We’ve long been told that carbohydrate-rich pasta is not our friend if we want to lose weight but a new study straight out of the pasta-loving country Italy says this is certainly not the case. Italian researchers have found that eating that bowl of pasta could actually help you maintain a healthy weight.

A study using survey details of 23,000 participants showed people who ate pasta were less likely to be obese and it also backed-up a recent smaller U.S. study that showed eating pasta had no negative impact on BMI measurements.

“We have seen that consumption of pasta, contrary to what many think, is not associated with an increase in body weight, rather the opposite. Our data shows that enjoying pasta according to individuals’ needs contributes to a healthy body mass index, lower waist circumference and better waist-hip ratio.,” stated lead author of the study, George Pounis.

The problem, however, may come in the high fat, high salt and high sugar sauces that people put on their pasta dishes that could do the most harm. The study was also part of a wider Mediterranean diet – a diet that has fast become one of the healthiest diets to follow – and so pasta has to be taken into account without isolation.

Dr Gunter Kuhnle, Associate Professor in Nutrition and Health at the University of Reading said, “in this study, people who consumed a lot of pasta also followed a traditional “Mediterranean diet”, which is not surprising as the study was conducted in a Mediterranean population. Pasta intake could therefore be mainly a marker for adherence to this kind of diet.”

The study has shown that carbohydrates have been unfairly demonized and with other foods such as eggs, butter and salt, these foods are slowly starting to be redeemed.

Details of the study were published in the journal Nutrition & Diabetes.