Malaysian couple make veggie pasta for kids
“It was like wartime when we gave them greens. Yet, when we gave them mac and cheese or spaghetti, they loved it. But when we included carrots and broccoli with their pasta, they just ate the pasta and left the vegetables,” says Faris, laughing.
Faris and Aida looked for vegetable-pasta options at the supermarket, but were discouraged when they realised the vegetables were in powder form and only formed about 2 percent of the content. So, they decided to learn to make pasta themselves and went to Bologna, Italy, to master the art.
Vegetable-infused pasta is made with just flour and puree of steamed vegetables. The percentage of vegetables to pasta is somewhere between 40 and 50 percent, depending on whether additional water is required to soften the vegetable during the pureeing process. Once they had perfected their recipes, Aida and Faris went a step further by verifying the nutritional content of their pasta with Mardi. According to straitstimes.com, the results showed that their mixed veggie pasta contained 15.35g of fibre per 100g serving. By comparison, traditional pasta contains about 2.5g of fibre, while whole wheat pasta has about 5g.
“We wanted to prove that our pasta is not a gimmick because for those who are concerned about eating healthy food, they should be able to know the nutritional facts. After all, we are feeding this to our sons, so it has to be good.” says Aida.
