary, nutritional and anti-nutritional properties of high-protein, gluten-free and 100% legume pasta, the wheat semolina used for traditional pasta has approximately 13% protein, 2% fiber and 78% starch.

In comparison, legume flour wins by a landslide by having a large proportion of protein - between 24-28% which, due to its amino acids, is of higher quality than that of wheat;

plenty of fiber, between 11-31%;

and a much lower proportion of starch, between 46-58%.

Another point in favor is that a large part of the “antinutrients” in legumes are reduced during the cooking of the pasta.

One more advantage, which we are throwing away: do the gases produced by legumes turn you into a new source of renewable energy?

Well, this won't happen to you with legume pasta, because the responsible oligosaccharides (stachyose and verbascose) are reduced to a minimum.

All very promising, right?

Until the harsh reality arrives.

They give a lot of gas, yesJuliaLaich

But let's get to the heart of the matter, that in nutrition making equivalences is not so simple: in El Comidista we have talked many times about the importance of the food matrix, that is, how the compounds are arranged within foods and the relationships that are established between them.

Knowing what the nutrients are in each raw material is essential to know it and have an idea of ​​what effects it can have on our health, but with that alone we do not have a complete vision.

The science of nutrition is advancing and now we are beginning to establish with scientific evidence two ideas that may intuitively disorient us: that nutrients separately do not act the same in our body as when they are in the original food, and that the state in which the Food affects our ability to take advantage of the nutrients it contains.

A couple of practical examples

We all know the benefit of fiber for medium and long-term health (improvement of intestinal transit and reduction of cardiovascular risk, colorectal cancer or type 2 diabetes, for example).

However, as indicated by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, part of these benefits may be due to the fact that fiber from natural sources is accompanied by bioactive compounds that amplify the positive effect on health and, in addition, it is found in foods that are healthy in as a whole and do not contain problematic nutrients such as salt or saturated fat.

This does not happen when fiber is added as an ingredient, which is what happens in “cookies with fiber”, “cereals with fiber” or “dairy with fiber”.

Focusing on nutrients separately has been the perfect excuse for the evil part of the food industry to take a cool nutrient, pack it into an unhealthy food and have one more claim to sell us their monstrosities as if they were healthy.

The format matters (a lot)

Returning to our legume pasta, let us recognize that we have tortured them, pulverized them to make flour, hydrated, extruded and dried them in a process equivalent to that carried out with wheat flour or semolina to obtain “traditional” pasta.

If extrusion sounds like a Bavarian dialect to you, it is because it is a technological process typical of the industry that, in a very basic way, consists of advancing food in paste form along a closed tank pushed by an endless screw.

On the other side of the tank there is a nozzle through which the dough comes out in the shape that you want to give to the food.

When it passes through the nozzle, the food is no longer the same: the structure of its carbohydrates and proteins has changed, enzymes such as lipoxygenases have been activated and have transformed part of the lipids.

Its nutrients are still there, but in a different form.

This does not necessarily imply that all its properties have been lost or that it has been transformed into an unhealthy food.

The reality is that we do not have data on what happens if we eat legumes in pasta form because the scientific evidence on the beneficial effect of legumes on our health is extensive, but it is based on consumption in traditional formats.

Claiming that they are nutritionally equivalent to whole cooked legumes after all the journey they have been through is practically an act of faith.

Better whole and cooked, of courseJulia Laich

So, is it worth it or pass?

I know, I just turned legume panacea into frustration.

Your “discovery” to eat legumes without realizing it, your allies to eat “pasta” every day, your wild card so that the children would not complain because there are chickpeas: everything in the trash.

There is good news;

Legume pasta is worse than legumes, but better than traditional pasta - including colorinchis

pasta

- and it is another option for people who have a diagnosed problem with gluten.

Of course, fame costs and here you are going to start paying much more than any variety of traditional pasta: more than double in the leading brands (from 3.18 euros per kilo to 7.96) and up to seven times more in some brands white (from 1.46 euros per kilo to 9.56).

That the price of gluten-free pasta was already crazy?

Duplicate it to purchase this version.

If this comparison between pasta hurts, do it with legumes even more, since they cost at least twice as much as the dry ones from top brands and up to four times more if we choose white label ones.

Let's say you've become infatuated and that's not going to come between you and your new love: How can you consider eating her?

Making it the natural substitute for pasta, but not for legumes.

Were you going to make some macaroni with tomato?

Let them be lentils.

Were you thinking of preparing some chickpeas with anchovies, tuna and spinach?

Keep the original format (and don't cheat on solitaire).

What influence does the structure of the food have?

At this point the clearest case is found with the difference between drinking orange juice or the same orange but whole, or the difference between using date paste to sweeten homemade pastries or eating some dates by bite: the first options are insane, the second ones are magnificent.

We have only squeezed or crushed, but in that process we have released the sugars that are going to behave basically like table sugar (I know they have more nutrients and blablabla, but if we want to reduce our consumption of free sugar, that's not it) .

Or those vegetable drinks with almonds that do not contain anything, no sugar in their ingredients, but in which the technological process causes the complex carbohydrates to be broken down - hydrolyzed, in chemical terms - into simple sugars and, wow! , they transform them into drinks with as much sugar as soft drinks. 

Not to mention the paradox of nuts: they are highly caloric, they are full of fat... and yet they are not related to weight gain.

Let's try taking the same calories from pastries or pizzas, and see what happens.

The reasons why this happens are explained by my colleague Julio Basulto in “Why don't nuts make you fat?”

and it seems that the structure has a lot to do with it. 

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