Lifestyle Introspection: White breads really making us fatter? Discussion in White & Black

Are all types of conventional bread that bad?

Perhaps the easiest comfort food in terms of the logistics of acquiring and buying it, a loaf of bread seems like the biggest target for lifestyle gurus and healthcare specialists with a growing echo that any and nearly all types of white bread are responsible for everything, ranging from diabetes to a possibly fatal heart attack. The organic overdose has been here for some time, and now, more and more manufacturers are labeling food to perfection, ensuring that with every carefully chosen word, they create the aura of organic or natural or at least, something better! This is the problem – anything that seems better than what you have been consuming is suddenly the trendsetter.

Myth: Bread is just empty calories! Grains have three parts: the endosperm, bran, and germ. White flour is made just from the endosperm, while whole wheat contains all three parts. And many of a grain’s nutrients are in the latter two components.

[Source: www.washingtonpost.com]

One such sorry state of affairs is seen in the white-bread landscape. Anyone and everyone who is even remotely into fitness or diet control is aware of these two, hated words - white + bread = unworthy of human consumption. Every health journal and food blog, and nearly every media resource around us seems to be preaching one thing – Don’t Eat White Bread!!

More Anti-bread Sentiments

All of a sudden the entire society is shunning white bread, fully convinced that it is parallel to white poison. My own sister counts it among the three, most damaging items of daily consumption. She is equally hateful towards sugar and salt. Together, these are the Big 3 White Sins of our daily lives. My opinion is that we are just eating too much and moving too little. The big difference between a decade ago and today is the instant availability of everything, including food. A few years ago, we were driving lesser, walking more, eating more at home, and gorging less on bought food items. The slouchiness and the lounging preferences are getting bigger and louder each week. I see 28-year-old guys who cannot climb four stairs, panting at the second. Stamina has been replaced by an insatiable urge to eat more. Even those gymming are more likely to get sucked into uninformed choices, chasing aesthetics rather than actual health gains!

Bread has been a staple food around the world for thousands of years. People continue to consume it because of its convenience, portability, nutrition, and taste. Foods made from highly processed grains cause blood sugar to spike soon after eating. Frequent blood sugar spikes can eventually contribute to the development of type 2 diabetes [Source: www.medicalnewstoday.com]

The White Bread Game

From folks with high sugar levels to those constantly fighting the curse of cholesterol, everybody out there is shunning white bread, re-routing their lifestyle choices towards healthier, supposedly finer bread options. More retail sorcery is happening every day with all types of pieces of bread being colored a bit, labeled as whole wheat or atta bread, and bought by consumers who have little idea of what is actually happening. From atta kulchas to brown bread and the pav of pav-bhaji fame, all bread avatars are peddled with the story that they have been created from a more acceptable dough, i.e. devoid of whiteness of typical bread in any way.

Erratic blood sugar levels. “Since it's low in the fiber and protein that helps to slow digestion, white bread is digested and absorbed rapidly. This leads to blood sugar rising quickly,” says Palinski-Wade. This spike — and subsequent crash — in blood sugar not only leads to irritability but will leave you headed to the vending machine for a pick-me-up. [Source: www.everydayhealth.com]

Why blame white bread?

White bread food items are amongst the easiest to prepare, so people opt for them and retailers like this stuff that moves off the shelf without a serious latent period between supply and demand. Deliveries are done daily and every day, the sales are stimulated without trying to push a consumer. However, it isn’t white bread that is to blame…it is our lifestyle choices…about time people shunned their own shortcomings and opened up to accept reality. What seems like the healthier eating options, including bread of any color, are often shockingly high on preservatives and edible colors. People conveniently ignore this, finding peace in having found something better, in finding something so much healthier, so easily...their delight is precious and their ignorance is truly blissful :)

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