Menus will start to publish the amount of calories for each dish

It’s news of these days that also in UK all the restaurants and even fast food will start to include the number of calories in their menu. Following an experiment rolled out in USA in fact, this seems to be a good system to increase healthy choices in the daily diet of everyone.

It seems in fact that lots of people don’t realize the real amount of calories each dish contains and maybe having the information in front their eyes when choosing the dish can make them reflect a bit more about the type of food they could really need.

If this is for sure something that will help choosing dishes lower in calories (for who will care for the information), and it’s proven that has help lots of restaurant in creating lighter and healthier dishes, cutting down the very heavy ones, what is going to happens to the fast foods and to the composition of lots of their menu?

As Dr Christian Jessen explains in an article of these days on The Evening Standard the main consequence of this new process  it could be that “the more unscrupulous food outlets will simply process the food more, adding poor-quality filler ingredients, such as starch, to bulk the food out while reducing calorie content”.

The problem in fact is that less calories doesn’t mean healthier or better for your body. Eating food created with high quality product, organic, PGI, or just controlled and sourced in a way they can conserve all their vitamins and original good properties, it’s absolutely different from eating some chemical product with less calories or even just made with low quality ingredients. Maybe could have been good to add not just calories on the menu but a full nutritional breakdown to check what you are really ordering.

At this point, as I always suggest, the rule is one and simple: maybe eat less and in little portions, but eat the real taste of the food, high quality food, healthy and maybe even a bit more expensive, but worth the effort.

Then for what concerns pasta, it’s good for you to know that carbs are the first thing to be consumed by movement and are pure energy for the body. In particular Pastificio dei Campi pasta with its high quality grain 100% Italian and the 14% of proteins that contains, it’s a great ingredient for your daily diet and it’s so reach that can make you feel satisfied longer… so eat pasta instead to snack all day!

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No meat, not fish, but still amazing dishes

Everyone knows how much in Italy we can be attached to the traditions and to our religion (not everyone of course but a good majority) so in this time of the year, the Lent, lots of people try to be a bit more careful about their diet, if not fasting, or just about their behaviors.

It’s not of course to follow the religion in a really strict way, but more because it's a time to stop and think about the real meaning of some festivities.

Since I’m in London I have always been shocked by the Ramadan and the strength these people have to don’t eat and even drink for almost a full day. I have never tried something like this and not even the minimum limitation suggested by my religion to be sincere, but I decided to behave a bit better at least this last days before Easter.

Speaking about food I decide to indulge less in sweets and be a bit more careful about meat and fish and i was surprised by the amount of good recipes are cooked in Italy in this period. So tonight I will cook something light, perfect for the spring and finally totally vegetarian and traditional at the same time.

I will cook Pasta Mista di Gragnano with peas and potatoes. The ingredients for 2-3 people are:

- 150 g Pasta mista corta del Pastificio dei Campi

- 1 kg peas (in their pods)

- 500 g potatoes

- 1 clove garlic

- 1 l water

- Extra-virgin olive oil

- Salt and pepper

Chop the potatoes into small pieces and lightly brown them in a large casserole with the garlic and some oil, then add the peas (which have previously been soaked and then drained). Add some freshly ground pepper and salt and taste. Add a generous amount of hot water. Cover the casserole and cook for about half an hour over medium heat, making sure that the soup does not become too dense.

After half an hour add the pasta mista corta from Gragnano and let cook, mixing from time to time. Turn off the heat before the indicated cooking time is completed (8 minutes instead of 9) and let sit for 4-5 minutes before serving with some fresh olive oil and ground pepper.

Edit: Here is the picture i promised you.  I hope you will enjoy this and lots of other recipes you can find here and that can help you in this week.

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