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Wheat Bread Nutrition Facts
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HolsumAZ.com
The following information features several important and helpful Carbohydrate, Glycemic Index and Whole Wheat Bread facts. Holsum keeps these whole wheat bread facts in mind when creating our delicious, nutritional products to help you promote a healthy lifestyle.
Facts on Whole Grain, Carbs and the Glycemic Index
Sources:
Milling & Baking News, September 14, 2004
by Clyde E. Stauffer, Ph.D.
AND
Harvard School of Public Health Online (references available at http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/carbohydrates.html)
With editorial contributions from Holsum Bakery, Inc staff:
Ed Eisele, President & Owner and Hugh Coker, Director of Operations
We've come a long way from the days when one of the knee-jerk answers to the question "What's a healthy diet?" was "Get a lot of carbohydrates." We now know that the staples of most diets, carbohydrates, aren't all good or all bad. Some kinds promote health while others, when eaten often and in large quantities, may increase the risk for diabetes and coronary heart disease. Carbohydrates are an important part of a healthy diet because they provide fuel for the body. Many foods rich in whole-grain carbohydrates are good sources of essential vitamins and minerals.
What Carbohydrates Really Are
Carbohydrates come from a wide array of foods - bread, rice, beans, milk, popcorn, potatoes, cookies, spaghetti, corn, and cherry pie. They also come in a variety of forms. The most common and abundant ones are sugars, fibers, and starches. The basic building blocks of a carbohydrate are sugar molecules. Starches and fibers are essentially chains of sugar molecules. Some contain hundreds of sugars. Some chains are straight, others branch wildly.
Carbohydrates were once grouped into two main categories. Simple carbohydrates included sugars such as fruit sugar (fructose), corn or grape sugar (dextrose or glucose), and table sugar (sucrose). Complex carbohydrates included everything made of three or more linked sugars. Simple sugars were considered bad and complex carbohydrates good, but the picture is much more complicated than that.
The digestive system handles all carbohydrates in much the same way - it breaks them down (or tries to break them down) into single sugar molecules, since only these are small enough to absorb into the bloodstream. It also converts most digestible carbohydrates into glucose (also known as blood sugar), because cells are designed to use this as a universal energy source.
Fiber is an exception. It is put together in such a way that it can't be broken down into sugar molecules, and so passes through the body mostly undigested.
The Glycemic Index
The body hydrolyzes starch and dextrins to glucose that is absorbed through the gut wall. It then metabolizes glucose ("burns" it, yielding CO 2 and H 2 O) to provide the energy we need for life. Digestion deals not only with carbohydrates, but also fats and proteins. Dietary fiber influences the process too. Interactions between these food components lead to the many, - and sometimes conflicting - recommendations recently publicized.
When glucose is absorbed into the bloodstream, it triggers release of insulin, a hormone that regulates the rate at which glucose is metabolized. About 20 years ago, researchers began characterizing foods according to their effect on blood glucose levels and, hence, insulin release. This is known as the Glycemic Index, or "G.I.".
The benchmark (G.I. = 100) is free glucose; white bread has a G.I. of about 70 and whole-wheat bread, about 40. Note the effect of the interaction with fiber
Some have proposed that G.I. may be a useful tool for weight reduction. The thought is that consumption of high-G.I. foods leads to elevated blood glucose, and, in theory, this influences insulin levels in such a way that the end result is deposition of fat in adipose tissue. This proposal is controversial. The majority opinion is that it has no merit, but not all nutritionists accept this conclusion. Some publicized diets still use G.I. as a guide to weight loss.
In large prospective epidemiologic studies, the Glycemic Index and the Glycemic Load (the Glycemic Index multiplied by the amount of carbohydrate) of the overall diet have been associated with a greater risk of type 2 diabetes in both men and women (according to an article by Walter Willett, JoAnn Manson and Simin Liu, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 76, No. 1, 274S-280S, July 2002).
As part of a balanced diet, bread provides energy, primarily through its carbohydrate content. But more importantly, good bread is a flavorful, satisfying product that appeals to all consumers. In sum, bread is a healthy, commendable food!
Sugar Management
Digestible carbohydrates are broken down in the intestine into their simplest form, sugar, which then enters the blood. As blood sugar levels rise, special cells in the pancreas churn out more and more insulin, a hormone that signals cells to absorb blood sugar for energy or storage. While cells sponge up blood sugar, its levels in the bloodstream fall back to a preset minimum, as do insulin levels.
In some people, this cycle doesn't work properly. People with type 1 diabetes (once called insulin-dependent or juvenile diabetes) don't make enough insulin, so their cells can't absorb sugar. People with type 2 diabetes (once called non-insulin dependent or adult onset diabetes) usually start out with a different problem - their cells don't respond well to insulin's "open up for sugar" signal. This condition is known as "insulin resistance", and it causes both blood sugar and insulin levels to stay high long after eating. Over time, the heavy demands made on the insulin-making cells wears them out, and insulin production slows, then stops.
Insulin resistance isn't just a blood sugar problem. It has also been linked with a variety of other problems, including high blood pressure, high levels of triglycerides, low HDL (good) cholesterol, heart disease, and possibly some cancers.
Genes, a sedentary lifestyle, being overweight, and eating a diet high in foods which cause big spikes in blood sugar can all promote insulin resistance. Data from the Insulin Resistance Atherosclerosis Study (published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in November 2003), suggests that cutting back on refined grains and eating more whole grains in their place can improve insulin sensitivity.
No or Very Low Carbohydrates
Some popular diets, particularly the Atkins diet, treat carbohydrates as if they are evil, the root of all body fat and excess weight. While there is some evidence that a low-carbohydrate diet may help people lose weight more quickly than a low-fat diet, no one knows the long-term effects of eating little or no carbohydrates. Equally worrisome is the inclusion of unhealthy fats in some of these diets.
In a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine on May 22, 2003, it was concluded that a low-carbohydrate diet produced a greater weight loss (approximately 4%) than did a conventional diet for the first six months, but the differences were not significant at one year. Interestingly, the low-carbohydrate diet was associated with a greater improvement in some risk factors for coronary heart disease. In this study, adherence to the diet by subjects was poor and attrition was high in both groups. The final conclusion was that longer and larger studies are required to determine the long-term safety and efficacy of low-carbohydrate, high-protein, high-fat diets.
If you want to go the lower carb route, try to include some fruits, vegetables, and whole-grain carbohydrates every day. They contain a host of vitamins, minerals, and other phytonutrients that are essential for good health and that you can't get out of a supplement bottle.
Adding Good Carbohydrates
Carbohydrates from fruits, vegetables, and grains should provide the bulk of your daily calorie intake. For optimal health, get your grains intact from foods such as whole wheat bread, brown rice, whole-grain pasta, and other possibly unfamiliar grains like quinoa, whole oats, and bulgur. Not only can these foods help protect you against a range of chronic diseases; they can also please your palate and your eyes.
Whole-grain products are more available in mainstream grocery stores now than ever before. Here are some suggestions for adding more whole grains to your diet:
- Start the day with whole grains. Consider Aunt Hattie's All Natural whole grain breads, particularly our 100% Whole Wheat bread. If you are partial to hot cereals, try old-fashioned or steel-cut oats. If you're a cold cereal person, look for one that lists whole wheat, oats, barley, or other grain first on the ingredient list.
- Use whole-grain breads for lunch or snacks. Check the ingredient label to make sure that whole wheat or other whole grain is the first ingredient listed. (Ingredients are listed in order from greatest to least content.)
- Bag the potatoes. Instead, try brown rice or even "newer" grains like bulgur, wheat berries, millet, or hulled barley with your dinner.
- Try whole wheat pasta. If the whole-grain products are too chewy for you, look for those that are made with half whole-wheat flour and half white flour.
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Remember these important whole wheat bread facts when determining the type of breads you bring home. For more information or whole wheat bread facts on the products offered by Holsum, please click here.
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