Why is bread white

These foods also provide vitamins , minerals, fiber, and antioxidants. People make packaged and presliced white bread from a highly processed, simple carbohydrate. It is quick and easy to digest but has little nutritional value. Foods made from highly processed grains cause blood sugar to spike soon after eating. Frequent blood sugar spikes can eventually contribute to the development of type 2 diabetes.

Processed carbs also lack fiber. As a result, a person will not feel full after eating them. They will crave more food again soon after, especially when the blood sugar drops. When manufacturers process foods, it often results in the loss of nutrients. The producers often add vitamins and minerals to white bread to replace these missing nutrients.

However, they cannot replace the fiber, which is essential for digestive and cardiovascular health. A high intake of simple carbohydrates, such as premade white bread, can lead to weight gain and a higher risk for diabetes , heart disease , and other lifestyle-related chronic conditions.

The whole grains in wholemeal bread have many benefits. They can boost overall health and help reduce the risk of obesity and various other complications and diseases. The Whole Grains Council define whole foods as follows:. If the grain has been processed e. The AHA recommend consuming at least 25 grams g of fiber a day for a person on a 2,calorie a day diet. At least half of the grains a person consumes should be whole grains. Whole-grain bread is available in grocery stores and online.

To make white bread or white flour, manufacturers process the grain to remove the bran and the germ, leaving only the endosperm. Products made with refined flour have a finer, lighter texture and usually have a longer shelf life. However, processing removes most or all of the fiber, vitamins, and minerals. The remaining endosperm provides quick, easily digestible carbohydrates but little else.

They add back some of the missing nutrients to the processed white flour, using supplements, such as folic acid and other B vitamins. However, supplemental vitamins are not as good as vitamins that come naturally from food sources.

Usually, the human body can better absorb and process nutrients from unprocessed sources. And so on. The whole grains we buy in the store will eventually go rancid. But this typically takes months or even years when they are stored in a cool dark place. I never use the fridge for grain storage no space! What I wonder, however, is if the whole grain after harvest, with the outer inedible husk still intact, also goes rancid in the same way, or if the husk somehow protects it for much longer.

Since the combine harvester came in the threshing is done in the machine. On the grassroots level among farmers that I work with , there is a demand now for red or black rice that they used to have, but the millers in remote areas do not make their machinery open to the option. Also, the millers sell the bran to piggeries. Also interesting is that many city folk until about the 60s would look forward to spending weekends in the countryside to have brown, red, or black rice.

In a very crude biological generalization, coming across a concentrated, easy-to-digest form of energy is kind of like a jackpot.

Later on, it could be a symbol of status not so much purity here except for sugar as more work was put into it. Rachel, I think there are various aspects to this. First, of course, it depends on whose ancestors you are talking about in the case of bread. It is Scandinavia, England, Benelux, and the Mediterranean countries that prefer white bread. Perhaps because they had better access to other protein sources, like fish? White bread was a status symbol for a long time, apparently from Roman and Greek times onwards.

Not only does it require less chewing, it also requires the necessary funds to complement the diet with protein and fat and various other minerals and vitamins from other sources. However, these same nutrients also go rancid after a while, as was mentioned in some comments.

White flour can be stored for years; whole grain flour only for months or up to a year, perhaps somewhat longer if the conditions are good. Also, they absorb smells from their surroundings whole seeds themselves, as they are living organisms, generally stay edible longer.

So, at the beginning of the industrial revolution, when large populations had to be fed on a massive scale, there was a synergy between the desires of people status and the necessities of commerce long shelf life of the processed product — and we get the white bread on a massive scale. The white rice story is somewhat similar, but more recent.

Heike, thanks so much for the comment. All grains contain it, just under the branlayer. Phytic acid holds the minerals strongly chained this chain is given up when the seed is in the moistly, warm ground, so in the spring, so if the seed should grow out to a plant.

Than the enzyme phytase is born, unchains the chain and… there the minerals are available for the seed to become a plant. White flour contains no phytic acid, whole wheat flour does.

This phytic acid not only keeps the minerals of the wheat strongly chained, it also can chain minerals on their way through or body. I can imagine it, like the ability of some parts of the world to digest milk, while other parts get sick from it.

Prieto3, 4 and Felix Grases3, 4. So: is phytic acid unhealthy for humans. In recent years, there also seem to be healthy aspects. The other thing is preserving white flour no germ, so no fat and whole wheat flour with germ, so with fat, so can get rancid. Calvel has done a lot for French bakers, making good tasty white breads without preservatives, and: baked on a stone floor which requires a higher gluten content, so better to use white flour. German people used have a combination of mill and bakery.

They just could not imagine milling the grain and storing for some days. The fat in the germ would get rancid, so the baker would mill and than make bread of that — whole wheat — flour. German breads are both baked on stone floor, or baked in a tin which always comes out well, also when the dough has less gluten. My last point on whole wheat flour and white flour: a baking-technical aspect.

Ineke, Fascinating comments. I have edited them a bit. Please look and see if you have any problems with my changes. I am not sure when I will be able to do this but soon I hope. If so, you should make that known since people all over the world adapted to a variety of subsistence strategies. Many American groups did not adopt a grain-based diet until years ago, and in a few cases they still have not. If you are of African descent, your ancestors have been eating grains for 9, to 0 years, depending on your heritage.

The change to grains was accompanied by a marked decrease in dental health that shows up clearly in the archaeological record. Dear JJohnson, Thanks for these provocative comments. Now that I am settled I hope to be replying to them in the next few weeks,. This makes for a tougher digestion overall and some harmful effects, like difficulty in absorbing nutrients and minerals. Cultures that use a certain type of grain in great quantities and daily, like the Roman and the European with wheat or the Asian with rice, had refined their flours to avoid the damaging effects of phytic acid and other natural defenses grains have.

Even worse, we started using wheat and whole wheat for everything and with no fermentation whatsoever. I prefer whole grain loaves, but at the end of the day one simple truth must be faced, humans were never designed to digest grain products. Join us for a much anticipated return to the Lone Star State! Earlybird ticket discounts are now available online.

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The New Livestock Farmer. There's a variety of bread out there to choose from, but two of the most common types are white bread and whole wheat bread. While they are both made from grains, there are key health differences between the two types of bread due to the way that they're made. Here's what you need to know about the differences between white bread and whole wheat bread, as well as which one is healthier for you. Whole wheat bread and white bread are processed differently, which leads to a difference in nutritional content.

Here's how they are made:. Whole wheat bread is generally a healthier option than white bread, although there may be some cases where you might want to opt for a lower-fiber option. Here's what you need to know about the health differences between the two bread choices. This is because the bran and the germ have richer concentrations of vitamins and minerals than the endosperm.

However, white bread is often made with enriched flour, Pence says, which means that nutrients such as B vitamins and iron are added back into the flour after it goes through the refining process.