Can Cold Pasta Help You Lose Weight?

No matter how good you are at cooking (by feel), the same thing always happens to us when simply making pasta: it becomes too much. The amount of pasta can rarely be matched to the level of hunger. Often this means that there will be pasta for the next three days.

Anyone who grimaces at the high-carb food can breathe a sigh of relief. Because: Pasta doesn’t taste good the next day, but it is also very good for your health – at least if you eat it cold. As the pasta cools after cooking, the starch it contains is converted into resistant starch. This starch, in turn, becomes food for our gut bacteria – the ones that also help us lose weight.

About a hundred trillion microorganisms and thousands of strains of different bacteria live in our colon. They form the natural intestinal flora, also called the microbiome. However, they not only live there, they also produce metabolic products and are partly responsible for how healthy we are. When positive bacteria predominate in our intestines, we tend to be healthier and vice versa.

According to the “standard”, we can positively influence the bacteria that influence our overall health not only through our weight, but also through our diet – for example, if we feed them with resistant starch from cold pasta.

According to a new study in the journal ‘Nature Metabolism’, this is not only good for our gut, but also helps increase metabolic end products, helping us lose weight.

Resistant starches are fiber and are found in starchy foods such as pasta and potatoes. Compared to regular starch, it cannot be digested in the small intestine. Only in the large intestine is it fermented by microorganisms and becomes the main source of energy for the cells in the mucous membrane. This simultaneously means: Some of the starch becomes indigestible – and therefore provides no calories, reports the magazine of the Techniker Krankenkasse.

Like other fibers, resistant starch keeps you full longer. This also helps to save calories. However, the calorie content of the pasta does not decrease so much just by cooling it that you practically only lose weight. So if you’ve actually set yourself the goal of losing weight, you need to pay attention to your overall calorie balance.

If you know this, you would rather eat a plate of cold pasta, even if you are on a diet.