Not Even Aldi’s Pasta Is Safe From Recipe Changes

Sound the alarm. Blow the trumpet. Light the beacons. Fly the flags at half-mast. Why? Because another Aldi recipe change has occurred. I hate to be the bearer of bad news yet again, but we’ve gotta talk about it. Aldi’s spent much of this summer changing the recipes for its products at a pretty wild pace, and while it does this at other times of the year as well, it’s hard to ignore the fact that this has been happening pretty much every week. Fruit strips? Sourdough? Chicken nuggets? You name it, it’s changed it.

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And now, it’s altered things yet again, in one of the most basic items it offers: Its pasta. This is even affecting your staples, guys. Let’s dig in. 

Aldi Rotini: Now With Less Fiber

Last week, a thread on the Aldi Reddit piqued my interest, with the title “they’re even messing with the rotini.” Now well-versed in coverage of Aldi’s recipe changes, I knew before clicking what this would be about – but I ploughed in regardless, to find the knowledge that Aldi’s Reggano Rotini Pasta has undergone an ingredient alteration. 

The Redditor who posted the thread did the investigative work here: With a side-by-side picture of the old and new nutritional information labels, they revealed that Aldi has snuck durum wheat flour into the new recipe, partially replacing the durum semolina that used to make up the majority of the body of the pasta. This has resulted in two key nutritional changes: Each recommended portion, which remains the same size, now has two grams of dietary fiber and two grams of total sugars, instead of four grams of fiber and one gram of sugar. Everything else largely remains the same – but that lower fiber isn’t fun. 

Why?

Because barely anyone gets enough fiber. According to the American Society for Nutrition, around 5% of men and 9% of women in the United States get the recommended daily amount of fiber in their diets. There’s been a recent push from food brands and manufacturers to offer high-fiber options, but in a sea of products that (still) prioritize protein, these can feel few and far between. As such, a major retailer like Aldi changing the recipe of something to actively lower fiber content, presumably in a bid to cut costs, just doesn’t feel good to its customers. “As an old man who tracks fiber grams like gymbros track protein, i’m kinda pissed,” said one person in the Reddit thread. We don’t blame him.