As an Italian-American, my fondest memories are of coming home from school to mom cooking a massive pot of spaghetti and homemade garlic bread, or getting takeout pizza as a family on Friday nights.
But as much as I love pasta and a slice, they don’t exactly love me. As I’ve gotten older, increasingly they leave me bloated and fatigued for hours post-meal.
Like many Americans, I’d heard stories about Americans traveling to Europe and being able to eat anything without bloating like they would at home.
So you can imagine my excitement as I prepared for my honeymoon in Italy last month, the Mecca for carb lovers like myself.
I decided the trip would be a perfect time to test for myself whether something genuinely different happened, physiologically, when I ate my favorite dishes there versus at home.
I wore a continuous glucose monitor (CGM), a device inserted under the skin that monitors the amount of sugar in your blood.
Big spikes and dips are often responsible for the tiredness, dehydration and other negative symptoms people feel after over-indulging.
I logged my results for a week before my trip and then during the first week of my honeymoon and the results were, quite frankly, startling.
Like many Americans, I’d been told that pasta and pizza in Italy would make me feel less bloated and fatigued than the US. I used my Italian honeymoon to put this theory to the test
On the left is a typical bowl of pasta I make at home in New York. On the right is one of the best pastas I ate during my trip to Italy. Despite the decadence of it, my blood sugar never spiked
I used a device called Stelo that gets injected into the arm with a small needle and stays there for weeks.
It measures the amount of glucose in the interstitial fluid, a body fluid that surrounds cells and tissues.
According to the company, a normal blood glucose level for a non-diabetic is 70 to 140 mg/dl (milligrams per deciliter of blood).
Any time my levels spiked or went over this threshold, I would get a notification on my phone, and a prompt would come up and ask me to explain what I was doing and eating around that time.
During the first half of the experiment, I consistently noticed spikes after dinner, especially if pasta or rice were part of the meal – which was often.
White, brown, and yellow rice constantly found themselves in my dishes around dinnertime because they’re versatile and take relatively little effort or time.
But within 30 minutes of eating, Stelo would alert me that my blood sugar would go from 80 mg/dl to about 130 in just a few minutes, gradually climbing above the normal range.
The same went for pasta, which I tried to pair with vegetables and light sauces to make it healthier.
Maybe it was the food, or maybe it was the bliss of no longer having to plan a wedding, but my blood sugar never spiked after lunch or dinner during my first week in Rome.
Whether it was a bowl of carbonara at a sit-down restaurant or a trapizzino – an Italian pizza pocket – or gelato from a street vendor, my levels stayed steady.
And the bloating and fatigue I normally get at home never set in.
Even after my fair share of pizza and gelato in Rome (left) and Florence (right), I didn’t have any blood sugar spikes. However, walking up to 15,000 steps a day could have helped lower my levels
My blood sugar consistently jumped up after eating food in the US (shown left) but it never spiked after lunch or dinner in Italy (shown right)
Even the five-course meal we made during a cooking class, which included three separate pasta courses, didn’t cause any high glucose alerts.
Experts believe the ultra-processed nature of US food versus European products may play a role.
A box of Barilla Spaghetti in the US, for example, contains the additives niacin, iron, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, and folic acid, plus semolina wheat flour.
Many of these ingredients which used to make food last longer have been linked to blood-sugar problems and diabetes.
Italian pasta, meanwhile, is usually made with just semolina wheat flour and water, leaving out the preservatives.
And science suggests the lack of processed foods could have real benefits.
A 2022 study in The Journal of Nutrition, for example, found pasta that is less processed tends to digest slower, slowing down the rate that glucose enters the blood.
Italians also follow the tradition of cooking pasta ‘al dente,’ which translates to ‘to the tooth.’ This means it has a firmer texture that takes more effort to chew, slowing down digestion.
Amie Alexander, a registered dietitian at Nutri Peak in Australia, told DailyMail.com that portion sizes also tend to be smaller, with Italians eating several small courses at a time. Pasta is typically the first course (primo), followed by meat or fish (secondi) and dessert.
She said: ‘Meals are also combined with other nutrient-dense foods, such as vegetables, which can further blunt blood sugar responses.’
Pizza also has important differences, Dr Daniel Atkinson, Clinical Lead at Treated.com, told DailyMail.com.
He said: often made Neopolitan-style, with a thin crust and minimal toppings beyond fresh tomato sauce and mozzarella.
‘The dough used is usually free from fat and sugar, so overall, eating pizza in Italy might be adding fewer calories to your daily intake than you think.
‘Most pizza will cause some kind of blood sugar increase, but the thinner crust on Italian pizza means it will more than likely have a lower glycemic index overall compared to American versions.’
But in the US, many restaurants use sugar in their dough and sauces to help enhance the flavor.
‘This added sugar in US pizza could, in theory, partly explain why blood sugar spikes may be more severe compared to those experienced in Italy,’ Dr Atkinson added.
Experts also told me that my increased steps could be playing a role: I was averaging 15,000 steps a day and on my feet constantly compared to around 5,000-7,000 on a normal day in the States.
Walking after a meal has consistently been shown to help food digest more quickly and gas move throughout the digestive system easier, preventing bloating.
One 2022 study even found that a two-minute walk after eating helps lower blood sugar levels because muscles will soak up extra glucose in the bloodstream.
Ms Alexander told DailyMail.com: ‘Physical activity such as walking after meals increases muscles’ efficiency in absorbing glucose, thus reducing blood sugar.
‘Walking is very much embedded in daily life in many European cities, which can really have a great impact on digestion and metabolic health.’
The above is a glucose spike notification I got after breakfast one morning in Italy. I would consistently have spikes around this time, which could be due to me eating more food than I normally do
Alcohol has also been shown to raise blood sugar, as sweet mixed drinks can contain carbohydrates. However, these spritzes in Venice left me feeling refreshed
I wasn’t entirely immune from blood-sugar spikes while in Italy — I did get them after breakfast.
I’m not much of a breakfast person normally. I’m usually running late and only have time for a couple hard-boiled eggs or a toasted waffle.
But in Rome, Florence, and Venice, I made sure to savor the continental breakfasts, which usually included some combination pastries, yogurt, eggs, greens, and cappuccino.
It’s possible I was getting spikes around this time since my body isn’t used to eating breakfast, and I was picking high-sugar options.
At the end of my Italy trip, my average glucose was 101 mg/dl, and I spent 96 percent of the time within the target range.
Even though I had fewer spikes overall, I spent about the same amount of time in target range.
I am amazed at how energetic and healthy I felt even while nidulging in my favorite foods in Italy, and I’ll definitely be checking ingredients lists in the US more often.
I think I’ll also incorporate an after-dinner walk whenever we’re eating Italian food back home.
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Read more at DailyMail.co.uk