Is Bread Really all That Bad?

BeachIron · July 2013

show previous quotes

All the responses IMO are spot on! However, If you want to get technical, bread isn't so much as bad but very refined and hence not a natural form of food. So technically your body might have a bit of trouble trying to break down the processed grains and other additives. You best best is to have a wholemeal bread which has had less processes applied and is there for going to be easier for your body to break down and absorb the nutrients as well giving you a higher form of complex carbohydrate.
Depends on how picky you want to be with your diet. If your goal is just general weight loss and fitness then make sure if fits inside your macro nutrient levels. But if you are aiming for a 100% clean diet, with minimal unnatural/ unprocessed foods than stay away from bread. Also comes down to how well your body deals with breaking down certain foods, just find what works right for your body.

Huh?

How does processing make a food more difficult to digest? If anything, I would expect that to make it easier to digest. (For example, eating wheat berries will be a lot more difficult for your body to digest than eating wheat flour.)

Processed foods, that being foods that have unnatural processes added, are never good for your body. The human body is designed to break down whole foods to get 100% of the nutrients from them without putting strain on the body.
Any processed food is always going to have sodium added (a natural preservative) A diet high in sodium eventually causes high blood pressure and cardiovascular complications. Technically digestible but very difficult for your body to deal with all that sodium.
Refined breads have usually had all the essential fats and any good nutrients depleted form them, leaving you with a fast acting, simple carbohydrate which will metabolise very quickly in the body into glucose which will ultimately be reserved in your fat stores.

Just being very technical, but in moderation, eat it if it fits your macros and depending on what your fitness goals are.
Personally, following a more palaeolithic diet type approach, I look at removing as much unnatural/ processed foods as possible. This has worked well for me in terms of weight loss and my energy levels.

Sounds legit, but no.

Thanks for your in depth response. Everyone is now much more informed.

And yet the response was spot on. Paleo is a laughable theory that no one with any education takes seriously.

drop_it_like_a_squat · July 2013

Hell no.
I'm German, I eat LOADS of bread. Every day.

mushroomcup · July 2013

If you're really worried about it, bake your own. That way can have your bread and eat it

Seriously, baking your own bread, puts you in control of what's in there, so it's all good.

Plus it makes your house smell AMAZING. Win win.

brower47 · July 2013

No food is bad. An excess of food calorically speaking is what is bad. If you over-consumed calories in the form of kale, coconut oil and salmon, that would be bad and you'd gain weight. If you want to lose weight, eat at a calorie deficit. In order to maintain optimum health, be sure that those calories provide a well rounded diet of macros and micros. If you do that, you can eat anything and never have to call any food bad again.

Unknown · July 2013

This content has been removed.

beckymlong · July 2013

show previous quotes

All the responses IMO are spot on! However, If you want to get technical, bread isn't so much as bad but very refined and hence not a natural form of food. So technically your body might have a bit of trouble trying to break down the processed grains and other additives. You best best is to have a wholemeal bread which has had less processes applied and is there for going to be easier for your body to break down and absorb the nutrients as well giving you a higher form of complex carbohydrate.
Depends on how picky you want to be with your diet. If your goal is just general weight loss and fitness then make sure if fits inside your macro nutrient levels. But if you are aiming for a 100% clean diet, with minimal unnatural/ unprocessed foods than stay away from bread. Also comes down to how well your body deals with breaking down certain foods, just find what works right for your body.

Huh?

How does processing make a food more difficult to digest? If anything, I would expect that to make it easier to digest. (For example, eating wheat berries will be a lot more difficult for your body to digest than eating wheat flour.)

Processed foods, that being foods that have unnatural processes added, are never good for your body. The human body is designed to break down whole foods to get 100% of the nutrients from them without putting strain on the body.
Any processed food is always going to have sodium added (a natural preservative) A diet high in sodium eventually causes high blood pressure and cardiovascular complications. Technically digestible but very difficult for your body to deal with all that sodium.
Refined breads have usually had all the essential fats and any good nutrients depleted form them, leaving you with a fast acting, simple carbohydrate which will metabolise very quickly in the body into glucose which will ultimately be reserved in your fat stores.

Just being very technical, but in moderation, eat it if it fits your macros and depending on what your fitness goals are.
Personally, following a more palaeolithic diet type approach, I look at removing as much unnatural/ processed foods as possible. This has worked well for me in terms of weight loss and my energy levels.

Sounds legit, but no.

Are you really saying that processed foods are good? I don't follow a clean diet I eat a mix of things includingtakeout but food that has had things added only to preserve it isn't great....by no means am I on a special diet -i eat bread, eat anything providing macros are hit andat a calorie deficit, but come on, you would survive on fast-food and microwave meals but isn't it better to have homemade fresh food? That doesn't have unnecessary sodium levels, preservative, fake sugar and chemicals, a lot of fortified things like cereal are supposedly not readily available for the body to use, I think people should eat quality food not convenience food,you get what you pay for. I'd rather have a roast chicken sandwich than spam for instance

neandermagnon · July 2013

All the responses IMO are spot on! However, If you want to get technical, bread isn't so much as bad but very refined and hence not a natural form of food. So technically your body might have a bit of trouble trying to break down the processed grains and other additives. You best best is to have a wholemeal bread which has had less processes applied and is there for going to be easier for your body to break down and absorb the nutrients as well giving you a higher form of complex carbohydrate.

the advice is right but the explanation is wrong. Ultra refined foods are easier for the body to break down, not harder, and when it comes to carbohydrates, that's where the problem lies. Carbs that get into the blood too quickly (i.e. high GI carbs) can be problematic, especially in people with insulin resistance (pre-diabetes), because they cause sugar highs (all the carbs get into the blood at once) followed by sugar lows (the carbs in the blood get used or stored, but there's none coming in from the gut any more because they all got used at once). Complex carbohydrates are harder to break down, so get broken down and released into the blood much more slowly (low GI) so you get a steady, sustained release of carbs into the blood, and stable blood sugar levels. Very refined carbs, e.g. pure glucose don't need to be broken down at all, they just go straight into the blood as they are. Complex carbs, e.g. starch, are basically very long chains of sugar molecules all joined together, and they need to be broken down into individual sugars before they can be absorbed. Even simple sugars like fructose, when they're eaten as part of whole fruit, the fibre in the fruit stops the sugar getting in the blood quickly)

Where natural/unnatural foods come into it, is that we didn't evolve eating refined sugar, we evolved eating foods that are fibrous and hard to break down because that's all there is on a hunter-gatherer diet (honey is an exception but it's not something hunter-gatherers can get on a regular basis), so our bodies are not adapted to deal with large amounts of refined sugar on a regular basis. Humans are highly adaptable though, so we can cope with rather a lot of stuff that our evolutionary ancestors didn't eat, and there's genetic differences, e.g. some people being lactose intolerant and others digesting lactose just fine as adults. Similarly, some people cope with refined carbs better than others. Women with PCOS and people who have a family history of non-insulin dependent diabetes (i.e. the kind you can get from eating too much refined sugar) need to be more careful about refined carbs than others. People who already have diabetes or pre-diabetes have to be much more careful. But in the absence of medical issues, you can eat refined carbs as part of a balanced diet.

pluckabee · July 2013

I lost weight easily enough while eating bread, but I've recently stopped eating it and feel better in ways I didn't know I could.

ninerbuff · July 2013

Processed foods, that being foods that have unnatural processes added, are never good for your body. The human body is designed to break down whole foods to get 100% of the nutrients from them without putting strain on the body.
Any processed food is always going to have sodium added (a natural preservative) A diet high in sodium eventually causes high blood pressure and cardiovascular complications. Technically digestible but very difficult for your body to deal with all that sodium.

Yeah, well then Asian is in trouble then and based on this should have the highest blood pressure and cardiovascular issues than any country in the world since sodium (in the form of soy sauce) is prevalent in practically every meal. Wait...........................they don't.

A.C.E. Certified Personal/Group FitnessTrainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

Is Bread Really all That Bad?

Replies

Welcome!

Quick Links

Categories