Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis That's Amore (Colorized) | 3:35
Color History | 2.11K subscribers | 111,803 views | January 2, 2020
Posted on 02/02/2024 6:53:47 PM PST by nickcarraway
Who isn't happy slurping a string of spagetti?
The next time you’ve had a less-than-great day, or your mood dips, or you listen to two or more Lewis Capaldi songs in a row, apparently, there’s one simple way to make yourself feel better: by eating a bowl of pasta. That’s the word, according to a study conducted by the Behavioral and Brain Lab at the Free University of Languages and Communication IULM in Milan, Italy.
For this study, IULM researchers recruited 40 participants between the ages of 25 and 55 years old, measured their physical and neurological changes as they ate pasta, and then compared those responses to the reactions the participants had while listening to their favorite songs or watching a sporting event. According to the researchers, eating pasta was more effective than sports or music at “activating cognitive memory processes,” which is a fancy way of saying that it helped the participants remember or recall specific things (although the researchers have not elaborated on what those things were).
Eating pasta also bested both music and sporting events when it comes to generating positive emotions, which makes us wonder how you say “Buffalo Bills fan” in Italian. Finally, the researchers watched and quantified the participants’ facial expressions and determined that a bowl of pasta was equally likely to be an “indicator of happiness” as that person’s favorite song, and it was significantly more likely to generate positive facial expressions than watching sport.
23 Go-To Pasta Recipes You'll Make for the Rest of Your Life “Through this study, science has put itself at the service of emotions to certify that pasta and happiness are one,” Vincenzo Russo, a Professor of Consumer Psychology and Neuromarketing at IULM University and the Founder and Coordinator of the Neuromarketing Behavior & Brain Lab IULM, said in a statement. “The results tell us that it is precisely when we eat pasta that we are most emotionally active. It is, therefore, the real act of tasting and savoring the dish in its full flavor to stimulate the most positive memories and emotions.”
The participants were also asked to answer the question “When do you eat pasta?” and the most common responses were related to having meals with one’s family, with “friendship,” or just “when I feel happy.” In addition, when asked how happy eating pasta made them feel, 76% of the study participants responded, “A lot.” Less than half (40%) of respondents said that they considered pasta to be a comfort food, but perhaps that’s due to Italy’s high per-capita pasta consumption: the researchers added that almost all Italians (a whopping 99%) eat pasta an average of five times every week.
As interesting as this study might be, it’s worth taking with a grain of salt … or with one strand of spaghetti. As of this writing, it has not been peer-reviewed or published in an academic journal, and it was also conducted on behalf of Unione Italiana Food, a trade organization that represents — you guessed it — Italy’s pasta producers.
“We have always known that a good plate of pasta makes people happy, but we did not know why and to what extent,” Riccardo Felicetti, president of Unione Italiana Food’s pasta makers. “Now, the official confirmation comes from this research that we commissioned from IULM, in which pasta is chosen as the food of happiness, or as we pasta-makers like to say, with the best happiness/price ratio.”
So go ahead and have that bowl of pasta the next time you need a little mood boost. We’re talking to you too, Lewis Capaldi.
Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis That's Amore (Colorized) | 3:35
Color History | 2.11K subscribers | 111,803 views | January 2, 2020
Every Italian knows Marco Polo took noodles to China.
Amazing you found the perfect picture.
As to the science, I now can confidently say I like eating pasta. Up to today my feelings were mixed, conflicting and confused. 🍝
When I had Covid, I binged daily on spaghetti mixed with cream of chicken soup. I craved it - it was crazy. As much as I love pasta, I backed away after I recovered, but even today I could eat a large bowl.
I learned in High School Biology in 1979 that simple carbohydrates like the flour in pasta are one gut enzyme away from being a pile of sugar.
Of course you feel good.
The thing that amazes me about pasta is that the same basic recipe can be, and is, made into so many different shapes, and that eating the particular shapes gives unique eating pleasures.
Pasta makes me very happy.
Heh, yeah, I got lucky with that one. :^)
I used to eat a lot more of it, back when I was thin and young and pretty. That’s probably part of the reason I ain’t now. I ate at a restaurant in, hmm somewhere upstate NY, called “Pastabilities” and enjoyed it, and more or less locally here I used to go to the higher-end Italian restaurant for their “Pound of Pasta” and “Oodles of Noodles”.
Yep, it’s the high carbs.
You’re being fusilli.
Being on a low-carb diet, I miss pasta....a lot.
there’s one simple way to make yourself feel better: by eating a bowl of pasta.
I knew it! Follow the science!
[And no, the Chinese didn’t invent it...]
But didn’t measure against enjoying any other meal, and only 40 subjects.
Who sponsored this, Barilla?
Ah, just read through. Barilla, et al., via their trade group.
There’s a good study for sure!
I, for one!
I was brought up in a household of Scandinavian parents, and ate my first plate of spaghetti with meat balls on a date in college. I had thought it was some sort of foreign delicacy. I found out that it was just a slopy, messy pungent waste of money. I really liked the atmosphere of 'Moma Rosa's' literal 'hole in the wall' restaurant, just not the food.
Love pasta, but stopped eating it for the most part years ago. Friday night pizza on the other hand...
But ... lutefisk!
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