Breaking bread, slice by slice

Man cannot live by bread alone but needs bread, bread and more bread for breakfast.

Man cannot live by bread alone but needs bread, bread and more bread for breakfast. That8217;s an old maxim tweaked but endorsed by most of us who haven8217;t known too many mornings without that loaf. Now that your done with your Sunday slice, you probably want to know how healthy your breakfast was.

White or brown?
Hippocrates , the father of medicine, advised his patrons and patients to follow their servants8217; diet and eat whole wheat bread 8220;for its sanitary effect on the bowel8221;. That pretty much settles the debate on which bread is more nutritious.

Bread is one of the best sources of complex carbohydrates. The carbohydrate in bread is starch, which digests slowly to form simple sugar, glucose. Not only does whole wheat bread what is popularly called brown bread fill you up more quickly, it also has a low glycaemic index GI.

The GI is a relative measure of how fast a given food raises blood sugar. Carbohydrates that break down quickly during digestion have the highest GI value and blood glucose response is fast and high. Carbohydrates that break down slowly release glucose gradually into the blood stream and have low GI values. In turn, the level of blood sugar affects the amount of insulin produced, which is linked to appetite. So here8217;s a piece of advice for diabetics and those on weight watch programmes: if you must eat bread, eat whole wheat bread.

White bread is prepared from maida, which is refined wheat flour. Milling and bleaching removes or partially removes the germ nutrient rich part of grain and the bran the fibre, leaving just the starch-rich endosperm. Which means, at the end of the refining process, more than 22 important nutrients such as fibers, vitamins, and minerals are lost.

Bakers in several advanced countries follow a process called flour enrichment, where four vitamins8212;thiamin niacin, riboflavin, and iron 8212;are added to fortify the refined flour. But other nutrients, such as vitamin B6, zinc, manganese, and folic acid, are not added. Since a slice of white bread contains only half a gram of fibre as compared to around three grams for whole wheat bread, some bakers there increase the fibre content by adding dates, raisins, bran or purified powdered cellulose.

But back home, whole wheat bread is confined to the shelves of elite stores; the kiranas still stock the white variety. So when you go shopping for whole wheat bread, watch out for these:
Don8217;t be taken in by the colour of the slice. Anything brown needn8217;t be wheat. If the loaf is any darker than the colour of homemade rotis, it is sure to be artificially coloured.
Bread labeled 8216;whole wheat8217; must contain 8216;100 per cent whole wheat8217; as the first listed ingredient. Those simply labeled 8216;wheat8217; or 8216;cracked wheat8217; often contain white flour as the major ingredient.
Those labeled 8216;multigrain8217; may simply mean that the bread contains maida with small amounts of oatmeal, rye, or whole wheat. The label should indicate whether caramel colouring has been added.
Ask for 8220;whole wheat8221; not brown if you want atta bread .
Last, anyone with the slightest idea about baking would know that baking a soft, light loaf of bread with whole wheat bread is nearly impossible. So if the brown bread is soft and light, be suspicious.
The writer is a former senior nutritionist at Escorts. She heads the Centre of Dietary Counselling and also runs a health food store. She feels that for complete well-being, one should integrate physical, mental and spiritual health. According to her: 8220;To be healthy should be the ultimate goal for all.8221;