2623: Bread: Good, Bad, or Yummy? by Nancy Clark of Nancy Clark RD on Carbohydrates & Nutrition Advice

[00:00:00] Delicious meets nutritious in the snack that packs a real protein punch. Wonderful Pistachios. Each 1-ounce serving of Wonderful Pistachios has 6 grams of protein, giving you over 10% of your daily value and making Wonderful Pistachios one of the highest

[00:00:15] protein nuts. But perhaps more than that, I love all of the flavors they have. Their sea salt and vinegar ones are my favorite when I'm craving that flavor but want to keep it healthy. But

[00:00:25] that's just the tip of the iceberg. Wonderful Pistachios come in a variety of flavors like chili roasted, honey roasted, smoky barbecue, and jalapeno lime, perfect for enjoying with family and friends or taking them with you on the go. Whether you're a pistachio purist who loves

[00:00:42] cracking open every nut or you prefer the convenience of no-shells pistachios, Wonderful Pistachios has got you covered. Grab Wonderful Pistachios and elevate your snacking game today. So fill up with a healthy snack when hunger strikes. Visit wonderfulpistachios.com to learn

[00:01:00] more. That's wonderfulpistachios.com. This is Optimal Health Daily Episode 2623, Bread, Good, Bad, or Yummy? by Nancy Clark of nancyclarkrd.com. And I'm Dr. Neil, your host and narrator. Hey there, happy Saturday and welcome back to Optimal Health Daily or OHD

[00:01:22] where I read to you from some of the most popular health and fitness blogs online. And now we're gonna get right to it as we optimize your life. Bread, Good, Bad, or Yummy? by Nancy Clark of

[00:01:38] nancyclarkrd.com. Many athletes and recreational exercisers are staying away from bread these days. It's a waste of calories. It's fattening. It's inflammatory. These active people often struggle with denying themselves of this pleasurable food. I tell the waiter to remove the bread basket so I

[00:01:58] don't devour the whole thing. No more sandwiches for me. I just eat salads. On Sundays, I cheat and eat a bagel. Perhaps you're feeling confused about the role of bread in your sports diet. After all,

[00:02:11] eating white bread these days is commonly viewed as nutritionally incorrect. Here are some facts to resolve some of the bread confusion. Myth. Bread is fattening. Any food can be fattening when consumed in excess. You get fat when you repeatedly overeat total calories for the day. The calories

[00:02:30] can be from avocado, yogurt, grilled chicken, potato chips, Oreos, M&Ms, or bread. And it can be any bread, white, whole wheat, sourdough, or multigrain. The myth that bread is fattening or carbs are fattening

[00:02:46] is just that – a myth. You have my permission to enjoy bagels, sandwiches, and garlic bread alongside pasta for dinner. As long as the portions fit within your calorie budget for the day, you will not gain

[00:02:58] undesired weight by eating bread. But when I eat pasta and bread for dinner, I always gain 2 or 3 pounds by the next morning, whined one of my clients. She didn't realize when athletes load up on carbohydrates,

[00:03:10] they store in their muscles about 3 ounces of water with each 1 ounce of carb, and this is stored as glycogen. The scale goes up due to water weight, and performance also goes up. You will have a far

[00:03:24] better workout after a meal that contains pasta or bread than let's say a no-carb chicken Caesar salad. Now, if you eat too much bread, such as the whole bread basket within a few minutes of settling into

[00:03:37] a restaurant, you can indeed consume excess calories. The problem is not with the bread, but with your relationship with bread. If you feel as though you have no control over let's say the warm

[00:03:48] crusty rolls in front of you and you quickly devour them, you may believe that bread is addictive. Next time, you might wonder if you should ban the waiter from even bringing the crusty rolls to your

[00:03:59] table, but that would be a short-sighted solution. The smarter solution is to eat bread daily. Obviously, you really like bread, that's why you want to eat all of it. Depriving yourself of this little pleasure leads to last-chance eating. You know,

[00:04:14] this is my last chance to eat bread, so I'd better eat it all. You'd be better off taking the power away from bread by eating it more often. Myth. White bread is a bad food, a nutritional zero. In general, the less processed a food is,

[00:04:30] the more nutrients it has. Hence, whole wheat breads and whole wheat pasta are preferable to the refined versions. But white bread is not poison nor a nutritional zero. Before you cast stones at white bread, you need to look at the whole day's diet. Is it balanced or unbalanced?

[00:04:47] Today's dietary guidelines suggest half of your grain foods should be whole grains. The other half can be refined enriched grains. While some nutrients like fiber, magnesium, and zinc get lost in the milling of whole wheat into white flour, other nutrients have been added back.

[00:05:05] Since 1941, white flour has been enriched with thiamin, riboflavin, iron, and niacin in amounts equal to whole wheat flour. Your job is to eat a variety of foods, so you consume nutrients that might have been processed out of the whole wheat. No grain, not whole wheat nor quinoa,

[00:05:23] is a powerhouse food. When you enjoy bread or a wrap with hummus, turkey, cheese, lettuce, and tomato, you'll get more nutrients from the filling than from the bread, regardless of whether

[00:05:34] it is whole wheat or white. Bread is better known for fueling the muscles than for being a source of nutrients. If your diet is 85 to 90% nutrient-dense foods, you won't be risking your health

[00:05:46] by selecting white bread. In general, no breads or grain foods are as nutrient-rich as green leafy vegetables, berries, lean meats, or dairy foods. Enjoy grains for their carbohydrates that help fuel muscles. The carbohydrate in bread ends up as muscle glycogen, or blood glucose, and both

[00:06:06] are fuel for the body, glycogen being fuel for the muscles, blood glucose being brain food. Yes, you can also fuel your body with a lunchtime salad, but you'll have to eat a mighty big salad

[00:06:17] to get enough carbs. If you're on a food budget or don't have time to munch through a pile of veggies, you could far more easily fuel yourself with a sandwich made with whole wheat bread,

[00:06:27] peanut butter, and banana. If you exercise for about 1 hour a day at moderate intensity and want to fuel your muscles adequately, you should target about 2.25 grams of carbohydrate per pound of body weight. For someone who weighs 150 pounds, this comes to about 340 grams of carbs

[00:06:46] a day. Dividing that into 3 meals with 100 grams of carbs per meal plus 1 snack with about 40 grams of carbs, you can see that a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, which has about 70 grams of carbs, easily beats a salad with chickpeas, which only contains about 25 grams of carbs.

[00:07:05] Myth. Wheat is inflammatory. If you are among the 1% of Americans who have celiac disease or the 6% who have gluten sensitivities, you should stay away from bread and other forms of wheat.

[00:07:18] But for most of us, bread can be a positive part of a sports diet, not a trigger for inflammation. A crossover study with athletes who ate a gluten-filled or gluten-free diet showed no increase in markers of inflammation when the athletes consumed wheat.

[00:07:34] Myth. White bread like sugar spikes blood glucose. Surprisingly, the average blood glucose response to commercial white bread versus artisan whole wheat sourdough bread is similar. In fact, half the subjects had a higher rise in blood glucose with whole wheat bread. The bottom line. White

[00:07:54] bread can be included in an overall balanced sports diet. While minimally processed foods are always better than highly processed foods, you want to look at the whole diet and not vilify a slice

[00:08:06] of white bread. Just balance it with whole grains at the other meals. Oatmeal for breakfast, anyone? You just listened to the post titled, Bread. Good, Bad, or Yummy by Nancy Clark of nancyclarkrd.com and I'll be right back with my commentary. Dr. Neil here for my commentary.

[00:08:29] As I was reading Nancy's article, I felt like we were kind of hovering around the concept of low-carbohydrate diets. So I wanted to see if there were any new insights into whether low-carbohydrate diets were helpful for improving exercise performance. In my search,

[00:08:44] I found a really interesting article about how the body might change its use of fuel sources during exercise based on our diet. A researcher authored a review article that looked at how athletes' bodies adapted to low-carbohydrate diets. They found that the athletes' bodies start to spare

[00:09:01] a carbohydrate during exercise. So that means their bodies didn't end up using the stored carbohydrate from their liver and muscles. We may now ask, so what's the problem with that? Well, a potential issue is that when we are performing higher intensity activities like

[00:09:18] sprints or weightlifting, the body actually prefers to use stored carbohydrates as fuel to support our muscles. So as a result, the author found athletes experienced a reduction in the ability to perform high-intensity exercises when they went low-carb.

[00:09:35] So if we go back to Nancy's bottom line, think about incorporating a variety of foods and not worry about eliminating a certain food group with the expectation that doing so will lead to improved athletic performance. Truly, balance is key. Alright, that'll do it for today's episode.

[00:09:52] Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for sharing this show with someone and listening every day. I hope you have a great rest of your weekend and I'll see you back here tomorrow where your optimal life awaits!