It’s common for people to say to each other, “Should I eat whole grain or multigrain bread? Is there enough fiber in the healthy bread? Should it be low-carb and thin-sliced?” Then, when we have to choose between muffins, pancakes, wraps, bagels, and a whole bunch of other bread products, we often end up with our heads spinning because we don’t know what to buy!
So, let me give you these great tips on how to make a good decision. The key is to keep your eyes on the nutrition facts and ingredients on the labels. This guide is very easy to understand, and it will help you make the healthiest choice.
1. Let’s Name The Different Kinds Of Flour
Whole wheat flour is the best kind of bread flour because it uses whole grain, including the germ and the bran. That means all the healthy benefits of the grain would come from the grain itself.
Enriched wheat flour is wheat flour that has been added to nutrients that are lost when bread is made. These nutrients are often minerals like niacin, vitamin D, iron, calcium, etc. You could say that even though some of these nutrients have been added back, the bread still doesn’t have germ or bran and isn’t as good as whole wheat flour.
Wheat flour looks and sounds like Whole wheat, but it doesn’t have germ or bran, so it isn’t as healthy as Whole wheat flour.
2. Pay Attention To The Words On Labels
On food labels, there are often a lot of different words and ingredients. This makes it hard to know what to look for to make the best choice when you’re trying to choose the healthier option. So, keep an eye out for bread that say “Whole” on the label. When choosing bran bread, the ones that say “Whole grain, whole wheat, stone-ground whole wheat” are the best. These are the products that give you all of the health benefits, including the whole germ and bran.
3. Read The List Of Ingredients In Order Of How Important They Are
Make sure to read the list of ingredients on a package of bread from top to bottom. This is because the first ingredient on the list is always the one with the most. From there, the weight of each ingredient goes down until the last few. So now you know that if the word “whole wheat” is near the end of the list, it probably doesn’t have much of that ingredient. On the other hand, if it’s the first thing on the list, it must have a lot of that ingredient. Choose that kind of bread!
4. Don’t Fall For Tricks To Sell Bread Ingredients!
Some bread packages say, “Made with whole grains.” If you pay close attention to the words used, you can see that most of the time, these bread do not always contain whole wheat. “Made with Whole Grains Gardenia White Bread,” for example, is made with enriched wheat flour, not whole wheat flour. Whole wheat is only the fourth ingredient on the list, after water. Would you rather eat bread that has more water in it than bread made from real wheat? I guess not.
5. Serving Size
This part is often missed. You have to look into that. If you wanted to cut down on calories, you could choose bread with thinner slices, which weigh less. You have to choose the size of the serving based on your own goals and how you see what you want to get.
