Is bread really 'bad'?

[ConfusedParticle]

I'm no expert on nutrition, so hope this is the right place to put this.

Gained some weight over lockdown, decided to knock a few pounds off. Looking at my diet, it's always been pretty healthy, I don't do sugar, convenience food, etc, and tend to cook from fresh.

However, I have always loved a decent sandwich! I don't eat bread often, so havent given it much thought before now.

Ive been reading about the issues with hydrogenated oils and whatnot, and the horrors of carbs, but I really want to know why and if bread is actually a real issue.

For instance, I love sourdough rolls, they are freshly baked (supermarket) and the website lists the ingredients. I can't find anything 'bad' in there, only a touch of olive oil. Can anyone explain why this might thwart health and fitness, to eat fresh bread?
I have IBS but bread doesn't upset me (unlike eggs and yogurt), so would love to eat it several times per week. Can a decent, low calorie roll really be such a big deal?

Anyone with any expertise, I would love to hear the deal with fresh bread!

no. bread per se is not bad. it's nutritious and great as part of a healthy diet.
the denser and wholsome the better.
enjoy!

I think one of the reasons it is called a “bad” food is that it is possible to eat a lot of it and not be full, people have it in addition to meals, it’s possible to add a lot of calories with butter!
It’s not inherently bad as part of a balanced diet.
Highly processed bread and other ultra processed foods are believed to be quite bad for you now.

Bread isn't bad. No food is bad in reasonable amounts. It's easy to consume a lot of calories as bread, though, and white bread has had a lot of fibre removed so is metabolised more quickly and gives you more of a carb rush.

Thank you! I have wanted to ask this for a long time and never got around to it.
I never have issues when I eat it, I do feel adequately full and it doesn't seem to affect me.
I often become bloated and suffer some pain from mixing a lot of veg together, I do tend to do well with minimal variety.

My favourite food (and I am a keen cook!) is still lean ham with a small amount of cheese, with grilled toasties and tomato salad.

I also like to make my own thin pizza, with garlic, sweet pepper, mushroom, buffalo mozzarella and pesto. I guess I feel sad to think this is 'unhealthy'.

Also, I see lots of discussion about cheese, sausage and cream being good for us (I agree!), but surely this can pack as many or more calories as a decent bread roll!

Cheese, sausage and cream are all tasty but I haven't see them cited as being particularly good for us, as they are all packed with fat so calorie dense. Pizza and sandwich also tend to be calorie dense.
Keep cheese tasty so you are satisfied with smaller portions, try and keep the sausage lowish fat, keep the cream for treats.

Losing weight is put simply about eating less calories than you consume. Given your issues with vegetables and your fave foods, portion control will be the way to go. Portion control can be quite hard as it can leave you hungry.

Finding a way to lose weight that works for you and is sustainable, can be quite hard work. Good luck.

Where have you read sausages are good for you? Limiting processed meat raunchy as sausages has been recommended for ages to reduce your risk of bowel cancer.

I don’t know how the word “raunchy” got in there.
It should be “such as”.

raunchy sausages {grin]

Not sure ive heard sausages are 'good' exactly, more that low carbers claim to lose weight switching bread for bacon, etc!

Ive done this in the past, starting from a slim set point though.
tested it out and actually gained weight.

@Postdatedpandemic

Cheese, sausage and cream are all tasty but I haven't see them cited as being particularly good for us, as they are all packed with fat so calorie dense. Pizza and sandwich also tend to be calorie dense. Keep cheese tasty so you are satisfied with smaller portions, try and keep the sausage lowish fat, keep the cream for treats.

Losing weight is put simply about eating less calories than you consume. Given your issues with vegetables and your fave foods, portion control will be the way to go. Portion control can be quite hard as it can leave you hungry.

Finding a way to lose weight that works for you and is sustainable, can be quite hard work. Good luck.

Thanks!

My main meals, if they contain a bread roll or pizza base tend to come to around 350/400 cals. I guess im not sure how ditching the wheat will benefit me.
If I make a veggie soup or have fish with salad, etc, it still comes to around the same calories.

Unless you are a coeliac wheat is a good food source.
random brown bread link
9% protein
4% carbs
B vitamins
and carbs which can add to a sugar rush
the suggested 50g serving would make quite a sad sandwich, having just weighed my last slice of bread ( ) 100g is much more realistic.
Like all foods there are pros and cons
Your diet has to suit you, if you like bread - eat it - in moderation

That was meant to be 4% fibre

@PurpleDaisies

I can't stop laughing at the raunchy sausages

OP, flour is very processed. It's a natural food that is already broken down before we eat it, which saves the body tonnes of energy: think how much more energy we'd have to expend if we had to chew up all the wheat kernels ourselves. That's what 'processed food' is: it's already been through processes that our body is meant to do it, before it even gets to us.

As such, the body will prioritise these things for energy use, because it's much easier to use something that's already partly broken down than it is to convert something from scratch (ie fat) This means that if your body has bread in it, your body will use all that up for energy before converting any body fat. So, you have to let your body run out of bread stores to lose weight, in essence.

You can do this by not eating too many bread calories in the first place, or having big gaps between bread eating. Anything else with flour and or sugar will have the same effect. That's the basis of low carb diets, and the reason bread has such a bad name.

[quote TheFoundations]@PurpleDaisies

I can't stop laughing at the raunchy sausages

OP, flour is very processed. It's a natural food that is already broken down before we eat it, which saves the body tonnes of energy: think how much more energy we'd have to expend if we had to chew up all the wheat kernels ourselves. That's what 'processed food' is: it's already been through processes that our body is meant to do it, before it even gets to us.

As such, the body will prioritise these things for energy use, because it's much easier to use something that's already partly broken down than it is to convert something from scratch (ie fat) This means that if your body has bread in it, your body will use all that up for energy before converting any body fat. So, you have to let your body run out of bread stores to lose weight, in essence.

You can do this by not eating too many bread calories in the first place, or having big gaps between bread eating. Anything else with flour and or sugar will have the same effect. That's the basis of low carb diets, and the reason bread has such a bad name.[/quote]
this is really helpful, thanks!

Glad that was useful. It's also the reason people with lots of body fat still get hungry. If you think about it, that's ridiculous - they're carrying energy on their bodies, but they still get the urge to take on... more energy. Its because our bodies lose the knack of converting fat, so when the sugar runs out, they panic. That's what 'hangry' is - its your body having a 'give me sugar!!' tantrum.

The NHS healthy plate is essentially a fat maintenance diet. 55% carbs or something. Its for people who are healthy and want to stay the same. Hopeless for fat loss, and flogged to use all as 'the right thing'.

Nothing inherently bad about bread if it is made without a load of preservatives. BUT and this is a big but, high carbohydrate food can cause blood sugar spikes which trigger hunger. I lost weight and then regained some due to uncontrollable urges to binge eat. I’m now doing low carb and I don’t get extreme hunger at all so longer term, I will do a reduced carb lifestyle without refined sugar and probably largely without bread. If you don’t have a binge eating problem though, I reckon bread is fine as long as you don’t go too crazy.

My theory is that the “bread is bad” line has been popularised by dieters who are of the view that low carb is the only, or at least the best way, to lose weight. There’s a lot of evidence to suggest that low carb diets are indeed effective for weight loss, but that doesn’t mean that other diets don’t work!

Weightloss still comes down to eating fewer calories than you burn. It doesn’t matter a huge amount if you get that energy from carbs, fat or protein, but you’ll feel a hell of a lot better (and are more likely to stick to your diet) if you eat foods that keep you fuller for longer. Think protein and high fibre foods (whole grain, nuts, seeds etc), rather than white bread, biscuits etc.

For what it’s worth, I lost 3 stone and am still losing weight now on a vegetarian diet that is relatively low in protein and high in carbs. I don’t eat bread because it upsets my stomach (another reason why some people don’t like it!), but from a nutritional point of view, I’d have no qualms about eating whole meal bread.

@Crazzzycat

It's possible to be in a calorie deficit and not lose weight. It happens when carbs are high enough in the diet to release enough insulin that the body finds it really really hard to access stored fat. Weight gain/loss isn't the only thing the body does with calories. All the other thousands of functions are calorie fueled too. So, if your body can't access its fat to make up for the calorie deficit, it has to do what it would do if there was no bodyfat available: cut back on other functions.

This is why you hear people saying 'I've given up dieting. I never lose weight and I just end up feeling crap.' Their bodies will be cutting back on energy to all the systems (endocrine/digestive/reproductive etc), and depending on where their body takes the energy from, the symptoms of what is essentially malnutrition will be different. Depression is common (people who diet a lot and don't lose weight can start to feel hopeless), as is alteration in sleep patterns, and mood swings.

I wish this was taught more widely. Carbs aren't the devil (although they are linked to all the noncommunicable diseases that plague us) but they nourish us mainly to move. All the other stuff we need, other than to be able to physically move, comes from protein and fat. Essentially, if we don't have a 'high movement' life (ie very physically active), we don't need much in the way of carbs. There is no essential carb for the human body. Anything they give us, we can make on our own. We don't have to eat them. The 'eatwell plate' is 55% carbs. That many carbs will make anybody maintain the body fat they have, even into a moderate calorie deficit of the type recommended by diets.

We are not taught well.

For me personally, bread is my nemesis. Because I don't only eat one bit. Plus it seems to kick start something in me and I end up bingeing. I think potentially because it can taste quite sweet? I find controlling my diet when I cut out bread, although I'm OK with potatoes etc.

In general it has its place in a well balanced diet.

Carbs turn to sugar as soon as they get inside us @NothingIsWrong

Bread tastes sweet to lots of people if they chew it for a bit, although we're all different.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p068tc8j

I get at least 50% of my daily energy from carbs, but I’m losing weight at a rate of 1-2 lbs a week and have been doing so for months. I’m fairly certain that I’m not some kind of medical miracle @TheFoundations, so I’d say that it is possible to lose a lot of weight on a diet that is relatively high in carbs. It’s also possible to lose weight on a diet high in protein. Different things work for different people.

it's also possible to gain a lot of weight on a low carb diet.

Different things work for different people

This is the key to it, @Crazzzycat. Different bodies deal with deficits in different ways. This is why some people really struggle, and others say 'Well, it worked for me, so it's not the diet that's at fault!'

That many carbs will make anybody maintain the body fat they have

I should have said 'most people', not 'anybody'.

I'm glad you've found what works for you. I don't think you're a medical miracle either