Does bread make you fat?
Prof. Volker Schusdzirarra is an internist and gastroenterologist at the Klinikum rechts der Isar, TU München. He has cared for overweight people for many years.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: If you want to go fast, most people eat bread - according to your findings, not a good idea ...
Volker Schusdziarra: It's true, eating a lot of bread is at least unfavorable for the character. To fill the stomach, we need 300 to 400 grams of pure bread and eat a lot of calories. Because bread contains very little water, is quite "energy-dense", that is, it provides relatively many calories per gram. The more water-rich foods are, the faster we are fed up with little calories. The amount of food provides for the stomach stretch. And that triggers the saturation signal. By comparison, 80 to 90 percent of vegetables and fruits are water. They are low in energy, have only about 0.2 or 0.5 kilocalories per gram. Bread, on the other hand, has 2 to 2.7 kilocalories per gram.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: And if you drink water to your bread?
Volker Schusdziarra: That does not help. Even the glass of water before eating is not really enough. The liquid rushes through. Only water that is naturally present in food fills the stomach.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: If you follow the glycemic index, bread is as much a fattener as sugar.
Volker Schusdziarra: I do not think much of the Bohei for the Glycemic Index. According to this theory, one should avoid foods that greatly increase the blood sugar level. The key to overweight is not the rise in blood sugar levels, but the insulin level. For example, with a carbohydrate, fat and protein meal, blood sugar levels can be low while insulin levels can be high. For weight loss, therefore, the total calorie intake is still crucial.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Should we do without bread?
Volker Schusdziarra: No, nobody can do that. The good news: As soon as we put low-fat toppings on the bread, the insulin effect is more moderate, and we also save calories. My tip for those who want to lose weight: do not cut the bread so thick, rather do it more. I recommend to saturate five millimeters of bread and five millimeters of low-fat toppings such as ham, turkey breast, lean cheese or quark, garnished with vegetables.
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: And best of all, the casserole is made of wholegrain bread ...
Volker Schusdziarra: For the saturation, that makes no difference. It depends on the amount of bread and the topping. But as far as the calories are concerned, wholemeal bread is much cheaper, it has about 50 kilocalories less per 100 grams than white bread. And it's healthier, delivers more minerals and fiber.
