The Brown V/S The Whole Grain
The other day, I and my friends went out to have a Bombay sandwich. There is something about the Bombay sandwiches, they are yum and pocket friendly and you can see what’s going into making it and adjust it accordingly. So we devour this pleasurable experience as and when we get time. We reached our favorite sandwichwala and ordered veg toast, lucky skinny got to eat masala toast. Then started a war for bread of choice; the white bread or the brown bread. Seriously?! Brown or white?? It just sounds racist if you ask me. So I got thinking, what’s wrong with the white bread? Did it do something wrong that the brown bread didn’t?
Here is what I think, brown or white, it doesn’t matter, but if given a choice of whole wheat or brown I would always go for the whole wheat. What draws this conclusion you ask? Well being brown doesn’t make bread necessarily whole wheat or whole grain! Some brown bread indeed is added with brown coloring. You may find it listed on the label if you care to check.
Whole grains contain fiber, antioxidants such as Vitamin E and selenium, iron, magnesium, zinc and B vitamins. When whole grains are refined, all of the above are completely or partially removed. In addition, whole grains also contain lignans, phenolic acids, phytoestrogens, and other phytochemicals may help reduce the risk of heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. One of the beneficial nutrient fiber is removed in the refining process and hence can be found in abundance in whole wheat bread but not white bread. Fiber not only promotes health, it also helps reduce the risk for some chronic diseases.
Now for the white bread, which by now we all know is just plain refined flour ( Maida). When flour is refined, it loses the most nutritious parts of the grain, the fiber, essential fatty acids, and most of the vitamins and minerals. In fact, about 30 nutrients are removed. So that’s just junk that we are putting inside our body and with an addition of certain vegetables claim it to be nutritious. Brown bread is just the same with an addition of color! By the way you are paying Rs 10 extra for a dash of color!
That’s the ugly truth about your bread, brown or white. But whole wheat is a completely different story, it retains most of the nutrients and also fiber content so that makes it healthier. Also the texture of a whole wheat bread won’t be as smooth as our refined breads; it would be a bit coarse and dry.
The same logic goes for Brown rice and white rice, one bowl of rice, white or brown contains the same amount of calories, ie. 200 cals. But if you check its macros it makes a huge difference in the number of nutrition break up that goes in.
Here is the break up:
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Clearly we have a winner!
Same goes for pastas too.
So guys choose wise and don’t just go for a label saying brown or white read its contents, make healthier choices. Live strong!
This is Pooja, signing off… hope you have a good week and march towards good health in glory! J
What are you going to choose? The brown or the whole grain?
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