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No. 1 Food That Leads to Big Bellies

People who eat too much white bread have larger waistlines than their friends who eat whole grains instead, according to a new study from Tufts University in Boston.

That plushy white bread goes straight to your gut and then hangs out as belly fat, reports The Associated Press. In fact, white bread is a larger contributor to a bulging waistline than alcohol, sweets, or meat and potatoes.

"Waist circumference was very much associated with this high-refined-grains pattern," lead study author Katherine Tucker, an associate professor of nutritional epidemiology at Tufts, told AP.

Tucker's team examined 459 healthy, middle-age people in Baltimore, Maryland who had a variety of eating habits. Specifically, they examined five different diets where one type of food was prominent: healthy food, white bread, alcohol, sweets, or meat and potatoes. And the people who ate the most white bread were also the fattest.

The Tufts researchers found that calories from refined grains settle at the waistline, which translates into a half-inch a year for people who just had to have their white bread. At the end of the study, those who indulged in white bread had three times the gain in the gut as did their peers who ate whole grains.

This is serious stuff. People who have bigger waists have a higher risk of heart disease than those who weigh the same but don't carry the extra weight around the belly.

The study findings were published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Notice that the whole grain eaters also gained gut size, just not as much. The whole grain bread eaters seemed to gain 1/6th of an inch a year. So in 30 years, they would have gained about 5 inchs in gut size.

Whole grain bread is great except that this statement does not sound to be very accurate. Sweets and potatoes should not do better than white bread and also the added fat should be distributed all over the body not limited to one area.

I can understand that when you eat more carbs and less fats your stomach gets bigger since it has to keep larger amounts of food in both size and weight. This is because one gram of fat gives 9 calories while a gram of carbohydrate gives only 4.

However, eating plenty of whole grain bread should also enlarge the stomach except that it will reduce the insulin rush problem which causes people to eat more.

Additionally, people who eat whole grain bread are usually more health concerned than the ones who eat white bread. So maybe they do more to improve their fitness than just eating a healthier kind of bread.

What's the big deal about whole grain bread. A slice of white bread contains 25 frams of carbohydrate including 1 gram of fiber. A slice of whole wheat bread contains 25 grams of carbohydrate including three grams of fiber. So white bread has 24 grams of effective carbohydrates versus 22 grams for whole wheat. There's no major difference here!

i just try to stay away from bread altogether...actaully I havent had any bread for 2 months....I do eat wraps though! Hopefully that is ok I eat tacos too, hehe...but it hasn't stopped me from losing! prolly because I take l-carnitine as well as carb and fat blockers also.
p.s. MPS, if that is you in the icon, you look pretty nice there :-P lol

Insulin resistance tends to promote the storage of visceral fat packed around the internal organs, different from the more generally distributed top-layer subcutaneous fat. If you gain weight eating carbs you will probably have both, but the visceral kind is totally localized to the gut area and considered one of the risk indicators for diabetes, heart disease (anything IR related of course).

I don't put a lot of stock in the usefulness of the glycemic index because food combinations and amount consumed matter... BUT
white bread does raise insulin faster than whole wheat.

Breads

· White bread 96
· Waffle 76
· Donut 76
· Whole wheat bread 75
· Bread stuffing 74
· Kaiser rolls 73
· Bagel, white 72
· Melba toast 70
· Tortilla, corn 70
· Rye bread 65
· Whole wheat pita 58
· Pumpernickel bread 49

First off, those numbers are not correct for the standard 26-28g slice or even a 30-32g slice [which is considered a "large" slice.] That would be close to, though not quite what's in a 2 oz [semi-rectangular - about twice as long as it is tall] slice of bread, Hamburger/Hot Dog Bun, or a Large Roll.

White Bread -- 12.87g CHO - 0.60g Fiber = 12.27g Net CHO per [26g] slice. I've seen it quite often at 14g Total CHO, most likely due to a little bit of added sugar.
100% WW Bread -- 12.91g CHO - 1.93g Fiber = 10.98g Net CHO per [28g] slice. (10.2g Net for a 26g slice)

BTW, if you remove the crust:

White Bread -- 5.94g CHO - 0.28g Fiber = 5.66g Net CHO per [12g] slice.
100% WW Bread -- 5.62g CHO - 0.84g Fiber = 4.78g Net CHO per [12.2g] slice.

That's how I occassionally get away with eating Whole Wheat Toast [w. Butter] when i eat out. Once you peel off the crust, it's got about the same amount of Carbs as LC Bread, and all the Butter's on the inside, so you get to eat all of the butter. Just make sure to order REAL !!! Butter [I give extra emphasis to the word REAL, because if you don't make it clear that Butter means REAL Butter, they'll usually put Margarine on it.

Of course, the same holds true for LC Breads. You peel the crust off of them, and they lose over half their Carbs. For example [assuming they have the same crust:inside ratio as regular bread]:

Nature's Own White Wheat -- 5.08g CHO - 1.15g Fiber = 3.93g Net CHO per [crustless] slice.
Nature's Own Double Fiber -- 4.90g CHO - 2.18g Fiber = 2.72g Net CHO per [crustless] slice.
Nature's Own Wheat 'N Fiber -- 3.24g CHO - 1.03g Fiber = 2.21g Net CHO per [crustless] slice.
Country Hearth (?) -- 3.97g CHO - 2.06g Fiber = 1.91g Net CHO per [crustless] slice.

Overall, you'd probably do better cutting the crusts off your bread than eating Whole Wheat, but if you combine the two, or even better cut the crusts off Whole Wheat, Light (Reduced Calorie) Breads, its even lower. BTW, most if not all Light (Reduced Calorie) sliced Breads [from what I've seen] are reasonably low in Carbs, at about 7-8g Net a slice [4g if you remove the crust.] This makes sense, seeing as that Sliced Bread gets damn near all of its Calories from Carbs, cutting the Carbs is really the only way to make a Reduced Calorie (Light) Sliced Bread.

[QUOTE]I took my numbers from the nutrition facts on the label for commercial bread. My mistake was to confuse slices and servings. The numbers I quoted were for a two slice serving.

The numbers still don't add up. There's no real advantage to eating shole wheat bread. Whatever nutrients it has are far better obtained from other sources, like low carb, fresh fruits and vegetables.

Also, what's all the hype about the glycemic index. It only measures how fast the insulin reaction occurs. You can go 60 mph in Porsche or you can go 60 mph in a Geo metro. The Porsche will get you there faster, so what. The real question is whether you should be going 60 mph.

24 grams of carbohydrate from white bread will produce the same insulin reaction as 24 grams of carbohydrate from beans, only faster. It may make a difference in how fast you become hungry again. But if the issue is controlling levels of insulin to control insulin resistance, the glycemic index is not useful and possibly harmful if it leads someone to believe that it's OK to load up on carbs from the lower end of the glycemic index.

My mom struggled with her weight most of her life....until she went on a low-fat diet.

But my mom was strugglling to keep her weight UP, not down!

When she was about 74, on LF for about 15 yrs, her doc gave her grief about her weight. He asked what she ate every day and when she said she had a bagel for breakfast every morning, he patted her belly and said "yep, that's one big bagel Wini". He then told her to not worry about fat or salt, but to cut down on breads, potatoes, etc. He also told her that if she made her own she could eat breads, but to avoid store-bought because of the "nasty" ingredients they use. This was back in the early 90's and her doc was a cardiologist. (Mom didn't have CAD, but did have conduction issues and coronary artery spasm)

Thanks for that contribution cc - that's definitely info I'll be able to make some use of.

Just curious--Why would removing the crust have anything to do with carb count other than making the portion smaller? You could accomplish the same thing by cutting the peice in half or slicing it thin. Crust is made from the same dough as the rest of the bread-just browned from the heat of the oven. I can't imagine that the browning process magically adds carbs?

Thanks!

If you look bread up on the USDA database, http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search/, it shows that bread with the crust removed has half the weight (and carbs) as bread with the crust. A lot of the bread must be removed with the crust.

I'm thinking that the crust must be denser than the inner portion.

"A lot of the bread must be removed with the crust."

Not the way I remove it! LOL My mom used to bake oatmeal bread that was wonderful.....but when toasted the crust got hard as a rock. We'd toast it first, then carefully trim off the crust....just the top part tho. I'm sure we didn't even loose 5% of the total amount! LOL