Wheat is the
most used cereal in western countries where bread is an
important component in food habits. The endosperme is the
principal source of raw material in making bread, pastry
and pasta, even if the food value of the germ and the bran
have been discovered. These two elements of wheat grain
are main components of our flours.
|
Does
bread make you put on weight ?
|
Bread has a low fat content, but it's
full of starch.
Starch is a low-absorbing sugar which turn gradually into
glucose during digestion. Thanks to this progressive transformation,
the energy we need is dispatched slowly for a long time.
Therefore, bread has a regulating role which avoid to
body weariness and lower concentration.
On the contrary, fast-absorbing
sugars (honey, sugar, marmalade) are very fast transformed
to glucose, so very used by the body. They have an immediate
effect on energy level. Such types should not be used a
lot, because they quickly turn into grease (as for lipids)
if they are not used., and therefore, it's the origin of
hypoglycemic status. Furthermore, those fast-absorbing sugars
contribute to artery sclerosis.
Contrary to lipids and fast-absorbing
sugars, bread starch does not put on weight. Obesity
and other health problems are due to what we put on bread
: butter, marmalade, cooked-meats. Is the per-day quantity
of bread important ? Recommendations are very variable :
from 150 to 300 grammes per day. Many factors are important
here, such as the quantity of other low-absorbing sugars
sources (potatoes, pasta...) that we consume, added ingredients
in bread (honey, grease...), our way of life (active, sedentary...),
our age...
Why should bread flour contain a high
level of gluten?
For bread-oriented wheat, gluten
must represent at least 80% of proteins.
"Gluten" (from latin
glue) is the viscous proteic part of cereal flours (from
Petit Larousse Illustré). Nevertheless, the bread
flour we use is not "sticky".
In fact, it depends on types of
proteins in grain. Two of the flour proteins, glutenin and
gliadin, combine to form gluten when melted with water.
Glutenin makes the dough springy, when gliadin give it light
and soft firmness (creamy). In order to make bread "lift",
yeast or leaven should be used. Then, while fermenting,
yeast or leaven give off carbonic gaz. Gluten hold carbonic
gaz bubbles, which makes the dough blow up.
Cereals content of proteins is
various. Corn, oats and rye contain few of these gluten-producing
proteins, at the contray of wheat which contains a lot,
sepecially harsh wheat. However, wholemeal wheat flours
contain germ and bran plus the endosperm (proteins principal
source). That's why its gluten content is less high than
white flours.
Because wholemeal wheat bread
contain few glutenin and gliadin, they crumble and have
a heaviest texture.
|
Contrary to lipids and fast-absorbing sugar, bread starch
does not put on weight.
Recommendations for bread consumption are very various :
from 150 to 300 grammes per day.
|
