Do you love bread, but avoid eating it to stay slim? If so, I’ve got great news for you.
There’s one bread you can eat in moderation and it won’t make you fat.
This bread won’t cause your blood sugar to spike. It won’t cause insulin issues like other breads. And it doesn’t taste like cardboard.
In fact, you might even say this bread is healthy. And there’s a simple and tasty way you can make it even healthier (which I’ll tell you about in a moment). So what kind of bread can enjoy without guilt?
If you’re like most people, you probably think I’m talking about whole wheat bread. After all, it’s a much better choice than white bread, right? Well, as one researcher discovered, that’s not the case.
Terry Graham wanted to know the truth about bread. Does all bread cause weight gain? Is there any bread that doesn’t lead to metabolic issues and diabetes?
Graham, a professor in the Department of Human Health and Nutritional Sciences at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, conducted a study to see how “unhealthy” bread truly is.
What He Discovered About Bread Is Surprising
Graham set up an experiment with overweight men and women. On different days, he had each of them eat 50 grams of bread (about two slices of bread). They ate either white bread, whole wheat bread, white sourdough bread, or whole grain wheat barley bread.
About 3 hours after the participants ate the bread, Graham took several measurements. He measured their blood sugar, insulin, glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP), and glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) levels.
You’re probably familiar with blood sugar and insulin. High levels of either one is bad. It’s what causes insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, and weight gain. It’s much better to keep your blood sugar and insulin levels low.
But what about GIP and GLP-1? These are hormones that your body makes in the intestines when you eat carbohydrates. They stimulate your body to produce insulin. Normally, eating bread would cause elevated GIP and GLP-1 levels.
So here's what happened after the participants ate the various breads.
Believe it or not, the worst offender was whole wheat bread. Yep, it was even worse than white bread. It caused the blood sugar and insulin responses to go up even more than white bread.
Why is that?
According to Professor Graham, the milling process involved in making whole wheat bread is similar to that used for white bread. He said, “The parts of the grain like wheat germ and bran that have the health benefits are taken out to create white flour and then partially added back in to make whole wheat.” That means the whole wheat bread is actually more processed than white bread – and therefore even worse for you.
However, that is not the case for whole grain breads. Graham added: “Based on the findings of this study, as well as a follow up study using whole grain rather than whole wheat, we are learning that the best way to get these nutrients is through whole grain bread, not whole wheat.”
There’s a Bread That’s Better Than Whole Grain
As good as whole grain bread is, though, it still causes a bigger blood sugar and insulin spike than one other bread. That bread is sourdough.
The lowest blood sugar response came after the participants ate the sourdough bread. GLP-1 was also the lowest in the sourdough bread.
But here’s what was really amazing. The insulin levels were the same for all the breads. That means the sourdough bread didn’t need more insulin to achieve lower blood sugar levels. This indicates that the sourdough bread resulted in greater insulin sensitivity. That's good news!
In fact, this is the kind of thing that can prevent weight gain and metabolic syndrome.
How Is This Possible?
Sourdough bread is a fermented food. I’ve told you in the past that fermented foods like sauerkraut, yogurt, and kimchi are great for you. Like these fermented foods, making sourdough bread takes time. Here’s how you make it:
Making sourdough bread requires just four ingredients: flour, water, salt, and naturally occurring live (or wild) yeast. Once you mix the ingredients, allow it to ferment over several days, feeding the starter with more flour and water each day. After about five days, the live yeast and lactic acid bacteria in the flour will be properly leavened. Then you can add part of the starter to regular bread dough.
This fermentation process changes the nature of the starches in the bread so that they have a different effect on the body than regular bread.
A Carb That Reduces Carb Cravings?
Not only was the sourdough bread better in terms of its immediate sugar and insulin response, Professor Graham found that it does something truly amazing for a bread. He found that sourdough reduces carb cravings all the way through the next meal. If you’ve ever eaten carbs for breakfast and then started craving carbs when lunch time rolls around, you know why this is important.
Here’s why this is amazing for a bread: When you eat carbs (like bread), your blood sugar spikes. Immediately, your insulin level goes up to deal with the high blood sugar. After your insulin level goes up, it reduces your blood sugar.
But it takes time for your insulin level to come down. It will remain high, and this causes your body to crave carbs. That’s why eating carbs at one meal makes you crave them at the next meal (and throughout the day).
This doesn’t happen with sourdough! Since sourdough doesn’t cause your blood sugar to spike, your insulin doesn’t spike either. Sourdough also keeps your GIP hormone levels lower – even after the second meal. And that effect lasts for hours. So all of this keeps you from craving carbs well into the afternoon.
So if you’re going to eat bread, make sure it’s sourdough bread. The best type of sourdough would be whole grain sourdough bread, which you can buy at many grocery stores.
However, don’t go crazy with sourdough. Just because it does it so less than white and wheat breads, it still raises blood sugar, insulin, GIP, and GLP-1 levels. And you’re not going to lose weight eating sourdough. But if you love bread as much as I do, it’s nice to know you can indulge a little and not pack on the pounds.
Final Tip: If you want to eat sourdough and keep your body’s blood sugar and insulin response even lower, eat some berries along with it. The extra fiber in the berries will slow the blood-sugar response, and give you added nutrients for better health.