Understanding Nutritional Labels of Breads - as part of the expert series by GeoBeats. There are so many labels of breads in the grocery store. Like multi-grain, seven grain, all different types to choose from and it is hard to know which ones are the healthiest for you. So let's break it down. The basis of every bread is a grain. And it depends on what type of grain they use to make a bread. If it is a multi-grain bread that means that they have used several different types of grains. Those grains might be wheat. They might be barley. They might be rye. They could be quinoa. They could be buckwheat. There are many different types of grains they can use to make that bread. If it is a seven grain, then they have used seven different grains to make it. If it is a whole wheat bread they have used whole wheat to make it. A rice bread uses rice. So that is the basic idea of the labels for the bread. Now, how can you know which ones are the healthiest? It really depends on your body and how well you digest different types of grains. So if you are gluten intolerant, then you could get the healthiest whole wheat bread on the market but it would still be bad for you. However, if you are not gluten intolerant and you are looking at all the different types of bread, here is some general rules. I want you to turn over the package of bread and take a look at the ingredients list. And the main things that you are looking for, are that the grains that they are using say whole in front of it. You want to see whole wheat, whole barley, whole rye. This means that they have used the entire plant when they were processing it. That is good news for you because it means all the fiber, vitamins and minerals that were in the plant are going to be in the bread. The other thing that you are looking for is that the list, the ingredient list on the back should be short. It does not take a lot to make bread. So we do not want to see an ingredient list that is this long. We want to see something that is about six ingredients or so. The other thing to look for is added sweeteners. It does not take sweeteners to make bread so you want to be careful buying breads that have sugar in them, that have all these added sweeteners in them. Definitely should not be in the first three ingredients, if at all on the ingredient list.
