Intro

This chapter delves into the historical significance of bread, examining its evolution and nutritional decline over time. It also offers insights into choosing healthier bread options and essential shopping tips for modern consumers.

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Episode notes

It’s no exaggeration to say that bread shaped modern humanity - it was the cultivation of wheat for flour that transformed our ancestors from hunter-gatherers to city dwellers.

Today, millions of us start the day with a slice of toast, and most lunches in the US and UK are wrapped in a slice of bread or a burger bun as a cheap, flexible, and delicious energy source.

But modern industrial processes designed to reduce the time and cost of baking mean today’s bread would be unrecognizable to our ancestors.

Today’s bread tastes good but has lost most of its nutritional content. With most of its fiber gone, and no time for bacteria to work its fermenting magic, bread has become a simple starch, rapidly turned into sugar in our blood and offering little to support our gut bacteria. For this reason, bread is increasingly demonized as an evil carb.

In today’s episode, Jonathan speaks to two authorities on the subject to ask: Can bread can ever be healthy?

Vanessa Kimbel is a specialist in personalised bread and her doctorate in nutrition & digestabilty of bread is in Baking as Lifestyle Medicine & preventative healthcare.
Tim Spector is a co-founder at ZOE and one of the top 100 most cited scientists in the world.

Download our FREE guide — Top 10 Tips to Live Healthier: https://zoe.com/freeguide

Timecodes:

00:00 - Intro

00:09 - Topic introduction

02:14 - Quickfire questions

04:08 - Why bread matters

05:23 - Is bread empty calories?

08:46 - What is bread?

11:30 - What is bran?

12:16 - The difference between the types of grains

14:19 - What is the impact of bread on our microbes?

17:03 - What should you look for in bread?