Nutritional Quality of Pasta Sold on the Italian Market: The Food Labelling of Italian Products (FLIP) Study.

Marika Dello Russo,Nicoletta Pellegrini,Donato Angelino,Daniela Martini,Stefania Moccia,Carmela Spagnuolo

doi:10.3390/nu13010171

Abstract

Pasta represents a staple food in many populations and, in recent years, an increasing number of pasta items has been placed on the market to satisfy needs and trends. The aims of this work were: (i) to investigate the nutritional composition of the different types of pasta currently sold in Italy by collecting the nutrition facts on their packaging; (ii) to compare energy, nutrient and salt content per 100 g and serving in fresh and dried pasta; (iii) to compare the nutrition declaration in pairs of products with and without different declarations (i.e., gluten free (GF), organic, and nutrition claims (NC)). A total of 756 items, made available by 13 retailers present on the Italian market, were included in the analysis. Data showed a wide difference between dried and fresh pasta, with high inter-type variability. A negligible amount of salt was observed in all types of pasta, except for stuffed products, which had a median high quantity of salt (>1 g/100 g and ~1.5 g/serving). Organic pasta had higher fibre and lower protein contents compared to conventional pasta. GF products were higher in carbohydrate and fat but lower in fibre and protein than not-GF products, while only a higher fibre content was found in pasta with NC compared to products not boasting claims. Overall, the results show high variability in terms of nutrition composition among the pasta items currently on the market, supporting the importance of reading and understanding food labels for making informed food choices.

Highlights

Pasta is one of the most widespread staple foods, known at least since the time of the Etruscans, who learned how to work the wheat by grinding it, mixing it with water, levelling it in thin doughs, and cooking it on a red-hot stone
According to the nutritional characteristics of the different types of pasta, products within each category were further grouped into four pasta types
To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study which comprehensively analysed the nutritional composition of a wide range of fresh and dried pasta products sold in the Italian market

Summary

Introduction

Pasta is one of the most widespread staple foods, known at least since the time of the Etruscans, who learned how to work the wheat by grinding it, mixing it with water, levelling it in thin doughs, and cooking it on a red-hot stone. According to Italian law [1],. “dried pasta” must be made with water and durum wheat semolina, while “fresh pasta”. There are laws regarding the preparation of “special pasta”, which contains other ingredients than wheat and water: “egg pasta”, manufactured with durum wheat and hen’s eggs, and “stuffed pasta”, which includes “fresh pasta” filled with different ingredients, as in the case of ravioli or lasagne. In this scenario, the manufacturing process of pasta is continuously updated over the years to face food needs and trends.

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