How to choose bread & other baked goods

Most baked goods are made predominantly from refined carbohydrate (white flour). Some contain just a bit of whole grain and make sure to let you know by advertising the words “whole grain” in large letters even if there is very little in them. Others, such as tortilla chips made from corn, are made from the entire corn kernel and are therefore technically “100% whole grain” but actually digest very quickly and are low in fiber so that their health value is little more than white flour. Health comes from the majority of the grain being whole and the grains being used having a high fiber content. Such products will have 10-15% of their carbohydrates as fiber, meaning that if you look at the label you will have 1-1.5 grams of fiber for every 10 grams of carbohydrate. Besides corn, whole grains are typically high in fiber, so buying products that are “100% whole grain” will almost always provide you with the benefits you are looking for. Other terms in the ingredients of baked goods that you should be familiar with are:

• Wheat flour: The flour is made from wheat, which includes white refined flour. It is misleading because some people believe “wheat flour” means “whole wheat flour” but it does not. Occasionally a bread will be made from whole wheat and just list it as “wheat flour” but this is not generally the rule. If a bread is made from whole grains around 15% of the carbohydrate content will be fiber, and if bran is added the fiber content will be even higher.
• Unbleached flour: After the grain was stripped of its fiber and nutrients it was not whitened with benzoyl peroxide, chlorine gas, chlorine dioxide or potassium bromate. These bleaching agents in general do not remain in the flour because of volatility, but there are potential health issues with their use. Potassium bromate, for example, is a suspected carcinogen and has been banned in Europe, Canada and Japan, but in the US it can be added to foods and only in California is it required to be listed in the ingredients. It is known that the bleaching agents reduce the nutrient content of flour from low to lower (an example of dumb to dumber) by destroying what few vitamins remain. Pastry and other bright white baked goods are in general made from bleached flour, sugar, saturated fat and very often trans fat. I myself occasionally eat pastries, particularly when I am traveling somewhere and there are regional specialties I can not get anywhere else, but is interesting to think how much the body suffers from such food so that the brain can get a “happiness signal” from the sugar and fat being on the tongue for a minute or two.
• Enriched flour: The grain has been stripped of its fiber and nutrients, and then vitamins and minerals have been added back in. This is required by the government because stripping the nutrients out of grain leaves bread so deficient in health value that neural tube birth defects become more prevalent. Thus, folic acid and other nutrients, must be added back into the flour. It is nice that birth defects are reduced, but there is little benefit to health beyond this. Using the whole grain avoids the entire problem, promotes health and actually tastes better given the chance.