Flour is crazy full of calories. Crapton full. I was gobsmacked to learn it the first time I ever went counting calories.

I don't have any suggestions for you in terms of what causes you to get snoozy after eating certain things but not others...might be additional fiber, might be other things...but whatever kind of flour you use, it's packed with calories.

yeah. that's true when i first started looking at nutrition labels i was surprised by how many calories slices of bread had (like 80 per slice?) which if you go and eat 4 slices in one sitting (2 sandwiches) means it adds up quite quick before you've eaten anythign else

i find that as i try to eat healthy and move away from meat and fried things i find myself relying on wheat products a lot (brown bread, chapati, dalia, etc.) and I was pondering this a bit (i of course mix in a lot of veggies but not many fruits yet) but if you think about it there just aren't that many food groups out there

Here's a great overview/site from harvard: The Nutrition Source. There just isn't much there--you got cereals, pulses/beans, fruits and veggies, protein. So if you're trying to avoid a lot of meat you *have* to lean on cereals to be 'full'. I mean if I just eat some green veggies with a spoon i'd stay hungry

On January 1 this year I stopped eating meat -- including red meat, poultry, and pork. I do eat seafood, fish, dairy, and eggs. I'm not having trouble to date feeling hungry -- and I'm not eating a lot of flour/cereal. I find the trick for me is to always include some protein with every meal, and keep the meals small and to eat every 2-3 hours. Proteins I like include lower fat cheese, yogurt, nuts, quinoa, beans, lentils, and sometimes fish or seafood or egg.

So, I agree I wouldn't just eat some green veggies. But green veggies in a bean soup, or tossed with some quinoa, or with a slice of cheese -- that's a lot more filling.

I do eat a half cup of cereal most AMs, and sometimes a slice of whole wheat bread with soup for lunch, and occasionally a small serving of whole wheat pasta with veggies/sauce and salad for dinner, but I don't think a heay reliance on grain/flour is required to eat a meat free det.

People also have a tendency to overeat pasta. It goes down pretty easy, and 1 cup doesn't look like a lot, though in food value terms it is. A pasta-based meal can still be really healthy, on balance, if you are mixing in lots of veggies and maybe protein and not using cheesy/creamy/super oily sauces.

Flour = fuel. Whole wheat = fuel + fiber + other nutritional goodness. Don't consume more fuel than you burn. Consume the fuel with the highest ratio of nutritional benefits:calories. The people who say not to eat pasta also say not to eat bread and rice.

thx for the responses. that's interesting bearwife yeah I do find myself often craving something with the 'chewiness' of meat based protein so I often use paneer but other options are like minced soy or tuna etc. It doesn't have to be protein-ish in constitution just in texture

I also remember my shock when I first calculated the bread calories in two sandwiches. For a moment, I honestly doubted the validity of multiplication. The problem is when you start reading labels for something better, the game becomes give and take, like less salt but more fat.

Consider that flour is made up of starch, which is just a long chain of glucose molecules, making it a nice, stable energy storage for seeds. The problem with white flour isn't so much the calories, but the fact that it's so easily digested and raises your blood sugar level very quickly. So while you're eating your blood sugar rises rapidly, then falls, and it makes you tired. That's my theory, and I'm sticking to it.

Flour is an easy example to use to explain what is meant by processed versus whole foods. White flour is processed to remove a whole bunch of stuff so you're basically left with mostly starch with some protein. Whole wheat flour has all that, but also all the fiber and other goodies that reside in the germ.

So, the interesting thing is that if you eat whole wheat flour, it doesn't raise your blood sugar level crazily because of the complex nature of it. Rather, your blood sugar is better regulated by your body as it digests the whole grain. It's a whole food with fiber, protein, and carbohydrates, and your body processes it differently. This is a simple example of a food interaction, and something that's not really well studied.

Lots of scientists focus on ingredients that will be in food that are healthful, and will think just having that one ingredient will make people healthier. Think of all the foods now that have "Omega 3 Acids" added. It isn't that simple, and you can see that in the example of flour. That's why you hear from many now that a diet of whole foods is better for you than the highly processed ones.

yeah I remember looking at a billboard in the Boston subway that said pomagrantes have X ingredient that's good for you therefore... drink our Pomegranate juice. It's like "come on"

the harvard nutrition site i linked says that people may be overdoing the whole folic acid thing

Yes, we've lost sight of foods as wholes interacting with a whole system (us). Michael Pollan calls it "Nutritionism" - didn't realize it but it seems he popularized the term, didn't originate it. BUt it's a useful idea.

Dissenter: I don't think it is true that bread, pasta, potatoes, rice "carbs" really are as bad as they're painted.

Sugar and fat are the main problems since they have a very high energy density: lots of calories per gram, so you can consume lots of calories very easily without even noticing.

People who are very serious or extreme about dieting tend to eliminate sugar and fat early on and quite easily, then later put a huge and not very successful attempt to cut down on "carbs" which takes much longer, so they talk about "carbs" a lot more.

I'm a big fan of counting calories if you're trying to lose weight. Eat and drink as you normally do for a week but write everything down and work out, just roughly, the number of calories in everything (use nutritiondata or Google the food name and calories). If pasta's a problem it will show up there, but I suspect for most people it's not the biggest problem.

Examples. 100g of cooked spaghetti has 157 kcal. 100g of butter has 717 calories. 100g of sugar has 387 kcal.

One way to to think of it is like this. Now a healthy guy burns 2500 kcal per day. If for one day he just ate spaghetti, just enough to supply him with energy, he'd be eating 1.6 kilograms or 3.5 pounds of spaghetti. This would leave him pretty full and satisfied. It would be quite hard to eat so much spaghetti you get fat if all you ate was spaghetti. So as a contributor to you getting fat, spaghetti is not that bad.

By contrast, if he ate just butter, he'd be eating just 348g or 0.77lbs. If you're eating a rich sauce with a lot of butter in, then it's very easy to eat more than your calorie limit and still be hungry because you haven't filled your stomach with much stuff. So as a contributor to you getting fat, butter can be pretty bad.

100 g (3.5 oz) is a small portion of spaghetti, but I would be hard pressed to go through that much butter or sugar in two weeks.

yeah i'm coming to the conclusion that the issue that makes it different from other carbs can have to do with the sauces and/or portion sizes. During Ramadan a couple years ago my weight done f'ing exploded when I ate pasta at every iftar (when you resume eating in the evening) but I think I ate an incredible amount each time. So if you haven't eaten all day of course you gotta pace it out so your body knows what's going on

Theophile Escargot is broaching the concept that bulk is important. Foods with a low calorie density or low numbers of calories per gram - like salads, fresh vegetables, watermelon, popcorn - can be extremely filling while not delivering that many calories, because their simple fibrous or airy bulk fills the stomach. Meanwhile, foods with high calorie density - fats have the highest calories per gram of any macronutrient - pack lots of calories into small portions. It is much easier to eat too many calories when eating high-calorie-density foods. Sauces, dips, processed foods like cookies, chips, and crackers which contain vegetable oils and butter, and animal fats like those in cheese, dairy products and meats are more calorie-dense. It doesn't seem like you're eating a lot, portion-wise, but calorie-wise you can be sinking the ship.

Sugars, oddly, don't have that high a caloric density - it's about equal to protein. One of the problems with sugars is that most of the time, sugar is prepared with fat in recipes (cakes, cookies, muffins, etc), ramping up the total calories. But there are sugary snacks, like meringues for instance, which aren't very calorie dense.

Rule of thumb: fats = 9 calories per gram; proteins and sugars/carbohydrates = about 4 calories per gram.

Then there's the absorption rate that eekacat talks about. Complex carbohydrates absorb more slowly than simple ones, meaning that you can feel more satisfied longer by eating complex carbs. They also contain more micronutrients so are probably better for you.

As far as general 'richness,' on the whole food spectrum, pasta is about a medium. It's not like eating a bowl of butter, but it's also not like eating a salad. That pasta will have about 4 calories per gram, and eating it quickly, especially dressed with oil, a condensed sauce like tomato sauce, nuts or cheeses will mean you take in a fair number of calories. Pasta can definitely be a part of a great, healthy, balanced diet with no calorie excess, but portion control is a must. When keeping to a pretty tight calorie plan, I generally have to cut it off at 1 c. pasta in the whole meal, and mix that with lots of fresh veggies such as broccoli raab or red peppers, and serve the whole thing with side salad, in order to feel like I have a satisfying meal without going over on calories.

What Miko said. It's worth bearing in mind that sugar, butter and fat are often hidden. You might think you don't get through 100g of sugar in two weeks. But say you have a 16oz bottle of cola with your lunch: that's 44g of sugar, then say a King Size Snickers as an afternoon snack, that's 57g of sugar, so you have eaten 101g of sugar that day even if you don't know it.

I think things like pasta often get more attention than they deserve because they can't be hidden, so you're always aware when you eat it.

But basically if in doubt, count calories just temporarily to see where they're coming from. If you've never done it before, you might be surprised about what's better than you thought and what's worse.