Calories in bread

danyosan

I've recently decided that I'm going to get into shape and eat more healthily. I've decided to do this by basically cutting my calorie intake.

Since I've decided to do this I've been checking the calories on everything but 1 thing is baffling me.

Everywhere I look, you are told that white berad is a big no-no, yet there is less calories in white than in brown. So whats so bad about white bread?

I have to say I was shocked when I saw this as I had expected to see white bread having the more calories.

rubadub

It varies from brand to brand.

Everywhere I look, you are told that white bread is a big no-no,

And are reasons given for this? I hope you dont just blindly follow advice, better to understand the real reasons.

I wont even bother trying to explain it since there are countless websites that do it far better than I could, it is probably in the stickies on this forum.

Try looking up GI

Calories are not automatically bad, peanuts are very high in calories, still good for you in moderation.

danyosan

rubadub wrote:

It varies from brand to brand.


And are reasons given for this? I hope you dont just blindly follow advice, better to understand the real reasons.

I wont even bother trying to explain it since there are countless websites that do it far better than I could, it is probably in the stickies on this forum.

Try looking up GI

Calories are not automatically bad, peanuts are very high in calories, still good for you in moderation.

I understand about GI and why white bread is bad (preservatives and ingredients, basically full of water) but from a purely calorific point of view this surprised me.

Also, since I am cutting the amount of calories I consume in a day, calories are bad

Stark

Brown bread keeps you feeling full for longer so you don't have to snack as much to avoid going hungry.

danyosan

Stark wrote:

Brown bread keeps you feeling full for longer so you don't have to snack as much to avoid going hungry.

So is that the only difference? For instance if I was to have a white baguette sandwich instead of a brown bread sandwich the only difference would be the length of time to being hungry again?

Floyd Soul

Its never enough to just cut down on your calorific intake. To see results you've got to pay just as much attention to the source of those calories.

White bread has less calories because its just white flour, whereas brown bread will be wholegrain and often with seeds in it.

ali.c

danyosan wrote:

I understand about GI and why white bread is bad (preservatives and ingredients, basically full of water) but from a purely calorific point of view this surprised me.

If you are cutting out calories though, IMO its still important to look at the quality of cals you are getting.
Preservatives and igredients are the only reason white bread is bad, its not too much better than eating plain sugar, it spikes your blood sugar levels which spikes an insulin response which crashes your blood sugar levels. Which is not great on a few levels.
So brown bread may contain more calories but it also contains better calories i.e. more nutritious

danyosan

So, even if it is just 2 slices a day, I should avoid white bread?

Khannie

danyosan wrote:

if I was to have a white baguette

Baguettes are a feckin' disaster. Riddled with calories and close to eating pure sugar (as a GI). Avoid-a-rama.

rubadub

I look at calorie contents on lots of stuff, brown bread never stood out to me as being particularly more than white, some brands might -some not. Many breads will have different water contents, as can lots of food, so be careful of drained weights and weights including water on tinned foods. Some frozen food have calories when cooked. I looked at donegal catch unbreaded fish, the values were per 100g cooked, I imagine fish would loose maybe 20-30% of its weight as boiled off water in an oven.

Many soda breads, pitta, and "ryvita" type cripsbreads have got a high flour to water ratio. The giveaway is generally the carb content (carbs are mainly flour in bread) on packs, a white bread could have 40g carb per 100g, while mc-cambridges might have 60g carb per 100g. So even though one bread has more kcal per 100g, it could well have less cal per gram of "dry weight".

Same goes for weightwatcher meals, a lot is just diluted down, like spag bol, or soups.

I prefer brown bread anyways, 2 slices a day wont kill you. When I am counting calories I usually avoid bread altogether and go for alternatives, I use iceberg lettuce to make wraps.

davyjose

danyosan wrote:

So is that the only difference? For instance if I was to have a white baguette sandwich instead of a brown bread sandwich the only difference would be the length of time to being hungry again?

Eat nothing but white bread for a day, filling your daily calorific needs and nothing more. See how much of a "difference" this actually is.

danyosan

davyjose wrote:

Eat nothing but white bread for a day, filling your daily calorific needs and nothing more. See how much of a "difference" this actually is.

Thanks for the helpful post. If I ate nothing but lentils I'd get the same outcome really.



Thanks everyone for your replies, makes things a lot clearer.
I actually like both types of bread, just wondered if the occasional white slice would make any difference and as I said before, I was surprised by what I saw.

davyjose

danyosan wrote:

If I ate nothing but lentils I'd get the same outcome really.

Actually this is very untrue; GI makes a big difference to both your hunger and energy levels. White bread acts very like sugar in your body; sugar is the ultimate no-no, this is because itcauses insulin spikes which cause subsequent energy crashes and needs to be burned up rapidly or it stores as fat much more easily. It also makes you feel less sated when you eat it so you feel hungrier for longer.

danyosan

davyjose wrote:

Actually this is very untrue; GI makes a big difference to both your hunger and energy levels. White bread acts very like sugar in your body; sugar is the ultimate no-no, this is because itcauses insulin spikes which cause subsequent energy crashes and needs to be burned up rapidly or it stores as fat much more easily. It also makes you feel less sated when you eat it so you feel hungrier for longer.

My point was, if you eat only one thing for a whole day, regardless of what it is, the benefits aren't going to be great. No one thing is going to give all the nutrients required to survive.

ruprect

danyosan wrote:

My point was, if you eat only one thing for a whole day, regardless of what it is, the benefits aren't going to be great. No one thing is going to give all the nutrients required to survive.

But you would have more energy eating only the brown bread than white all day, that is the point, same apparent calories, but more energy, therefore you can get by eating less brown bread. They are quite different, it is not like red or green apples, the flour is highly processed, bleached and stripped of all its goodness.
If you drank 2000kcal of alcohol or 2000kcal of chicken & veg soup it is the same calories.

I still wonder why white bread is so popular esp. with the bad press it gets. I also am amazed more companies do not offer "brown" alternatives, and REAL brown bread, not crap with just enough wholemeal flour to get by the advertising standards (if there are any). I have never seen wholemeal pizza- I make my own with wholemeal pitta.

It is good to see you are calorie counting, it find it makes you make wiser choices, which usually end up healthy choices.

g'em

Unfortunately it's these types of threads that give many of the regular posters their "food nazi" labels

danyosan first up, fair play to you for making the effort to eat better. It really all is a very confusing area that makes less and less sense the more you try and figure it out, and frankly asking why white bread is "bad" when it has the same calories as brown is a perfectly valid and sensible question.

Like others have pointed out though, it comes down to the GI of a food. White bread is highly, highly processed and has no roughage left in it, which makes it very easy for your body to break down. The quicker it's digested, the quicker you'll be hungry again. A calorie is really just a meeasure of the energy that's liberated by eating a food - so white and brown bread will give you the very same amount of 'energy' but brown bread will give you a slow, steady release of energy because it takes longer to break down.

But you can't just look at calories - you have to consider what else is in the food. The brown bread will have fibre in it, Thiamin, Niacin, Calcium and lots of other minerals. Those 'others' are what generally make 'healthy' foods better for us to eat. In the long run they give us more energy, make us feel better, and have a host of benefits aside from the pure weight loss aspect.

When you buy brown bread just make sure it has the word "wholewheat" on it. So cheaper brown breads just use caramel colouring on it to dye white flour!

Stark

ruprect wrote:

I have never seen wholemeal pizza- I make my own with wholemeal pitta.

There's a company that does them. You can get it in Superquinn, and Tesco of late. It's in a plain brown box. It's absolutely revolting though.

g'em

ruprect wrote:

I have never seen wholemeal pizza- I make my own with wholemeal pitta.

Good plan with the wholemeal pitta. But if you were inclined to make your own...

Homemade Wholemeal Pizza
Get about 3 packs of mozarella (low in carbs, high in protein) for topping.
Tomato sauce: 2 cans of chopped tomatoes (you warm it up on the hob with olive oil, onions and garlic, add a touch of basil if you wish).
For the dough you need 2 cups of wholewheat flour, 2 tsp baking powder and 1 tsp salt and 2/3 cup milk 1/4 cup oil.

You mix the dry ingredients together then add liquid ingredients, mix and start kneeding. Take it out (in a ball) and cut in two. Make those two identical balls and leave to rest 5 min. Then make into your pizza shape, pour the tomato sauce on each one, add the grated mozarella, chop green peppers and red onions (or whatever toppings you like) and add. Dice and brown a couple of chicken breasts' worth of meat and add. Finally spray the whole thing with BBQ seasoning and leave at about 180 degrees for 12-20 min.

et voila, 2 large pizzas

danyosan

g'em wrote:

Unfortunately it's these types of threads that give many of the regular posters their "food nazi" labels

danyosan first up, fair play to you for making the effort to eat better. It really all is a very confusing area that makes less and less sense the more you try and figure it out, and frankly asking why white bread is "bad" when it has the same calories as brown is a perfectly valid and sensible question.

Like others have pointed out though, it comes down to the GI of a food. White bread is highly, highly processed and has no roughage left in it, which makes it very easy for your body to break down. The quicker it's digested, the quicker you'll be hungry again. A calorie is really just a meeasure of the energy that's liberated by eating a food - so white and brown bread will give you the very same amount of 'energy' but brown bread will give you a slow, steady release of energy because it takes longer to break down.

But you can't just look at calories - you have to consider what else is in the food. The brown bread will have fibre in it, Thiamin, Niacin, Calcium and lots of other minerals. Those 'others' are what generally make 'healthy' foods better for us to eat. In the long run they give us more energy, make us feel better, and have a host of benefits aside from the pure weight loss aspect.

When you buy brown bread just make sure it has the word "wholewheat" on it. So cheaper brown breads just use caramel colouring on it to dye white flour!

Good man, exactly the explanation I was looking for.

I suppose another reason I was asking is if I'm caught on the hop and have to get a roll (havent found a place yet that does wholegrain baguettes) how bad would it be to get a white baguette, or would a wrap be better?

g'em

danyosan wrote:

Good man, exactly the explanation I was looking for.

I'm a woman and you've very welcome

danyosan wrote:

I suppose another reason I was asking is if I'm caught on the hop and have to get a roll (havent found a place yet that does wholegrain baguettes) how bad would it be to get a white baguette, or would a wrap be better?

Ideally, you don't get caught on the hop!!! I don't know what your work/ study situation is like, but really, when it comes down to eating well organisation is key. Sure, it takes a bit more effort, but it's cheaper and better in the long run. Lunchboxes will become your new best friend!! I make my lunch, dinner and snacks every evening (it takes me about 10-15 minutes) and bring them with me to work - today I have tuna + pineapple for a snack, crab salad for lunch and chicken salsa with broccoli and carrots for dinner.Wholemeal pitta breads as mentioned by one of the other posters are fantastic too - it only takes two minutes to fill one in the morning and bring it with you.

But let's face it, from time to time we have to eat on the go. If you go into Spar why not get a salad from the salad bar, or even a pre-packed salad from Marks and Spencer? In fact most convenience stores have pre-made salads you can buy. If you have to get a sandwich try and opt for bread or rolls that have wholegrains or seeds in them - they'll keep you fuller for longer. Ease off on the mayonnaise and coleslaw and stick to sauce-less lean meats and lots and lots of salad for fillling. Wraps tend to be quite unsatisfying and not particulalry nutritious to be honest.

rubadub

g'em wrote:

Unfortunately it's these types of threads that give many of the regular posters their "food nazi" labels

Some go overboard, I remember somebody saying not to eat bananas due to sugar. The OP said.

Everywhere I look, you are told that white berad is a big no-no, yet there is less calories in white than in brown. So whats so bad about white bread?

It is recommended everywhere, and in a lot of cases the whole GI thing is spelt out too, it is on the packages on bread & leaflets in the supermarkets, on 100,000's of websites.

I have been looking at nutritional values on packs since I was about 8, and was able to understand the basics back then. I just find it strange that people have lived their lives eating food and not having a clue what is in it, especially when the information has been on the pack all the time!

I used to read about the toys & stuff on breakfast cereal packs and then ended up reading the nutritional values, I find it odd there are people in their 60s who never seem to have noticed them. I know a guy around 60 who could tell me the fuel consumption of his car, the difference between octane levels etc, how much more is needed if he is towing a trailer, yet has no idea of the "fuel" going into his own body, or how much he needs.

Women tend to be more aware of calories, womens magazines are full of it, yet many are completely unaware which food is high in calories, they can be eating stuff for years, some saying "I thought it was healthy since it doesnt taste that nice". If I mention them they are completely shocked that a man could know about this, as though it is some secret code taught only to women.

And that is another thing, kids spend 14 years or so in school, 10000's of hours yet they cannot find the time to teach basics about food, Then the government claim to be "tackling obesity"

A calorie is really just a meeasure of the energy that's liberated by eating a food -

calories are a units of energy, it is applied to foods or fuel, so wood, bread, petrol will have calorific values. But they are measured in a lab, usually burning a fixed mass of fuel and calculating the energy released. So your body might not use the "fuel" to its full extent. Alcohol calories seem to be overestimated for humans, I also expect drinking 2000kcal of petrol would not result in the same fat gain as 2000kcal of milk.

When you buy brown bread just make sure it has the word "wholewheat" on it

Even then becareful. Many brown breads are only partially wholemeal or wholegrain, and many contain white flour too (including mc-cambridges).
And checkout weights & % too, as I mentioned some apparently "low cal" bread is just watered down more. Weightwatchers bread is higher in calories than a lot of "normal bread", all they do is quote tiny portion sizes, not fit for an infant a lot of the time.

danyosan

g'em wrote:

I'm a woman and you've very welcome


Ideally, you don't get caught on the hop!!! I don't know what your work/ study situation is like, but really, when it comes down to eating well organisation is key.
QUOTE]


Trouble with me is I work shifts so sticking to a routine is very difficult. Although saying that, I find it much easier to eat healthily whilst at work as there is no canteen as such, just a fully equipped kitchen, so whatever I take in is all I'll have to eat, no temptation to "get chips, just this once..."

I'm going to stick to it this time no matter what. i've got the same determination this time as I had when I stopped smoking 2 years ago, and I've never had another cig since.

rubadub

danyosan wrote:

Trouble with me is I work shifts so sticking to a routine is very difficult. Although saying that, I find it much easier to eat healthily whilst at work as there is no canteen as such, just a fully equipped kitchen, so whatever I take in is all I'll have to eat, no temptation to "get chips, just this once..."

Yes, get rid of all of the junk at home too, and never shop when hungry, and never ever shop drunk or stoned

2 slices of white bread are not going to kill anybody. What was the brown bread anyways? I looked last night and the brown was lower in cals in most cases, only a few cals here and there, mostly about 200-220kcal per 100g
Mc-cambridges was lower than sliced pans, that surprised me, I thought it would have more flour per 100g as I expected less water in it.

Brown sliced pans being lower makes sense to me now, they probably have the same amount of flour, but a higher % of that flour is going to be fibre, and I dont think fibre has as much cals as carbs, so the white flour should have more cals per 100g.

I collect old sauce jars, then make up big batches of dinners for work and home, I make a big batch and put it into jars, so I have individual portions. If you jar them and lid them while still boiling hot then the lids pull down when cool, then put them in the fridge and do not open until needed. They last longer that way since any airborne contaminants will be killed in the hot jar, and since it is sealed no more are getting in. I would keep them a week max, you can always freeze of course.

dubsgirl

g'em wrote:

Unfortunately it's these types of threads that give many of the regular posters their "food nazi" labels

Completely agree G'em! These type of responses would make me feel sorry I asked Even though the posters probably have great intentions, sometimes all that detail and refer to stickies replies is not the response you would be expecting. Thats why I think we should have a "diet" forum or an "eat sensible" forum for people that just need a little bit of info, not to be overloaded with carbs and Gi detail...