Everyday Systems

What I have discovered over time is that if I eat bread, my weight goes up. If I don't eat bread, then it goes down. Pasta doesn't seem to be included in this, probably because of the high water content. Wonder if anyone else has noticed this, too, or is it just me???

I've read something about pasta. Dried pasta is generally made from the flour of a harder wheat than bread is. Even refined, white pastas act more like a whole grain when it goes through the digestive system.

I just read this recently and can't remember where I read it. I'll try to find it. But prior to this I'd read that it might have something to do with the fact that pasta, unlike bread, is so compressed. One author thought that might have something to do with the fact that it doesn't seem to act the same way bread does.

I just find that when I eat bread I overeat, and do not stick to portions as well.

For the two months that I lost weight this time round, I ate bread at two out of three of my meals.
How much weight are we talkin bout Jammin??
Have a great day!
Peace and Love,
Debs

Deb: not much! But there is a consistent correlation which I think is interesting.

I found this:

Pasta is made from a special type of wheat that has a dense compact structure and is slowly converted to blood sugar, so it doesn’t have the insulin-spiking effect that many people think.

I thought I'd seen a better explanation, but I can't find it now.

I doubt there's something particularly nefarious about bread. For one thing, it is very hard to measure the impact of a particular kind of food.... so my first piece of advice might be to double and triple check whether there really is a correlation. If there is, I suspect it has less to do with bread in itself than in the way we eat bread -- something extra, a starch on top of the starch we're already eating (e.g. a roll of bread and pasta). If you think that might be it, just remind yourself to adjust the amount of the primary starch to make room for the bread. Something simple like "bread must touch the place, not sit on top of something else" might do the trick.

But don't stop eating bread! It's too good.

Reinhard

When I first moved abroad, I met someone who said that American bread was way too sweet. Knees jerking, I said, "hey, no it isn't." But now when I visit relatives in the states I'm amazed at how sweet the bread tastes, even the stuff from the health food stores. Do you have a super strong reaction to eating sugar? Maybe you could try making bread at home?

I've noticed something similar, but I wonder if there's another explanation, at least a partial one.

Bread is just about the easiest thing in the world to prepare. You can't absent-mindedly nibble on dried pasta, but you can on bread. Sandwiches and toast are instant food.

Maybe, by limiting yourself to cooked starch, you avoided extra calories of on-the-go, snacky eating.

Just a theory. I may be projecting

Well, this wasn't any major complaint. I think it's just one of those foods that I tend to eat too much of, and so my weight naturally drops when I ease back on it. But it's too yummy to ever give it up entirely!

Betty wrote:When I first moved abroad, I met someone who said that American bread was way too sweet.

That's quite odd; I don't know if that applies in the UK, but I suspect it does; a lot of bread is almost like sponge cake; very light and soft. Certainly, there are other foreign breads I think of as much less cakey. German rye bread and Russian black bread are both heavy and savoury. Italian white bread is much less instantly likable, perhaps because of lower sugar content?