Posted by kathryn in Uncategorized

The next question is all about bread. Wendy from A Wee Bit of Cooking fame asks:

What’s the best type to eat? Brown, wholemeal, seeded, rye . . .

Bread is a staple food for many. Different countries and different cultures have been baking bread for centuries. In our supermarkets bread often takes up a whole aisle of it’s own. It’s stocked by corner shops and service stations.

However, all bread’s are NOT created equal.

At the bottom end of the bread spectrum is most supermarket white bread. This kind of bread is a nutritional dud because:

• it’s low in fibre
• has a high GI
• unless it’s been fortified, white bread contains very few micronutrients.

Basically most supermarket white bread is a source of kilojoules, but not much else. Plus it’s high GI means those kilojoules won’t sustain you during the day.

But what’s the best bread?

There are about a hundred and one breads that aren’t white bread. There’s brown, wholemeal, wholegrain, sourdough, flat breads, pumpernickel . . .

But if I was picking my perfect bread it would:

• Be made from stone ground flour: Along with carbohydrates, grains contain protein, vitamin E, fibre and B vitamins. Conventional bread is made from flour that has been roller milled. This process removes everything but the starch / carbohydrate component of the grain – so you lose all the nutritional complexity. In contrast stone ground or stone milled flour is made by crushing the grain between rotating stones. The whole of the grain, with it’s full nutritional complexity is retained in the resultant flour.
• Be made from wholegrain flour: Whole meal bread is better than white. However here in Australia there’s often not a big difference between the two. Wholemeal is often just white flour with some of the fibre added back in. While the extra bit of fibre is good, you’re still missing out on the protein and vitamins. In contrast “wholegrain” means . . . well the whole of the grain has been used! Therefore you’re getting all the nutritional goodies from the grain.
• Include at least 2 different kinds of seeds: Seeds not only lower the GI of a bread, but they also add nutritional oomph. At the moment one of my favourite breads includes a smattering of pumpkin seeds. Which means I’m also getting a small dose of zinc, essential fatty acids, iron and calcium each time I have a slice.
• Be a sourdough: The sourdough culture makes bread slightly acidic. Research into the GI has found acidic foods take longer to leave your stomach and longer to digest. This means they have a lower GI and will give you more sustained energy.

My perfect bread would include all of these and it would be organic.

Buying better bread

If you can’t buy the best bread, you can still buy better bread.

Even if you just pick a couple of these criteria you’ll be eating a better bread. One with more fibre, a lower GI and plenty of nutritional goodness.

While you may not be able to buy organic sourdough, you can almost certainly find a wholegrain bread containing seeds. These are available from the supermarket. And if you can’t stand the seeds, then try for a wholegrain sourdough instead.

What is Q & A Month?

This post is part of Q & A Month. For those of you new to Limes & Lycopene, I usually run a fortnightly question and answer forum, called Q & A Thursday. But for the next four weeks, it’s Q & A Month. For more information you can take a look at the Q & A Thursday archives.

19 February, 2008