Bread is a simple food, prepared with flour (wheat or spelt), water, yeast and salt. As such, it offers an interesting combination of nutritional elements within the framework of a balanced diet: it’s a source of vegetable proteins, complex carbohydrates and fibre. And yet, bread suffers from many misconceptions in terms of its nutritional value. Let’s have a look at some of the clichés:
• Bread makes you fat. FALSE!
Bread in itself doesn’t make you fat. It’s an excess of the possible accompaniments that would be to blame, such as butter, cheese, sauce or charcuterie – above all if you lead a sedentary lifestyle. Serving bread with every meal contributes to a balanced diet. The higher its fibre content, the more bread contributes to a feeling of being sated. Of course, speciality breads (with dried fruits, olives or cheese for example) naturally contain more fat than plain breads. This is why the nutritional analysis of every bread we bake is available to you on this website.
• Only wholemeal bread provides fibre. FALSE!
Wholemeal bread is certainly the champion of fibre intake. But all breads, even plain white bread, contain fibre, as long as you don’t use flour that’s too refined, too ‘white’ in fact – such as T55 flour. To help you navigate the labeling, the higher the ‘T’ value, the higher the fibre content. At PAUL, our breads are made with a flour that is minimum T65. For ‘pains de campagne’, we use T80 and for wholemeal bread, T150.
• Bread doesn’t contain any vitamins. FALSE!
Bread contains most of the B group vitamins (apart from vitamin B12) necessary for the proper functioning of the nervous system. What’s more, the more ‘complete’ the bread (i.e. the less ‘refined’ the flour), the higher the vitamin B content.
• Bread has more calories than breakfast cereals. FALSE – AGAIN!
Most of these cereals are high in added sugars and fats. It’s better to choose daily bread that provides fewer calories and gives you energy without eating too much. For those who eat breakfast outside or on the move, PAUL suggests benoîtons – our mini breadsticks – for a balanced option to alternate with pure butter pastries!