Is Bread Always Bad for You? The Nutritionist Responds
Does bread always make you fat and in any case, is it bad for you and should it be avoided? Is there one version that is healthier than the other? The nutritionist responds
The first to be eliminated in low-calorie and slimming diets, bread is the most demonized of carbohydrates. Yet this comforting, fragrant, crunchy, and delicious food is the backbone of thousand-year-old culinary traditions not only of the West but also of the Middle East, the African continent, and Asian countries such as India and Pakistan. From the French baguette to the Indian naan, the Mexican tortilla, Eritrean himbasha, and German pumpernickel, the types of bread baked at the same time every day from one end of the planet to the other are countless. But in the craze to avoid carbohydrates that has recently gripped the Western world, this staple food is often put aside to the detriment of the palate, and perhaps even of a balanced diet. And the bread basket at the table is now seen as enemy number one. But rightly so? Is bread really bad for you? Does it make you fat as is commonly believed? And again, which bread to choose if we don’t want to (or can’t) do without it? And which bread is the healthiest and most nutritious? We asked Rose Ferguson, nutritionist and functional medicine doctor (her nutritional reset programs are formidable), but also a timeless model: she recently appeared on the cover of English Elle.
Does bread always make you fat?
The idea that bread is intrinsically a food that is not good for you and makes you fat is a simplification. The key is bread selection and portion control.
Not all bread is the same, and understanding this difference is essential to making healthier choices. The gap between a heavily processed white loaf and a seeded rye sourdough bread, for example, is huge in terms of nutritional value. White loaf, often made with highly processed wheat flour, lacks the nutritional benefits of its whole-wheat counterparts. This processing strips out essential nutrients and fiber, resulting in a product that can cause blood glucose levels to spike, contributing to energy crashes, and potentially encouraging a cycle of unhealthy food cravings, overeating, and weight gain.
The problem with refined wheat flour goes beyond simple loss of nutrients: as already mentioned, its impact on blood glucose levels is significant. Foods prepared with these processed flours can lead to rapid increases in blood sugar, putting a strain on your metabolic health over time. This is in stark contrast to the slower and more balanced energy release of the better, healthier types of bread, which offer a more complex nutritional profile and are better for our overall well-being, i.e. wholemeal bread, seeded bread, and seeded bread natural leavening.