Checking Food Labels, Part 2 – Bread

Hello again, apologies for the hiatus, I’ve been alternately ill with the flu, then busy with work, and then ill with covid. While recovering from the last, I thought I might get a quick post in before work gets me busy once again!

So, an update on the digestive health front: after trying a restricted diet for a while and completing a food diary for 5 weeks, the results were rather inconclusive: sometimes I was reacting to foods and sometimes I wasn’t.

My take is that the digestive issues may be related to mental health – that is, I’m more likely to have a bad reaction to foods when my body is in a hyper-aroused / stressed / anxious state. This makes intuitive sense, because the sympathetic nervous system (fight/flight) reaction tends to shut down digestion.

Unfortunately, with my sympathetic nervous system over-reacting randomly (thanks to some combination of autism and/or an anxiety/stress disorder and/or menopause), there’s not much I can do about it. So all I can do is stick with the dietary interventions for now, to try and limit the damage.

Enough background… today I’m going to talk about one of the foods that I react to sometimes: bread.

The issue for me doesn’t seem to be gluten – in fact I react worst to GF bread – but is more likely additives. And it makes me wonder if other (non-coeliacs) out there may also be having problems with bread and being guided towards a gluten-free diet, which may not be necessary? Perhaps what we should be doing is seeking out bread with the least additives.

I’ve looked up some of the additives in the commonly-available white breads eaten by me and my family (and, a lot of other people, too!) for your information. Apologies if a lot are Woolworths brand, that’s where I usually shop. Below the table I discuss some of these additives further.

	Preservatives:	Emulsifiers:	Thickeners/ stabilisers:	Legume flours:	Modified starches:
	Calcium propionate Cultured wheat flour Fermented wheat flour	481 471 472e Soy lecithin (322)	Guar gum (412) Acacia gum (414) Cellulose gums (464,466)	Soy flour Yellow pea flour	Modified tapioca starch Maltodextrin
Packaged Breads:
Wonder White	X	X	X	X	X
Tip Top Gluten Free White			X	X	X main ingredient
Abbotts Bakery Light Rye	X	X		X
Helgas Traditional White	X	X
Fresh-baked breads:
Baker’s Delight white, Brumby’s white				X
Woolworths white extra soft				X
Woolworths 35hr sourdough		X
Woolworths pane di casa or baguette

The first thing to note is that the pre-packaged breads all contain preservatives, to increase shelf-life. I mentioned in a previous post that the preservative calcium propionate is a nasty one, and is often a problem for autistics. But that wasn’t listed as an ingredient in any of these breads, instead they listed “cultured wheat flour”.

Watch out for this – the process of fermenting or culturing wheat flour with propioniibacteria is a way of producing propionates, without having to label them on the product. They are used for the same purpose – as preservatives and mould inhibitors. That’s why I’ve listed cultured wheat flour and fermented wheat flour as potentially problematic additives.

Second thing to note is that the pre-packaged breads also contain various emulsifiers and/or thickeners and stabilisers. These are chemicals which help bind the ingredients and produce the desired texture, I believe. I’m not entirely sure whether they are harmful, and some may be worse than others (as mentioned in a previous post, I personally seem to react to guar gum). For now I’m working on the basis of “the less chemical additives the better”.

The gluten-free bread has another ingredient to watch out for: modified starch. I’m flagging this additive as potentially problematic because, as far as I can ascertain from a google search, modified starches are not the same as the original starches extracted from plants, they’ve been altered at the molecular level. So while “tapioca starch” is a natural starch extracted from tapioca, “modified tapioca starch” is something different. Is it harmful? I have no idea, but I would avoid on the basis of: “the less processing the better”.

Conclusion so far : AVOID PRE-PACKAGED BREADS!

The fresh-baked breads have far fewer additives. These are the breads that are sold without packaging or with “best before” dates only a day or two after purchase. There is a trade-off: in our subtropical climate they need to be frozen after purchase if you want them to last all week. (Personally, I think that’s a small price to pay for being free of preservatives and emulsifiers).

These breads may contain legume flours, though, such as soy flour or (in the Woolworths brands) yellow pea flour. These flours are also used a lot in low GI foods because they are higher in protein and lower in carbohydrate – but there’s a problem! You know that dried legumes need to be pre-soaked or pre-cooked and have the water drained off before they are digestible. That’s because they contain anti-nutrients such as lectins and phytic acid. Flours produced from legumes may still contain some anti-nutrients, making them hard to digest.

So what type of bread am I currently eating?

At the moment I’m going with the baguettes (especially the crunchy tiger baguette!) and “pane di casa” from the Woolworths bakery. Similar breads can be found at Coles and other bakeries. I’m not entirely sure about some of the ingredients (what’s in starter culture? malted wheat flour?) but I don’t have time to bake my own.

And, believe ot or not…

packaged yeast has emulsifiers in, too.