> I agree with you, but pasta is only 37% carbs. So 270g pasta (that's enough for 2 people!) and 100g sugar would need to be compared.
Curiously, we're mixing cooked vs. uncooked. I've always been using dry pasta weight as reference (as the pasta is weighted before), but in context, your observations are more precise :)
> I could never figure out why. [...] long pasta like that should be with an oil/cream based sauce.
You're doing the same thing you are complaining about: Postulating something as an axiom but not even trying to explain why you think it may be the case.
Anyway, as another commenter said, the commonly stated reason for oil in the cooking water is to stop the pasta sticking together. The commonly stated reason against oil in the cooking water is that it coats the pasta and makes it harder for the sauce to stick to it.
I hate to come off as a snarky purist, but there isn't need to go to weird italofusion combinations if you want variable, vegetable heavy diet based around rice, pasta, or legumes. In South Italy we cook vegetable and olive oil based sauces in the time it takes to boil water and cook the pasta. Then you mix these together while finishing the cooking of the drained pasta. Every single vegetable is fair game. You just need a good source of fat, which is served by olive oil. The pasta or lentil base gives you protein enough that you only seek meat or heavier protein sources every fourth meal or so.
Fettuccine alfredo.
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