White pasta has one of the best insulin indexes of common foods. They're complex, not simple. Common misconception.

True. Over time, I noticed less undesirable weight fluctuation and even weight loss when eating pasta. Also, it felt like a light meal.

The trick is to not eat pasta with bread. Many people forget about the bread that they commonly combine with pasta and then blame the bloating and weight gain on the pasta that they had.

I'd imagine that cutting out red sauce, which commonly has added sucrose, would be better still.

Pasta is unique in that it seems to be beneficial, in terms of glycemic load, when eaten on its own. But combining it with other foods, but especially bread, may render it more taxing than other foods.

Which is a common trait of food combinations.

And wine to circle back to our topic at hand.

But simple pasta and fish dishes appear quite often in the "blue zones" around the globe. Something I should do a better job of eating more of.

Yes and: As you know, sucrose is composed of glucose (good) and fructose (bad). As I understand it, fruit has fiber which protects the body from fructose (blocks metabolism), and we still benefit from the glucose.

I still add sugar and honey and other sweets to my drink and food. Cuz I'm a fiend. But I do now try very hard to avoid straight fructose.