Anyone understand why Sprouted Bread is more healthy?

khoshma
khoshma Posts: 9 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Hey Guys,

So it seems sprouted bread is the new fad for healthy breads and I'm confused about this part:

"Increased Digestibility - Sprouting breaks down starches in grains into simple sugars so your body can digest them easily." http://www.foodforlife.com/about_us/ezekiel-49

I thought the point of eating whole wheat and other healthy carbs was that they were COMPLEX carbs and that it took a long time for them to be digested. Its great there are enzymes and vitamins are more easily accessed, but if the grains are more efficiently or quickly digested into glucose, that means insulin peaks much faster and that is the opposite of what we want, right? What am i missing here?

Otherwise, I'm thinking non-sprouted is better if it takes longer to digest. therefore lower/more spread out levels of insulin rather than large peaks. I thankfully am a non-diabetic, but if you are a diabetic I would make sure to ask your doctor (but i doubt they would know either). I think i'm going to have to call the bread company it self!

Thanks,
Mo

Replies

  • ltlemermaid
    ltlemermaid Posts: 637 Member
    Here is a link/good read:
    http://www.chicagotribune.com/sns-health-sprouted-grain-breads,0,269323.story

    In short Sprouted bread is better than regular white bread, but comparable to whole wheat/grain breads-if that's what they truly are. A lot of Whole wheat/grain breads are not entirely just that but a mix of processed flours etc with extra ingredients that are unnecessary.

    Personally I think it also comes down to taste-I prefer sprouted breads over regular ones anyday. Trader Joe's has some yummy ones and are cheaper than the Ezekiel brand.
  • khoshma
    khoshma Posts: 9 Member
    thanks so much for that info. I guess it makes sense. I was the trader joes ones and still went with ezikel b/c it has less carbs. I'm going to have to find a 100% whole wheat that has less random ish in the ingreidents. I didn't relize there was so much random stuff added to the breads. I'm pretty sure if the carbohydrates are more quickly digested then they spike insulin quicker than non sprouted bread. The trick is to find a 100% whole wheat bread, non-sprouted, that doesn't have artificial sugar in it... back to the bread section for this guy...haha. Can't wait to try my first sprouted bread tomorrow!
  • mockchoc
    mockchoc Posts: 6,573 Member
    This is all very interesting! Thanks.
  • khoshma
    khoshma Posts: 9 Member
    I called the Customer Service number for the Ezekiel and they didn't know the answer to this questions. I am to email their marketing director. Hopefully she knows more than my biochemistry professor! I'll update everyone when I get a reply from the director of marketing for ezekiel!
  • CoderGal
    CoderGal Posts: 6,800 Member
    You can't really look at one food and say that one is more healthy then this one...it really depends on the rest of your diet. For example, someone who gets lots of *blank* in their diet and they add more *blank* it could be bad for them. For example, those who have had problems with clotting probably go out of their way to avoid excess vitamin K. Meanwhile people pick on me when I have my deep fried fish because it's 'not healthy' when turns out I'm low on iron, if I wasn't eating fish, I'd probably be at the doctors.

    With that being said, sprouting changes the nutrients. If one of those nutrients is one you are low on, it's more healthy for you. It also has other benefits: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprouting#Nutritional_information <-watch the nutrient intake percentages go up

    I like the homemade stuff far better, I can make stuff that tastes like carrot cake. Keep in mind you can add things to bread to make them 'less healthy' for some no matter what the grain (ie a giant amount of sugar salt preservatives etc). If your getting x times more vitamin y in a sprouted grain...that doesn't mean if you buy the bread it will have x times more vitamin y if it was 'watered down' with something else.
  • WBB55
    WBB55 Posts: 4,131 Member
    (I'm not a nutritionist or biochemist.) Most enzymes are proteins. People who eat raw diets and/or sprout their nuts and grains before eating them will talk about how "alive" their foods are. But essentially, from my understanding, what it comes down to is almost the opposite of cooking food. One of the reasons the taste of food changes when we cook it has a lot to do with the reconfiguration the proteins (and other nutrients) undergo when they're cooked. When you allow your nuts and grains to sprout, they undergo a reconfiguration of protein structure. This changes the taste. According to a raw/sprouted foodie, it also changes the "bioavailability" of certain proteins contained in the plant.

    If all of your proteins you eat come from complete proteins (IE: meat and dairy and a some select plants), then you don't really care about these different proteins and "sprouted" grains wouldn't provide you much extra in the way of health vs a nice simple 100% whole grain wheat bread, unless you just happen to enjoy the taste, which is different than other grains.
  • EvgeniZyntx
    EvgeniZyntx Posts: 24,208 Member
    Because marketing says so.

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