Diabetics and people who are trying to lose weight or control cholesterol should avoid all forms of ground-up grains, and that includes bread. For everyone else, bread is a perfectly satisfactory food.

Breads have been made for thousands of years, in virtually every culture, to wrap, sandwich, or accompany other foods for breakfast, lunch and dinner. When ground-up grains were used shortly after milling, there was no need to remove anything or to add ingredients to keep them fresh. Only in our recent history have we turned bread into junk food by removing the germ and fiber from the grains. Even worse, some bread manufacturers add partially hydrogenated fats to their breads to prolong their shelf life.

The best way to assure that you are getting a bread that is made from whole grains, with nothing removed, is to bake your own bread made from flour you grind yourself, or buy from local bakers who grind their flour fresh every few days (these are hard to find.) Not many people are going to be able to do that. So here are my rules for picking the best of the commercial breads:

1. Avoid any bread that is made with partially hydrogenated oils. Read the list of ingredients and if it contains the words partially hydrogenated, put it back on the shelf. Partially hydrogenated oils are totally unnecessary for making good-tasting bread, and we should boycott the companies that use them in their products until they get rid of them. I'm happy to report that Arnold and BrownBerry breads have removed these oils from their recipes, and apologize for not noticing this change when it happened.

2. Get as much whole grain flour as possible. This isn't easy to tell, because regulations allow bread makers to use the words whole wheat even if portions of the grain have been removed. Words like stone ground, multi-grain, seven-grain or cracked wheat sound healthy but don't tell you anything. Generally, breads that list whole wheat as the first ingredient are better than those that start with enriched flour of some sort.

3. Pick breads with higher fiber content. 2 grams of fiber per slice is better than 1 or 0 grams. One caution: breads promoted for their fiber content may have added pea fiber or some such ingredient; that's adding sawdust, not an indication that you're getting the whole grains. Check the list of ingredients on these breads.

4. Sprouted grain breads may cause a lower rise in blood sugar than breads made with flour, but no good data is available. The bread dough is made from whole grains that are sprouted by soaking them in water, then mashed, instead of using ground dry grains (flour) plus water. They usually have all the nutrients of the whole grains since nothing is removed in the sprouting process. There vitamin content of the grains is increased slightly in the sprouting process. However, these breads still cause a higher rise in blood sugar than cooked whole grains that have not been mashed into a dough.

5. Added seeds are a bonus. Many breads include seeds in the dough or as toppings. This is an easy way to add caraway seeds, sesame seeds, poppy seeds or other whole seeds to your diet.

6. Watch out for breads that taste too good. Nothing is more seductive than a loaf of freshly baked bread. A reasonable portion is 1-2 slices. If you eat the whole loaf in one sitting, or the whole basket of rolls in a restaurant before dinner comes, you'll get into trouble.

Dr. Gabe Mirkin has been a radio talk show host for 25 years and practicing physician for more than 40 years; he is board certified in four specialties, including sports medicine. Read or listen to hundreds of his fitness and health reports at http://www.DrMirkin.com

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