What do you eat instead of bread? (not to do with gluten issues)

[GreenBirdy]

I've realised recently that although I've been brought up eating in a reasonably healthy way, actually it's not that healthy or good for energy. My default for easy meals is bread.....so toast for breakfast, sandwich for lunch, beans or eggs on toast for a quick dinner.

All this bread does (I think) make me feel pretty sluggish, esp as it's supermarket bread which I now realise is full of weird chemicals!

So, please help me out, what do those of you that eat more healthily eat instead of bread? Do you genuinely have things in to make a salad and enjoy it? What do you eat with soup? Or eggs? What should I have I'm my fridge or cupboard instead?

I've now got a young child and beginning to realise the patterns and habits I get them into will likely influence how they eat!

Oatcakes

Porridge or oat bran with yoghurt
German-style rye bread (still processed but less gunky stuff)

Have you thought about baking your own bread? Not difficult.

Nairns oatcakes. I eat the gluten free ones with a banana in the morning or maybe cheese. Delicious and good for you. They also do cheesy ones which are tasty savoury snack.

You don't have to give up bread, just find ways to eat a variety of complex carbs, without the added crap.
Pitta bread is probably the easiest to get hold of in a British supermarket.
A good sour dough is great but not very easy to find. Pumpernickel is great but not to everyone's taste.

Then look for a variety of flours, grains, beans, peas and lentils.

To make salads appealing I keep some ready to go stuff in the fridge. We always have a box of homemade coleslaw, dressed lightly with a mix of mayo, oil and vinegar. You can add more mayo when you serve it but when it starts to go limp it can be added to a stir fry.
Also a box of a beany grainy salad, ( a couple out of buckwheat, quinoa, millet, bulgur...), peas, broad beans add a tin of random beans flavour with onions, peppers and spices fried in olive oil or maybe flavour with olives and herbs. Making salads is then quick - add chunks of cheese or cold meat and whatever green leaves you have bought.

Use leftovers for breakfast, fried rice or bubble and squeak. When cooking potatoes add some sweet potato, parsnip or celeriac to ring the changes.

Soup - make dumplings or cheese scones. Replace half the flour with gram flour and ground almonds/ nuts.

Pancakes can also be made with mixes of flour. Add veggies and make fritters.

I'm very fond of dhal, can be made from all sorts of beans and lentils. Yesterday's version had moong dhal and split fava beans.

Build in variety, use other peoples imagination, this place has loads of unusual grains / pulses and recipes https://hodmedods.co.uk/collections/pulses-grains-seeds?page=1

Breakfast I have porridge.
Lunch will often be a sandwich as that's the only bread I allow myself otherwise I bloat up massively! Sometimes I have sushi instead.
Salad options are potato salad, Greek salad with lots of feta, mozzarella, tomato and basil salad.
Dinner mostly curries, so I eat a lot of rice. Occasionally a pasta dish. Roast dinner.

We had a barbecue and someone brought 2 halloumi slices that he put on the grill to sandwich their burger as they were cutting down on carbs. He said he used halloumi like this quite often.

We only have sprouted rye bread, it’s 100% rye, the children call it flapjack bread and are always excited to hear they are getting it. It’s very filling so a small slice is plenty.
Other than that, porridge, eggs, soup, yoghurt are all staples.

I love pumpernickel bread but struggle to find it..can anyone point me in the right direction of where I can buy some? Thanks 👍

@KezzabellaB https://biona.co.uk/pages/search-results-page?collection=b-f-kitchen-cupboard-bakery-breads-collection&page=1&rb_tags=Fermented
pumpernickel

Buckwheat crackers, oat cakes, rice cakes, corn thins.

I occasionally make buckwheat bread or buy some gluten free whole grain bread.

Nothing wrong with a wholegrain, seeded bread.

It’s probably just too much wheat. Too much anything isn’t good.

Try porridge / muesli for breakfast

Salad with rice / lentils / potatoes / quinoa /barley for lunch

Lentils / potatoes / sweet potatoes / rice for dinner

Oatcakes or rye crackers with soup

If you like quick sliced bread Sainsbury’s Multiseeded is pretty chemical free

The merchant gourmet type packets of grains are quick, or the supermarkets do rice. Saying that you can cook most grains in the microwave and they keep for 5 days in the fridge fine.

I can deal with wholemeal bread but white just makes me feel sluggish. For breakfast I have either potato cakes or wholemeal toast.

Lunch is leftovers from dinner or ramen usually. Sometimes I will make some pasta (with leftovers for the following day). Maybe bread once a week on a sandwich or with some soup.

We don't often have bread with dinner, if we do it's wholemeal pitta, naan or tortilla wraps.

Thanks 😊

Fruit Crumble with oats and no sugar.
Porridge
musli

Thank you everyone. Really interesting - and obvious now you say it - that I could just eat more of non bread stuff instead, instead of replacing it with something else.

Some of the alternatives sound nice though so will give them a go.

I think I need to get past the 'craving ' of the bread before the meal - I.e. my body expecting it and work on replacing that feeling if that makes sense.

When trying to cut down on bread I often bake a few potatoes, keep them in the fridge and then slice and fry (in a mere film of oil) with a fried or scrambled egg.

Or I’ll make a SE Asian type soup, plenty of chopped veg, garlic, chilli and ginger, chicken stock, simmered for just a few minutes, and stir in a pack of rice noodles. Not nearly such a faff as it sounds.

For speed I often use red chilli and ginger pastes (Asda) rather than fresh.

It is so easy and cheap to make one's own WHOLESOME bread.

Basically 500g flour (wholemeal, granary, ancient grains, khorasan etc etc - there are many options) , heaped teasp dried yeast, enough oil (generous, ideally olive) and water to make a sticky but handleable dough plus salt if you like the flavour. You can also add milk or yoghurt to replace some of the water, if you like the flavour of that, as well. Knead dough in bowl 5 mins, leave, covered, to rise overnight in fridge, shape into loaves/rolls/sticks etc, adding more seeds/herbs as required. Then place on greased or parchment lined baking sheets for 2 hrs or so - an hour extra or thereabouts does not matter. Then turn the oven on - hot - to reach 200 C minimum.
Bake shaped and risen rolls./loaves for 14 mins approx for rolls/28 mins approx for small loaves. The bread/roll is done when, if turned upside down, the roll/loaf sounds gently hollow when tapped with knuckles.
For ideal results, cover with a clean tea-towel while cooling.