By Kerry McCleod
Searching for a healthy loaf of bread at your local grocery store is like looking for a needle in a wheat stack. The bread aisle is jam-packed with cleverly labeled brands that sound extremely healthy.
Many boldly splash empty health claims on the front label. Making matters worse, many manufacturers stoop to using food coloring and brown packaging to make their breads look more nutritious than they really are!
Please don’t be fooled by these healthy food impostors using label tricks like "multi-grain," ”7-grain," or “made from whole grain," to entice unsuspecting shoppers into buying their breads.
Sadly, these phrases are typically found on breads that do not contain 100% whole grains. These imposters may be “enriched”* with vitamins and other good stuff you can get from 100% whole-grain breads. Worse yet, many are highly processed breads that contain a long list of harmful junk ingredients.
*NOTE: Enriched breads have had the good nutrients stripped out along with the fiber and other vitamins and minerals, so the manufacturer has to further process to artificially add some nutrients back into the food. Does that even make sense?
For the sake of your health (and your sanity) on your next shopping excursion, go armed with a little BrandAid know-how and bypass those Healthy Food Imposters. There’ll be no more loafing in the bread aisle because we’ve fed you the Doughy Dozen Best Brands that are made from real, whole-food, quality ingredients.
BrandAid Guidelines for Breads
To ensure that you make the healthiest bread choice, quick-scan the front label and then focus on the ingredients list. Now you’re ready to put your trust into our simple BrandAid guidelines:
When buying bread look for:
- The phrase "100% Whole Grains" on the front label.
- An ingredients list that is not too long or packed with words you can’t pronounce.
- The very first ingredient to be “whole grain” or “stone ground” – not “enriched wheat flour!"
- Each slice to contain 120 calories or less and at least 3 grams of fiber or more per slice.
Avoid these junk ingredients:
- Refined grains like wheat flour, enriched wheat flour, and bleached or unbleached wheat flour.
- Refined sugars, especially high fructose corn syrup.
- Artificial sweeteners of any kind.
- Trans fats (partially hydrogenated oils).
- Artificial colors or flavors.
Kerry McLeod is the chief Brand Doctor at www.ebrandaid.com. Kerry's mission in life is to teach food shoppers how to cut through the clutter at the grocery store in order to find the truly healthy brand-name foods. If smart food shopping appeals to you, you'll want to click here and subscribe to eBrandAid.com's free newsletters.
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