Pasta with Spicy Red Clam Sauce Recipe, Spotlight on Clams, Is There a Downside to Going Sugar-Free, and The Perils of Muscle Loss
Summer and seafood are a natural pairing. For a change of pace from shrimp and lobster, try this zesty clam sauce over your favorite pasta. My quick tips take the trepidation out of their prep. I’m also sharing some surprising contrarian research about sugar-free diets as well as another reason why muscle strength is so important later in life.
Pasta with Spicy Red Clam Sauce
Pasta with Spicy Red Clam SauceSummer’s bounty of cherry tomatoes is ripe (pun intended) for a rich and spicy clam sauce. While clams may seem daunting, they’re no more complicated to steam than a lobster. Just be sure to buy the freshest—and smallest—ones you can find.
Ingredients
- 24 littleneck or Manila clams, purged (see Quick Kitchen Nugget in Newsletter)
- 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil, more for drizzling
- 6 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
- 1/4 teaspoon crushed hot red pepper flakes, more to taste
- 4 cups cherry tomatoes, Sungolds if possible
- Large sprig fresh basil
- 8 ounces pasta such as thin spaghetti or linguine
Directions
Step 1
Steam the clams on a rack over about 2 inches of boiling water in a large, covered stockpot until they open, about 6 to 8 minutes. Remove the rack with the clams and set aside until cool enough to handle, then pull the clam meat from the shells and place in a small bowl. Drizzle with olive oil to keep moist and cover. Boil down the clam broth in the stockpot until it reduces to about 1 cup; set aside off the heat.
Step 2
Heat a large wok or Dutch oven over medium heat. When hot, add the 1/4 cup oil and the garlic and cook until garlic is sizzling, about 1 to 2 minutes. Add the red pepper flakes and sauté for 1 minute. Add the cherry tomatoes and cook until they burst, about 5 minutes, then use a potato masher to release their juices. Add the reserved clam broth and the basil and simmer, uncovered, for about 8 minutes or until the sauce has reduced.
Step 3
While sauce is cooking, cook the pasta in a large pot of salted water until al dente, about 8 minutes. Use tongs to transfer the pasta to the pan with the sauce and toss to coat. Discard the basil and add the clams just to heat through.
Yields 2 servings
Healthy Ingredient Spotlight
Clams
The best clams for red sauce are sweet and tender littlenecks or Manilas. The larger the clam, the tougher it can get, but if you happen to come across fresh varieties of these, like cherrystone or chowder clams, steam them just until they open and cut into small pieces with kitchen shears. It’s also possible to use canned baby clams for a simplified version of red clam sauce—add water to the liquid to make the needed cup of clam juice.
Quick Kitchen Nugget
Storing and Purging Fresh Clams
As soon as you get home, take the clams out of any sealed plastic bag or wrapping. Discard any clams with cracked or broken shells. If any are slightly open, tap the shell or give it a light squeeze. If it closes on its own, it is alive and safe to keep. If it stays open, throw it away.
To keep live clams fresh, store them in the refrigerator in an open, breathable container like a colander covered with a damp cloth. For extra chilling, you can nest the container inside a slightly larger bowl filled with ice, making sure that any melting ice water will stay below the clams—you don’t want them sloshing in fresh water.
About 30 minutes before you’re ready to cook the clams, purge them in a saltwater bath to encourage them to spit out any sand. Rinse the clams in cold water and scrub their outer shells to remove any loose mud or dirt. Mix 1/4 cup of sea salt into 1 gallon of cold water and submerge them for 30 minutes (if possible, place them on a steaming rack in the bowl so the sand will sink to the bottom). Use your hands to lift them out of the water and proceed with your recipe.
For Your Best Health
Is There a Downside to Going Sugar-Free?
It’s a provocative idea: Giving up sugar entirely may not be as beneficial as many people assume. New research presented at ENDO 2026, the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting, suggests that completely removing sugar from your diet could have unintended effects on gut and metabolic health.
Researchers from the Dasman Diabetes Institute in Kuwait examined what happened when mice were fed a low-fat diet that contained no sucrose, a common form of sugar. The study compared those animals with a control group that received a low-fat diet containing sucrose over a 16-week period.
To evaluate the effects of eliminating sucrose, the researchers measured glucose tolerance, insulin sensitivity, circulating metabolic hormones, the gut microbiome, and inflammation in both the colon and liver.
Despite maintaining similar body weights, mice on the sucrose-free diet experienced several negative health changes compared with the control group. These included poorer glucose control, insulin resistance, imbalances in gut microbes, intestinal inflammation, and changes associated with fatty liver disease.
“Completely removing sucrose from a low-fat diet may unexpectedly disrupt gut health and promote inflammation and metabolic dysfunction, highlighting that balanced nutrition is more important than simply eliminating sugar,” said Rasheed Ahmad, PhD, principal scientist and head of the Immunology and Microbiology Department at the Institute. “The study highlights the importance of maintaining balanced dietary carbohydrates to support gut and immune homeostasis.”
According to the researchers, little was previously known about the potential consequences of highly restrictive low-fat diets that eliminate sugar entirely. “This research may influence future dietary recommendations by emphasizing the importance of maintaining a healthy gut microbiome rather than focusing only on sugar restriction,” Dr. Ahmad said. “In the long term, these findings could help improve strategies for preventing and managing metabolic disorders, fatty liver disease, and chronic inflammatory conditions.”
Fitness Flash
The Perils of Muscle Loss
Scientists have discovered that aging muscle may contribute to cancer growth by releasing fewer extracellular vesicles, tiny particles that cells use to communicate with one another.
Their study also found that the composition of these particles changes with age, weakening protective signals that help suppress tumor development. Encouragingly, exercise appears to restore this protective function. Published in the journal Nature Communications, the findings offer fresh insights into healthy aging and cancer prevention, as well as point to potential biomarkers and therapies tailored to older adults.
The effects of aging muscle are especially evident in sarcopenia, a condition marked by loss of skeletal muscle mass and strength. Working with collaborators from Singapore General Hospital and Cardiff University, the scientists found that sarcopenic muscle secretes fewer extracellular vesicles. As muscle ages, these vesicles also contain lower levels of miR-7a-5p—a microRNA or a very small RNA molecule that helps regulate gene expression by controlling the types and amounts of proteins cells produce and also plays a role in restraining tumor growth.
Importantly, the team also discovered that the release of extracellular vesicles from muscle is controlled by a biological pathway that declines with age but can be reactivated through exercise. “Muscle cells use extracellular vesicles to send messages and influence how other cells behave, but exactly how these messages are delivered and received is not fully understood,” said Assistant Professor Tang Hong-Wen from the Cancer & Stem Cell Biology Signature Research Programme at Duke-NUS Medical School and senior author of the study. “Our research uncovers this hidden process, showing that as muscles weaken with age, these signals can change in ways that can promote tumor growth.”
“Clinically, we observe an association between advanced cancer and low muscle mass. This is a novel study which illustrates how healthy muscle can potentially inhibit tumor growth,” said Kenon Chua, a consultant in the orthopedic surgery department at Singapore General Hospital and one of the authors of the study. “We observe that healthy muscles secrete many physiologically important molecules. With advanced age, it is even more important to engage in regular resistance and aerobic exercises in order to maintain healthy muscle volume. This is important not only for function and mobility, but also for general health. We hope that the insights from our research can help us develop new targeted therapies for our patients as well as convince more people of the benefits of regular exercise.”
With their study, the scientists have established a direct biological link between aged muscle and tumor growth. Together, the findings reveal a muscle-to-tumor communication pathway that could be targeted to develop new therapies aimed at preventing cancer progression.
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