Pasta provides steady energy.  Cooking pasta perfectly ‘al dente’ (still slightly firm) allows you to reap the full benefits of pasta’s already strong ability to increase satiety, delaying hunger pangs and providing fuel for working muscles long after meals. Due to the special protein structure of traditional pasta dough, pasta has a low to medium glycemic index (GI) value depending on the cut, which means that the body digests it more slowly than most other carbohydrates. That’s true for pasta that’s made from either soft or hard wheat. To keep the GI value low, cook your pasta to ‘al dente.’