Have you walked through the bread aisle lately?
What used to be a few shelves of loaves is now a full-length aisle of cellophane-wrapped confusion.
It used to be simple to bring home a loaf.
Now it requires concentration, patience and reading glasses! With catch phrases like “fibre” and “whole grain,” even when you know a thing or two about nutrition, it’s hard to tell what is what.
In fact some loaves with healthy-sounding names end up being nutritional disasters, while loaves with ho-hum names are terrific for you
Every time you eat bread, be it a bun, a long loaf, or part of a sandwich, you’ve got an opportunity to improve your diet.
For most us, choosing whole-wheat bread products most of the time is the easiest way to eat more super-healthy whole grains.
But when you’re standing in front of the bread array in the supermarket, reading the various label claims, just how do you know which is the best bread to buy? Choosing the best bread can be confusing.
Here are three bread myths that help make it that way:
Whether you want to lose weight, eat healthy, or just avoid processed foods with extra-long ingredient lists, you should look for a slice that’s jam-packed with whole grains, fiber and flavor. To expedite your search, here’s what you need to know from the www.womansday.com website.
Know Your Kernel
Before it’s processed, a wheat kernel is a whole grain that contains all three, healthy parts of the kernel:
By law, a food company must list ingredients in descending order based on how much they weigh in the product.
This means that the first ingredient is the most prevalent ingredient in the product, and so on.
To make sure you are getting 100per cent whole wheat bread, look at the ingredients list-not the front of the package.
“Whole wheat flour” or “100 per cent whole-wheat flour” should be the first ingredient and the only flour listed.
Don’t fall for deceitful terms such as “wheat flour,” “unbleached wheat flour,” “multigrain,” “enriched,” or “stone-ground wheat flour.”
These are just sneaky ways of saying refined white flour.
The term “whole grain” is used in lots of food ads, and on the front of food packages, from bread to crackers to cereals.
But whole grain is not the same thing as whole wheat.
When a label uses the words “whole grain,” this is what it really means:
Most wheat flour is made from a variety of wheat known as red wheat.
White whole wheat breads are typically made from a variety of albino wheat.
White whole wheat flour is as nutritious as regular whole wheat flour, but bread made with white wheat flour has a milder taste and texture due to the characteristics of that particular type of wheat.
For picky eaters (including kids) who don’t like the taste of regular whole wheat bread, whole wheat white bread could be a good option. Be sure to read the ingredients label and nutrition facts to make sure you’re really getting 100per cent whole wheat flour-not white flour with some whole grains added.
All you really need to make bread is flour, water, yeast, salt, and a little bit of sugar (to activate the yeast).
But breads these days have long and complicated ingredient lists.
These extra ingredients are usually added to help improve the taste, texture, shelf life or nutritional profile of the bread so that consumers will find it more appealing.
Some fibre-rich additions boost the fiber content.
Other manufacturers use additional sweeteners (like sugar, corn syrup, or honey) to make their bread-especially whole wheat ones —taste sweeter.
Often, high fructose corn syrup replaces sugar in many breads to reduce cost and prolong shelf life.
And many breads are enriched with vitamins and minerals so that they’ll appear to be more nutritious.
It’s up to every individual consumer to decide whether they want a bread that contains corn syrup, preservatives, or other additives. But one thing we could all do is look for breads that have shorter ingredients lists and recognisable ingredients in general. At the end of the day it’s important to eat healthy to stay well.
