DEAR DR. BLONZ >> The advice I see everywhere is to cut carbohydrates, but I am having issues with the love of pasta at our place. Where does pasta stand in relation to other carbohydrates? A negative take and need to cut will raise issues with the family, but I want to know how best to proceed.

— I.F., Phoenix, Arizona

DEAR I.F. >> Eating should be one of life’s great pleasures. If you have a healthy lifestyle and your diet is balanced with a whole-food foundation, there’s no need to obsess over whether every swallow is the epitome of health. A regular intake of candies, cookies or soda should not be mistaken as a step toward better health. However, the same can be said for diets that promote any other foods while restricting or eliminating carbs.

Your pasta dilemma reflects a problem with the current spate of low-carbohydrate pressures, some advising a broad rejection of this dietary component in all its forms — irrespective of dietary context.

Pasta comes in various forms, but classic pasta is made from semolina, a coarse flour made from milling whole kernels of durum wheat. Semolina flour is relatively high in gluten, a type of protein, and it tends to absorb less water than other flours. This characteristic gives pasta and pizza dough their chewy feel and texture when cooked. The carbohydrate content of semolina is in the same range as other wheat flours, about 100 grams per cup of flour. There are approximately 45 carbohydrate grams in a cup of cooked pasta.

Consider the Mediterranean diet, where pasta can provide a vehicle for plant-based whole-food ingredients in a healthy meal. Irrespective of its fiber content, pasta has a relatively low glycemic index (GI). (For more information on the glycemic index, see b.link/etje99a.) Note that pasta cooked al dente will have a lower GI than pasta cooked to softness. The key here is that we have the benefits of prolonged carbohydrate absorption, plus any advantages from other healthy ingredients we add to the pasta meal. There are also gluten-free pastas for those with this concern.

So, the focus should not be on carbs, but on what types, what other foods are part of the meal, and what’s going on with the rest of the diet. Then, of course, we each need to take into account where we stand with our overall health and other lifestyle factors. All these issues should be considered before rejecting pasta — or carbohydrates — entirely.

Kensington resident Ed Blonz has a PhD in nutrition from UC Davis. Email him at cctimes@blonz.com.