Breads and pasta

I keep hearing about Ezekiel brand bread which is supposed to be good. If you are worried about added sugar and can't find a good brand try making your own bread. It's not hard and it's healthier.

The most nutritious bread may be made from only whole wheat flour, water, yeast, and salt, with possibly a touch of molasses and honey, or the addition of other "whole" grains. The key-word on the bread label is "whole." Be particularly careful of the most recent little white label lie called "wheat flour," which does not mean the same as whole wheat. Wheat flour, which gives bread a light brown color and therefore more health appeal, is 75 percent white flour and only 25 percent whole wheat. So it's only 25 percent healthy bread instead of 100 percent.

Best breads are 100 percent whole wheat. Whole wheat flour is the first ingredient on the label. Enriched flour does not appear in the ingredient list. If it doesn't say "whole wheat," it's not. Wheat flour, as listed on labels, officially should mean 75 percent white and 25 percent whole wheat, but it may not. All white bread is "wheat flour," so this term is misleading, at best. A truthful label would state what percentage is whole wheat. If a label says "wheat flour," assume it's not whole wheat.

But just curious - do you really NEED to eat the bread? Try slowly taking it out of your diet and you will realize that you won't miss it. I have been "bread-free" and it makes a huge difference if you are trying to lose weight. If you are out at a restaurant and you order a sandwhich/burger....and they give you the bread. Just eat the meat. The bread is the cheap part. If you slowly cut out the carb's (breads, pasta, etc) that alone will help you drop the weight.

Pepperidge Farm 100% Whole Wheat bread has no HFCS and is very high in fiber. It does have 100 cals per slice, but the slices are really big and the bread is delicious. It is all I buy.

So far for my breads (love it, have way too much of it sometimes) I've traded out for tortilla's or wraps, I still get the "bread" container for the sandwich or egg or whatever but not as big of a carb hit.
Pasta I get the whole-wheat options and am going to try making some of my own here soon, since I have eggs available and some flour to get used up.

I still eat bread and pasta. I eat 80% whole wheat bread and white pasta (no one in my home would eat whole wheat pasta.) I just make sure I don't have more then 2 slices of bread in a day and I watch my portions when I eat pasta.

Not everyone is up for it, but you can make your own pasta. If you make it yourself, you can make it much thinner than what comes packaged and you can make it w/out eggs which will reduce calories. I have a really fancy hand cranked pasta machine that I got for christmas last year, so that obviously makes it easier, but you can do the same w/ a bit more elbow grease and a rolling pin. I made lasagna last week like this and the carb calories were only about 50 per serving... which is about half of 1 slice of bread.