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Can someone please explain why bread is limited on the McDougall diet? Even 100% whole wheat bread?

I think its only if you are doing max weight loss because we absorb more calories from a ground up flour than we do the whole grain. I personally never limit myself because I'm more interested in retraining my body to do without "naughty" things than solely my weight numbers.

Mind you as time has passed I have found I don't crave such vast amounts of food anyway. It's comforting to know that I never need to feel hungry/deprived (unless I want to) but I'm not doign MWL.

I'm sure one of the science bods will explain better than me

Cheers

Katherine

You've explained perfectly Katherine, thanks so much! As my husband and I have already reached our maintenance weight, I won't worry about the bread either. And mentioning ground things, I've just discovered chickpea flour so I'll be playing around with that in the near future. In case anyone is interested, here is a delicious looking recipe for your contemplation http://foodandspice.blogspot.com/2011/12/chickpea-flour-pissaladieres-with.html

A lovely recipe - looks like it would McDougallise nicely. Always on the lookout for combos to spice up the diet - many thanks.

Kx

Like KatherineUK said it's restricted on the MWL program but not the regular McDougall program. It's all to do with calorie density -- flour has more calories per pound of food than whole unprocessed grains do - as much as 3x as many calories per pound.



More information here:

viewtopic.php?t=6032

Dr. McDougall has nothing against bread per say. He eats it himself. Some of his cookbooks contain recipes for sandwiches using whole grain bread. In fact one of his cookbooks even has a recipe for homemade bread. It's really your call. As others have said, it is not allowed on the Maximum Weight Loss Diet, but on the regular McDougall program. In fact eating bread and flour products is probably the main difference between the two programs. I find that eating bread (I make my own) keeps me full and not tempted to eat things I shouldn't while continuing to lose weight. So you may want to experiment and see if you can eat bread and still lose weight. If you can't, you may want to cut back or eliminate bread until you reach your goal weight. Just make sure that the bread you eat doesn't contain eggs or any type of oil or fats.

I really hate playing food cop, but the recipe your shared contains oil and eggs. Those are never allowed on either of the McDougall programs. It would actually be better for you to eat bread that doesn't contain oil or eggs.

You could omit the oil and use Ener-G egg substitute for the egg whites. Chickpea flour pancakes like these are beans not grains, if that matters. They will probably be a bit higher in protein than plain wheat bread, a little lower in carbohydrate. I've made variations of these pancake/crepe/dosa/whatever you want to call them things with chickpea and various flours. You can also do socca in the oven.
http://www.kalynskitchen.com/2009/07/re ... ckpea.html
http://www.tamaraduker.com/2009/07/fun- ... pea-flour/

My go-to bread of late has been California sourdough. I've also been eating pitas more often since Christmas. The sourdough is made without oil. The pita I bought most recently isn't and has 1g fat per serving (1/2 pita). How much of that fat gram is from the oil, and how much is actually from the whole grain, I don't know. If I were going to live off nothing but pita, I might worry about it. This is the pita I bought recently at Walmart. http://stonefire.com/our-flatbreads/pita/whole-grain/ I figure 1 serving (1/2 pita) is like eating two slices of bread, or at least 1 1/2 slices. I don't eat pita all the time. It's a now and then purchase. I do think this might be the best tasting pita bread I've ever bought, though. I've never tried to make my own pita. Anyone here have success with that and have a recipe to share?

If you're like me, and your package of pitas go bad before you eat them, cut them all in half and freeze them. Then when you want a pita, pull it out and throw it in the toaster. The toaster poofs the pita half open, making it easier to fill.