Perfect Pickings: Sliced Bread

You would think something as simple as nutritious bread would be easy to pick out.

Guess again.

The sliced bread market brings in approximately $18 billion a year, meaning consumers must sort through a maze of brands, health claims, and expensive marketing campaigns.

Alas, Perfect Pickings is here to save the day!

As far as calories are concerned, commercial sliced breads range anywhere from 60 to 120 calories per serving.

These figures mainly depend on the thickness and weight of a particular brand’s slices.

Some clock in at 1 ounce, while another weigh in at an ounce and a half. Some lower-calorie “light breads”, though, constitute a single serving as two slices.

Most standard commercial breads, though, are very similar when compared ounce to ounce.

Don't focus too much on calories -- the differences aren’t that significant, and there are more important values to consider.

Sodium amounts are also fairly consistent across the board, ranging from 120 to 190 milligrams per slice (unless you specifically buy low-sodium varieties or sprouted grain breads, which contain no sodium).

Fiber is the main figure to be on the lookout for. Aim for at least 3 grams of fiber per serving.

Don’t be fooled by varieties consisting of 9, 12, or 15 grains. It is very possible all 15 grains are refined and stripped of their fiber.

You must check the nutrition facts and ingredient list to ensure you are getting a whole grain product.

If “whole wheat flour” is not the first ingredient and each slice provides less than 3 grams of fiber, you are eating white bread (you can thank the addition of molasses for that brown color) with seeds sprinkled on top.

If you see “enriched wheat flour” as the first ingredient, you are not buying whole grain bread. “Enriched wheat flour” is a nice way of saying “white, fiberless flour.”

Keep in mind that Although pure rye bread – popular in Scandinavia – is a whole grain food, the overwhelming majority of rye breads in the United States contain a significant amount of white flour.

Another tricky tidbit – careful with low-calorie “light” breads.

Many boast a fiber content of 5 or 6 grams per serving, but this is mainly due to the addition of cellulose or soy fiber.

Although they operate like insoluble fiber (by helping everything move quickly and smoothly through the digestive system), they do not provide the same health benefits as fiber derived from whole grains.

I recommend avoiding varieties containing high-fructose corn syrup (bread requires a pinch of sugar to soften texture, but HFCS skeeves me out).

Mission: (Semi) Impossible!