Monday Nutrition Tip of the Week

Before we get to our regularly-scheduled tip, I have to get something off my chest. These 100-calorie packs of snack food I see all the time are killing me. 100 calories of Oreos, Chips Ahoy, Cheese Nips. It's like, "Congratulations! You just ate 100 nutritionally void calories!" Why is that something to celebrate? Yay! You ate 100 calories of crap instead of 500. Eat a banana! It's more calories, but at least you got something out of it.

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OK, today's tip is: are you down with the brown? Brown food, that is. Everybody has probably heard that wheat bread is more healthy than white, that brown rice is better than white, wheat pasta better than white, but why? For the purposes of this post, let's stick with wheat bread vs. white bread.

It all starts with the way bread is processed. Flour is made from wheat berries, which contains three main building blocks: the bran (outer layer), the germ (innermost area), and the endosperm (the starch in-between). Whole wheat bread is uses all three nutritious parts of the wheat berry, while white flour is stripped and processed to include only the endosperm. Consequently, wheat bread is higher in fiber, vitamins B6 and E, magnesium, zinc, and folic acid. 

Meanwhile, the white bread has about 30 nutrients removed, and by law five have to be added back (or "enriched"): iron, niacin, thiamin, riboflavin, and folic acid. You'd have to eat eight pieces of white bread to match the fiber in one piece of wheat bread. 

And fiber is key in our diet. Aside from assisting in weight control (because fiber fills you up for longer), a diet high in fiber aids digestive health (a.k.a. good pooping!), has been associated with reduced risk of certain cancers, and can lower your risk for heart disease. According to the American Medical Association, switching from white to whole wheat bread can reduce your heart disease risk by 20 percent!

But here is the tricky thing: it's not enough just to choose the brown bread next time you're at the grocery store. For whatever maddening reason, many companies label breads as "Wheat" when they truly are not. You HAVE to look at the label to find out if what you're buying is truly wheat, or just white bread turned brown by caramel coloring. The first ingredient on the label must say "Whole Grain" or "Whole Wheat." If it doesn't, it's just white bread in disguise.