For the past few days, the central press in Romania has been circulating the results of a study conducted by the CIPRA Association – the Center for Information, Risk Prevention, and Analysis, regarding the eating habits of Romanians. The media rushed to observe how negligently Romanians nourish themselves. For Adevărul and Mediafax, it is even “worrying that 80% of Romanians consume bakery products daily or almost daily.” Where and how the consumption of bakery products became associated with concern and what are the scientific bases for this concern, we do not know. I have a feeling, considering the widespread “concern” in the entire press, that the “concern” about how much bread Romanians eat comes precisely from a comment made by this association on its own study.
The consumption of products derived from cereals is part of any nutrition scheme for a healthy life. It is enough to study the recommendations of governmental institutions worldwide to see this. Obviously, any food consumed excessively has negative effects on health, and the dose-effect relationship is the backbone of toxicology. The fact that in such a study, daily bread consumption is associated with concern, is a bit disturbing, considering that culturally, bread is meant to be consumed daily, together with foods that are not consumed daily. What specifically about bread consumption can raise a concern? Romanians are a people who come from a past where per capita bread consumption was about 30% higher than it is today. Were they then more obese or less healthy than they are today? Are Turks, Bulgarians, or Serbians, who are big bread consumers even today, obese populations riddled with helplessness and disease? I wouldn’t say so!
It is easy to associate the main food in the Romanian diet with their diseases, given that it is predominantly present at every meal, but anyone who has delved a bit deeper into statistics knows that correlation is not necessarily causation. On the occasion of this study, I would like to recap a few things related to the myths created around bread:
Does obesity have a single determinant in our diet?
We cannot analyze this statement without noting from the start that obesity is a public health problem that certainly has multiple determinants, both in our diets and in our lifestyles. We cannot seek the sources of obesity in a single food or group of foods, just as we cannot explain obesity through a single aspect of our lifestyle (for example, is it enough not to exercise to become fat?) From a scientific perspective and even more so in a complex, multidisciplinary science like nutrition, this kind of reductionism should be avoided.
Is bread really lacking in nutrients, and are the calories it provides truly empty?
White bread clearly contains a higher amount of carbohydrates, and thus calories, than other foods. However, accusing these calories of being “empty calories, without evident benefits for nourishing the body” is a sign of gross misinformation and a lack of scientific understanding. It is true that the nutrients provided by bread can also be obtained from other food sources, but this is by no means an argument to stop consuming bread. Even foods themselves can be replaced with nutritional supplements, rich in minerals and vitamins, which can be taken as-is, but does that mean we should give up food in favor of pills? Unilaterally giving up bread from this perspective cannot, in any way, contribute to achieving an essential goal of our diet, namely its diversity.
We cannot discuss the potentially negative effects of food without establishing from the start that these effects are conditioned by quantity. For example, water is essential for life; it is vital for the proper functioning of our bodies, as we ourselves are composed of almost 80% water. But what happens when we consume water excessively? We experience physiological effects that deviate from the normal state. Is water harmful? Should we give it up?
Another point to clarify is that the bread we consume from the market (white bread, the whole range of specialties colored with malt flour or obtained from different mixtures of flours, such as rye, oats, graham, etc.) in the case of the Romanian market, is based on type 650 flour. It is not that hyper-refined flour that nutritionists often speak of. No, by no means is the bread we regularly consume lacking in minerals and vitamins. It is true that the milling process induces minimal modifications to the carbohydrate content and, consequently, the energy value. Despite significant losses of minerals compared to whole grain flour, white flour remains an important source of proteins, iron, B-group vitamins, and even folates.
For instance, with a daily intake of 2000 kcal from bread, if we were to eat only white bread, we would meet 90% of our daily protein needs, 10% of our calcium needs, 80% of the iron needs for men, 40% of the iron needs for women, 40% of our zinc needs, 90% of our thiamine needs, 20% of our riboflavin needs, 40% of our niacin and pyridoxine needs, 30% of our folate needs, and 90% of our phosphorus needs. Can bread be considered in this context as an empty-calorie food? No. The data above only tells us that bread is not a complete food, and the way we use it in our diet (in combination with other foods) is evidence that people have understood this for centuries.
Is there a proven relationship in the specialized literature between weight gain and bread consumption?
In the specialized literature, there are numerous studies investigating the causes of obesity in modern society. Lahti-Koski and his colleagues from the National Public Health Institute in Helsinki published the results of a study in 2002, conducted between 1982 and 1997, involving 24,604 individuals, both men and women, aged between 26 and 64 years. The study’s results showed that leisure-time physical activity, daily vegetable consumption, bread consumption in women, and workplace activity in men tend to reduce obesity. On the other hand, the consumption of processed meats and dairy products, and in the case of women, even physical work, tend to increase obesity. The study also associated obesity with a history of smoking or alcohol consumption [1]. It should be noted that the influence of dairy products on obesity, as indicated by the study mentioned above, can be considered controversial.
For example, Pereira and colleagues (2002) found that in young adults, dairy consumption is negatively correlated with the increase in the incidence of IRS (insulin resistance syndrome, which includes obesity, glucose intolerance, hypertension, dyslipidemia, major risk factors for the development of type 2 diabetes and certain cardiovascular diseases) [2].
If you study the specialized literature, you will notice that most research correlates obesity not solely with the consumption of bread but with the combination of bread and spreadable fats (butter, margarine, etc.). Essentially, it is the way we consume bread (not the bread itself) that may be suspected of being unhealthy, especially considering that bread with butter or margarine is traditionally part of certain breakfast habits.
Milling and Baking Magazine 
Leave a comment