You should! It appears that eating 3 servings per day of whole grain bread could reduce by a third the risk of two of Britain’s top killers: Heart disease and cancer.
Whole grain bread is nearly unprocessed and unrefined, meaning that all the elements are still present, as intended by nature. Unlike processed grain, which is composed only by the endosperm, whole grain bread has 3 layers:
- 83% of Endosperm
- 14% of Bran
- 3% of cereal germ
But most people don’t know the benefits of whole grain bread, since the market is flooded with refined grains. Just take a look at your cupboard and you’ll certainly find processed grain pasta, white bread, white rice, refined grain cakes and pies, and much more, like nearly everyone else we know.
But the benefits are far greater than you could think. You don’t need to cut off all your processed grain intakes, but with some simple changes in your cooking ingredients, you would meet the recommended amount of 3 servings a day.
Instead of eating toast in the morning you could eat whole grain bread, or muesli instead of the usual cereals. At lunch time you could take a whole grain sandwich or replace your pasta by whole grain pasta, they taste the same, and are just a bit more “al dente”.
Finally, for dinner, just replace your white rice with unprocessed rice, which tastes perfectly fine, with some Indian food or as Pilaf. And you could still have your white grain snacks (chips, crackers, cakes etc.).
But reducing heart strokes and cancer are not the only benefits from eating whole grain bread, recent studies have shown additional benefits such as:
- Type 2 diabetes risk reduced by 21-30%
- Better weight maintenance
- Reduced risk of asthma
- Healthier carotid arteries
- Reduction on inflammatory disease risk
- Lower risk of colorectal cancer
- Healthier blood pressure levels
- Less gum disease ant tooth loss
But why do so many people stick on white grain?
A survey from Whole Grain Health (WGH) shows that:
- 70% are not aware of whole grain health benefits
- 54% do not know what whole grain is
- 77% do not check what ingredients are in foods
- 72% said would eat more whole grain if they knew the health benefits
- 15% only eat 3 servings of whole grain a day (the recommended amount).
Author: healthier matters
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I couldn’t still make up mind to convert to eating whole grain bread but this post confirms that I should switch as soon as possible. Oh well!
I tend to prefer whole meal bread over white bread for my breakfast. But I didn’t know it had so many good qualities. I will not be eating white bread in the future.