Italian consumers have been asked to boycott pasta for the day as part of a protest over price rises.

It is difficult to know how many people actually refused to buy or eat pasta, with a protest group of only a few dozen turning out outside the parliament in Rome.

Consumer groups say the price of pasta - a staple part of Italians' diets - has risen by 27 per cent in the last year, with bread prices rising by 17 per cent.

Pasta producers say the strike is merely symbolic and argue that any replacement meal will be more expensive. They say a plate of pasta is as cheap as one apple.

On average each Italian eats 28 kilograms of pasta every year.

Price rises are being blamed on global warming and the increased use of some types of wheat as bio-fuel.

the concept of going off pasta was greeted with nothing short of shock.

"But look, we invented opera, and melodrama is in our DNA, so obviously something like that is very melodramatic for Italians, but it is also an effective way of protesting,"