What are your thoughts on whole wheat bread? A good part of a diet or better to be avoided?
Depends. How much added sugar? Made WITH whole wheat or made FROM whole wheat. With just means it’s an added ingredient.
But if it has a little bit of fiber the glycemic index won’t be too bad and the nutrients are good for you.
I hate the flavor of wheat bread, so after searching for an alternative for a long time I found something called Delightful by Sara Lee that’s a low carb, lower calorie white bread. I disliked it at first, but after eating it for a while I’ve gotten accustomed to it and saved a ton of calories and added sugars.
Keep in mind a serving of bread is a single relatively thin slice not a couple of jumbo slices bathed in butter :)
If the rest of your diet is good no particular reason you can’t eat bread. White bread is as close to a nutritional devil one can get but the whole grains & sprouted grain breads can be pretty good (Dave’s Killer Bread is one of the better brands if you want to be safe). It remains hard to get nutritional density out of bread even if its relatively good so I certainly wouldn’t eat a loaf a day but a piece or two a day I wouldn’t worry about as long as its not screwing with your nutritional goals.
So when I picks my breads I look at 3 things:
How much added sugar?
How brown is it?
What is the protein per calorie ratio?
You want very few added sugars, 5-6g of protein per 100 calories or less, and the darker the bread the better usually.
Personally, when I gave up eating refined flour (mostly whole wheat bread) my chronic cough, drippy nose and headaches disappeared. The cough had been a consistent dry one for over ten years, people at work would tell me to “drink water or something “. I really miss the toast at breakfast and avocado on toast etc. but it’s sure worth it.