It may sound too good to be true but it’s not this time! A new product called Racconto® Essentials Pasta combines premium pasta with plant sterols, substances naturally occurring in plants that help reduce cholesterol. Racconto® also offers tomato basil pasta sauce, and roasted garlic pasta sauce, both with 0.4 grams of plant sterols per serving.
Plant sterols work by preventing cholesterol from being absorbed into your bloodstream. This causes the cholesterol to be eliminated with waste instead of clogging arteries. In fact, the FDA supports plant sterols as a health claim because experts and significant scientific research demonstrates their effectiveness at lowering cholesterol. Foods that have at least 0.4 gram of plant sterols per serving can put these claims on the label, but it’s important to note you need twice that (0.8 gram of sterols) to shake up your cholesterol levels.
The pasta and sauce should start appearing on store shelves if they aren’t there already. However, pasta isn’t the only food available that contain plant sterols. Margarine spreads (such as Benecol and Take Control), beverages (such as Minute Maid Heart Wise and Rice Dream Heartwise) and snacks (such as Nature Valley Healthy Heart Chewy Granola Bars) all contain these beneficial compounds. I do caution, with the butter spreads, don’t to overdo it. If you aren’t typically eating them, don’t add more even if it contains plant sterols due to the high amount of fat and calories.
In addition to these foods that add plant sterols, many foods are natural sources of these same phytochemicals. You can find plant sterols and stanol esters in healthful plant foods such as legumes, whole wheat (in the wheat bran and wheat germ), nuts and canola and olive oil.
If you want to ensure you are getting enough plant sterols to really make a difference with your cholesterol levels, you can also supplement with it. One of my favorite plant sterol supplements is Moduchol. Moduchol contains 1.3 grams of plant sterol esters per 2 capsules. You can also find them in several cholesterol complexes like Vital Choice Cholesterol Support. It contains .8 grams of plant sterols as well as other supportive supplements like policosanol, garlic, niacin and oat bran.
–Nicole Gould, RD LD
