I don't feel guilty eating pasta; why do you feel guilty? Rice, pasta, potatoes, bread - these are important sources of energy. They are good for you m'dear.
They are only bad when you eat loaaaaaaaaaaaaads and when you smother them in high fat things like butter, cream, sourcream, cheese and oil. And even then, if you were not on a diet you could easily eat a bit of any of those things and the'd be fine.
When i am on my bike tour, i will eat 250g of pasta a day probably. If I only have it for dinner, i will only eat 125g. Here at home, i eat 100g in a meal, though before i started my diet i would eat 125 grams per serve and with 1 lidful of more of olive oil (probably about 3tsp) and at least 1tbsp of parmesan cheese. I could eat that every night and yes it would make me constipated.
If you are eating wholewheat pasta that's probably helping with the loo issues.
If i were a meat eater, i would probably not eat more than 1 cup of cook pasta in a meal when there is meat in it. But if you are having a vegetarian meal, then I think 100g is perfectly acceptable. I think 100g is about 1.5 cups of cooked pasta.
Do you understand about the balance between complex carbohydrates, proteins and fats in a diet. Do you know what the function of each of these foods is for the body. Carbs has a bad rap but the message has been sold so badly and people have misunderstood it. icecream and cakes and deepfried battered foods are bad carbs. They are bad because while they give you energy, it doesn't last long and with it, there are many many calories and there are few other nutrients in the food.
But when you eat pasta or rice or bread they are frequently served with vegetables and when they are done properly, they are not serve with lots of fats, so all up the whole meal is very healthy, giving you energy, fibre, vitamins and minerals, protein and perhaps a little bit of fat too. If you look at any nutrition pie, you will see that the biggest portion of the pie is complex carbohydrates like bread, pasta, rice and potatoes. That's because of the energy demands of the body and because carbohydrates are the single most important source of energy for the body, especially the brain. Along with carbohydrates when the body burns this up for energy, fat is burned along with it. Its like the way in a 2 stroke engine you mix oil in with the petrol. We put oil in the car too but it doesn't go straight in the fuel. They do different jobs but we need them both to make the car go well.
Now i hope you won't feel guilty for eating pasta anymore.
