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Health Benefits to Baking Your Own Whole Wheat Bread

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I think one of the greatest benefits received by baking your own whole wheat bread is the long term health benefits you reap. When you bake whole wheat bread you control every ingredient put into it. No artificial sweeteners, emulsifiers, no bleached then enriched flour and no other unnecessary additives that take away from the health of the bread.

Whole Grains

To see for yourself what I’m talking about, go get a loaf of bread that you’ve bought from the store, now read the ingredient list and google all of the really long words that don’t sound like natural ingredients. You will be shocked at what you discover.

For example, the ingredient “monoglycerides,” found in almost every store bought bread, is actually hydrogenated oil/fat otherwise known as trans fat. Hydrogenated oil is oil saturated with hydrogen at a high temperature. This creates tight bonds with the hydrogen which allows it to remain semisolid at room temperature and increases shelf life drastically by delaying rancidity. What allows it to be solid is how tightly the molecules of the fat bond to each other. In your blood stream this means the fat clumps to itself much easier and clogs your veins much easier.

This is why hydrogenated oils and trans fats have been labeled “the silent killer” because they dramatically increase the risk of coronary heart disease. The bread manufacturers try to be sneaky and put monoglycerides in the list of ingredients in place of hydrogenated oils to fool you. You could look at the nutrition panel on the same loaf of bread with the ingredient monoglycerides and under trans fats it will list zero grams. This is because under FDA regulations if the serving contains less than 0.5 grams of trans fat, the package is free to say it has zero.

But lets say you eat four slices of bread (with each serving containing 0.4 grams of trans fat) then you just consumed 1.6 grams of trans fat, despite the fact that the nutrition panel on your bread claims that it has zero grams of trans fat per serving.

You can’t trust store bought bread, it’s that simple. The bread manufacturing companies do what they can to save money in production of the bread but in the long run it costs you your health. The only solution that I’ve found is to bake your own bread. This isn’t as complicated as it sounds, it’s actually very easy once you learn how.

My favorite bread to bake is whole wheat bread because it’s so heart healthy and you get so many vitamins and minerals from it. If the whole wheat bread is made correctly you also get a really amazing tasting bread that can put store bought imitations to shame. I call them imitations because a lot of bread manufacturers actually use white flour to make “whole wheat” bread and then color it with caramel to make it look authentic. So again check ingredients on your bread. If the bread has unbleached enriched flour as the first ingredient you could actually be buying white bread disguised as whole wheat bread, look for caramel coloring in the ingredients list as well to prove this.

Other ingredients to watch out for:

Calcium sulfate: This is also known as plaster of Paris, this additive is used as a dough conditioner and firming agent. As it absorbs moisture and hardens quickly, one caution is that it can cause intestinal obstruction. It is banned in some countries.

Calcium propionate: This additive is used as a mold inhibitor but may be linked to migraines.

So do yourself a favor and start baking your own bread. It’s probably one of the greatest health choices you can make.

- Beth Scott

Beth Scott is the author of The Ultimate Whole Wheat Bread Baking Guide. For more information visit her Easy Bread Baking website.

 

Is Your Bread Slowly Killing You?

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If you eat white (or any kind of store bought) bread, then here are a few things you should know before you put that next slice in your mouth.

For example…did you know that the inclusion of hydrogenated oils, artificial preservatives, emulsifiers, additives and other chemicals in bread became standard practice in the mid 1950′s?

Sliced Bread by Ciprian Dumitrescu

At this same time whole wheat flour was replaced by bleached, enriched white flour. In this process, grain is bleached and sterilized with chemicals to make it white and soft.

It is then artificially enriched by adding vitamins, minerals and other materials destroyed in the chemical process.

Despite what you may have been told, trying to ”enrich” something with the very vitamins and minerals that were removed from it in the first place, does not make it even half as healthy as the natural unrefined version.

When you think about this, it doesn’t even make much sense.

It is also a growing practice in many bread producing factories to replace white flour with substances like alum, ground rice, and whiting.

Alum is the most commonly used of all these substances, because it gives the bread a whiter color and causes the flour to absorb and retain a larger amount of water than it would otherwise hold.

This enables the factories to produce bread which imitates bread made from a higher quality flour.

This tainting of your bread with harmful chemicals, such as potassium bromate, emulsifiers (both commonly used in bread production), and alum, jeopardizes your health.

Do you know why your store bought bread has such a long shelf life?

The mysteriously prolonged shelf life is because of a particular emulsifier used in making the bread. This emulsifier is mainly used as a softening agent and tends to deceive buyers as to the real age of their bread.

This emulsifier can hide the signs that your bread is rotting (it certainly doesn’t stop the rotting) for a few extra weeks, but the harm it does to your body (and the harm in eating the half rotten bread) makes the cost for this ”convenience” very high.

Is it any wonder then, that every year a growing number of people just like you and I, are being hospitalized with illnesses and incurable diseases?

Is it possible for you to protect yourself and your loved ones against unhealthy and harmful bread?

Well, buying bread from a store is certainly not the right choice to make. Even if you buy commercially produced whole wheat bread you’re not getting healthy food.

A lot of times what passes for whole wheat bread is actually white bread colored with caramel.

If the first ingredient in a loaf of whole wheat bread is unbleached enriched flour, then you’re not truly buying whole wheat bread at all, just white bread (loaded with chemicals) that is disguised as whole wheat bread.

There is only one true solution to ensure that you avoid poisonous, toxic bread. And that is to bake your own healthy whole wheat bread.

This is no where near as difficult as it sounds. In fact it’s dead set simple. All you need is a good proven recipe, and an expert guide to teach you just once what to do.

- Beth Scott

Beth Scott is the author of The Ultimate Whole Wheat Bread Baking Guide. For more information visit her Easy Bread Baking website.

 

Baking At Home

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Among the basics of life, home baking and spending time with the family in the comfort of your own kitchen is one of the most rewarding experiences. And baking with a bread machine makes things easier.

While the breadmaker is baking, the worderful smell that fills your home, gets deep into the soul of every member helping to integrate a family atmosphere that will be remembered during their lifetime.

If you have children and are old enough, you can teach them how to make bread and help prepare them for life. If you are single, you can teach your friends. If you are just married, making bread together helps to build a strong and enduring relationship.

Baking bread at home is a wonderful thing and it be a family affair!

Should You Bake Your Own Bread?

By: Beth Scott

Maybe you’ve never heard it before, but you really should be baking your own bread.

Why?

I think the number one reason everyone should bake their own bread is that it redeems you from years of bad health and medical bills. How so?

Homemade Bread is Healthier

It is much healthier to bake your own bread instead of buying bread that contains chemical additives, hydrogenated oils, unhealthy preservatives, and fattening sweeteners.

If you buy white bread you’re also getting bread that is nutritionless, but don’t be fooled, store bought whole wheat bread is just as bad for you. A lot of times the whole wheat bread sold in stores isn’t really made out of “whole meal” but is just white bread that is colored (using caramel) to make it appear like it’s whole grain and healthy. Store bought whole wheat bread also contains the same emulsifiers, and chemical by products that are in store bought white bread.

When you bake your own bread you never have to worry about these “hidden dangers” or chemicals in bread. Instead you can control every ingredient that goes into your bread, and you’ll know exactly how it is processed and created.

There are many other great incentives for baking homemade whole wheat bread, and I’ll go into each one below.

Homemade Bread Tastes Better Than Store Bought

Absolutely no argument here. Everyone I’ve met agrees that the taste of homemade bread far surpasses that of store bought bread, (some have even said they could taste the chemicals in the store bought bread and really hated it). Taste is a biggie for a lot of people, and since everyone wants to eat tasty meals, you can’t go wrong by baking your own bread.

Homemade Bread Saves You Money

It’s much cheaper to buy all the ingredients for making bread separately, than buying them already made into bread. You can easily save $30 or $40 dollars a month, by baking your own bread. This might not sound like much but over time, believe me, it adds up. This is especially true if you buy as many of your bread ingredients as you can, in the bulk department of a supermarket. An entire bag of whole wheat flour (enough to make 4 to 6 loaves) could cost $4.00 or less. This is just one example of how cheap baking your own bread is.

Homemade Bread Is Lower In Fat, This = Weight Loss

My favorite reason for baking bread, is that, if you bake the right kind of bread (like whole wheat bread) it can be a great way to help you lose pounds or maintain a healthy weight.

I’m sure you’ve heard the myth before that bread is really fattening, it’s a myth at least for homemade whole wheat bread. Store bought bread really is fattening because of all the extras that large scale manufacturers stuff their bread with. Manufacturers do this to give their bread longer shelf life and to make the bread look more appealing so they’ll get more customers to buy their bread. These big corporate CEO’s could care less if their bread causes you to pack on pounds. You’ve got to remember, after all, that they’re only in it for the money.

But if you bake your own whole wheat bread you’ll have a truly wholesome bread that will help you to achieve the healthy body and goal weight you desire. Don’t think you can bake your own whole wheat bread? Don’t know where to start? I’ll teach you how to bake your very own bread with no hassle, in simple steps. Visit my Easy Bread Baking website for more details.

Making No-Knead Bread At Home