Can You Carbo-Load Your Way to Good Health?

[SweetPea]

http://www.wsj.com/articles/can-you-carbo-load-your-way-to-good-health-1463670677

With highly processed flour giving way to freshly milled whole grains rich in nutrients as well as flavor, it might just be OK to love bread again

[colonyofcells]

Lots of the local sourdough breads are made from a mix of refined flour and whole grain flour. The whole grain breads I eat every day are unfermented manna bread from manna organics sold at whole foods, grindstone rye bread sold at whole foods and pain pauline sold at trader joe's. Most of the fermented sourdough breads are high in salt.

[Dougalling]

It's all about the starches

[Spiral]

It's all about the starches

So, true, preferably relatively unrefined and intact starches like rice, potatoes and beans.

[roundcoconut]

Oh I just die a little inside when I see flours (of any sort) being grouped in with grains and unrefined starches!

The thing is, even the most beautiful artisan breads are a high calorie density food, and are in the category of "things that will carry 90% of humans into passive overconsumption".

So, combine that with the fact that 95% of modern Americans are heavier than they'd like to be, AND drawn to the most calorie-dense foods they can justify eating, and the outcome that you get, is that people who hear "Bread is healthy for you!" will tentatively try freely including breads in their meals -- they'll find their weight trends upwards not downwards -- and will conclude, "Those breads and starches may be healthy for your heart, but they pack weight on me like a donkey."

And thus, potatoes and rice and even pasta, get thrown out like the proverbial baby with the bathwater. So sad!

Flour is weight-gain food. Whereas potatoes are ideal-weight food. Rice is ideal-weight food. Oats are ideal-weight food. Big, big difference in my book!

[colonyofcells]

Lifestyle changes that involve diet and exercise should be able to eat whole grain breads like the farmers of long ago. I just came back from the mountain view farmer's market which has lots of bakers :
http://themidwifeandthebaker.com/collec ... -free-form
The midwife and the baker also has whole grain spelt bread.
http://2ndstorybakeshop.com/
The 2nd story bakeshop seeded rye is whole grain except for the fermentation starter. It feels heavy like a brick.

[GoodLife]

Also, you have to take into consideration that most so-called whole grain breads are not oil-free. Most Americans don't think that oil is the culprit; they see "whole grain" on the label and think healthy without even checking to see how much additional oil the bread might contain.

[roundcoconut]

It is also worth thinking about what that bread is getting eaten with!

When people get excited about bread, it's often because you start with bread's already high calorie density, and then usually make it worse with the things that go on the bread. So think about it: toast with jelly (or all-fruit spread, for that matter); toast with peanut butter (or all-natural almond butter, or cashew butter, doesn't matter); bagel with cream cheese (or some vegan version there-of); sandwiches with mayo; or hummus; or avocado (more than just a few slices).

So most things people do with bread are high calorie density affairs!

I can see using a slice of bread as an accompaniment to a delicious oil-free savory soup, and that would be a nice way to incorporate bread into a meal that's overall fairly low in calorie density.

Personally, given the already high calorie density of bread, I think that sandwiches have to be filled with vegetables in order to not become a meal that's overall high in calorie density. So, when I DO eat bread (even while it is two slices of ordinary sandwich bread because it's the one meal I get at a cafe), it has greens, tomato, cucumbers, avocado (which yes, they are skimpy with) and Dijon. I don't let any commercial hummus near my sandwich! The hummus served in every restaurant I've ever worked in is more fat than chickpeas -- a healthwashed disaster.

I don't worry a ton about the oil content of the bread most people eat, so much as they quantity they eat, and how often they eat it. It just gets out of hand really fast!

[Spiral]

Not only does most hummus contain oil, which of course is off plan and extremely calorie dense, hummus is very processed. So, there's less satiety than from eating chickpeas.

[Hal]

"Flour is weight-gain food. Whereas potatoes are ideal-weight food. Rice is ideal-weight food. Oats are ideal-weight food. Big, big difference in my book!"

Cool. I think i need more whole grain breads, then, and keep my potatoes, rice, and oats the same, as i want to gain a couple of pounds, hopefully of muscle..

[viv]

Try flour bashing in front of middle eastern people and they will give you a strange look. Flour is truly the staff of life. I have many middle eastern students from Iraq, Iran, Turkestan, Pakistan, Bangladesh etc etc. Bread is eaten with every meal...and that's how it's been for thousands of years. Of course rice and other starches are also consumed, but bread is the main starch.

[colonyofcells]

The trader joe's pain pascal and pain pauline seem to be named after the baker Pascal Rigo and one of his daughters Pauline.

[arugula]

bread is much maligned here. even whole-grain bread. it can be a healthy food. but it is also more calorie-dense than other on-plan choices.

for a time i was living with my father. i prepared his home-grown collards, kale, or mustard greens every day. i also prepared 100% whole grain bread. he really loved bread!

i saw what the bread did to him. after a few weeks, he got a bit rounder. it was so delicious that even when he ate it plain, he overdid it. eventually he asked me to stop making it because he did not want to gain any more weight. i complied.

i also heard what the greens did to him. that part was good. he had bowel movements twice as often as previously.

grains are so wonderful that it is too easy to eat too much of them. the temptation to overdo it with them is somewhat limited when you restrict yourself to intact grains.

i used to have a bread machine. my dogs would start singing and dancing when it was nearly done. then the entire loaf, which took maybe 4 hours to prepare, would get devoured instantly. and they would want much more.

dog behavior is a harbinger for person behavior!

[roundcoconut]

Arugula, I can totally picture your dogs singing and dancing in anticipation of that wonderful bread!

Do you guys ever notice, that so many of the single-use appliances that populate American kitchens are designed around some of our most addictive foods and drinks?

So, people have an espresso machine, because coffee is a pleasurable and fairly addictive stimulant. People sometimes have a waffle maker, because just the thought of waffles makes them drool -- all that flour, with mass quantities of butter and syrup on top. And then there is the bread machine! Which is right along those same lines -- flours can be very addictive, whether eaten alone, or (worse) topped with different combinations of fats and sugars.

Even a juicer, is one of those single-use appliances designed around something that makes Americans drool -- guilt free sugars without any of that pesky fiber! I'm saying sugars, because I've never heard of anyone juicing iceberg lettuce, cucumbers, and celery (which would have some flavor, but nothing terribly sweet) -- more so, I see people juicing carrots, oranges and ginger (which is one combination offered a local organic cafe) -- very, very sweet -- AND yummy -- but still, just an excuse to drink sugars.

(Don't get me started on those yonanas machines!).

So there y'have it -- appliances we buy because we love machinery dedicated to our most addictive foods!

[petero]

i used to have a bread machine.... loaf, which took maybe 4 hours to prepare

Well, there go my dreams of an edible salt-free bread. It would be nice to have commercially-available low sodium options for a more optimum buy vs. build strategy. I can get Ezekiel 4:9 Low Sodium, which is fine but it's too hard to eat in any quantity.

I could write sonnets to bread. Especially now that I can afford the calories.