Blogging A-Z: Bread

After yesterday’s post on Avocados, we move onto B. I have to admit that I haven’t planned this out well. But intend to mix up food, fitness and health topics. Today’s topic is Bread.

I’ve long known that too much bread makes me feel.full and bloated. Add bread to other carbohydrate rich food like pasta, rice and potatoes and I get terrible indigestion. Even if not eaten at the same meal, or even the same day. In Slimming World bread is either a healthy extra B choice or Syn. Healthy extras are something offering fibre, calcium or protein but often high in calories. Syns are the things that make life good, but are very calorific or fatty. Wholemeal bread is a healthy extra and white (or most other breads) carry syns.

Actually many diet plans advocate reducing bread intake, but for different reasons. There is an increasing school of thought that suggests that carbohydrates are carbohydrates no matter if the flour used is white or wholemeal. Plus, all flour is processed in some way.

At the end of last year when I made changes to my diet I decided to cut down on carbs. But also decided that when I want to eat bread it should be something I had made at home. Ideally I’d make all bread manually, but it’s not an ideal world. So I bought myself a bread maker. For the first time in a very long time, I was eating bread that tasted of something. I am especially susceptible to deciding to eat it when it is newly made. Something to do with the smell of it cooking followed by the pleasure of eating it. I don’t need much to satisfy me either.

I tend to restrict consumption to weekends and enjoy what I have. This feels like a good balance between carbohydrate restriction, avoiding processed food and enjoying myself.

So far, I follow the bread maker recipes. Though I have also tried a couple from the internet and made great ciabatta. Next will be sour dough. I’d be interested in recommendations for bread recipes. Maybe using something other than wheat flour as the main ingredient. Perhaps it’s time to try other flours such as almond.