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Now that we kind of have an understanding about the glycemic index, I’m going to throw a curve ball at you.  Even though I’ve already talked about this, I think the “whole wheat” concept needs to be explained some more because it can be very confusing when trying to decide what to eat.

In fact, whole wheat bread actually has a glycemic index rating that’s the same if not slightly higher than white bread!

As you know, the words “white bread” can send chills up dieters’ backs.  Why is that?  It’s because everyone knows that the “whites” are bad for you.  Just like I said earlier, “whites” raise your blood sugar; white bread, white flour, white rice, white potatoes, white sugar, they all send your blood sugar soaring.  Get this, though.  Whole wheat bread really isn’t much better.  In fact, whole wheat bread actually has a glycemic index rating that’s the same if not slightly higher than white bread!  Then why have we been taught to choose whole wheat over white bread?  What’s that all about?

The answer is because slice for slice, whole wheat bread has way more nutrients than white bread.  Basically, it’s like dipping a piece of paper into some apple juice, and then eating it.  Yeah, you’ll get some of the benefits of eating an apple by eating the apple juice-soaked paper, but why not just eat the apple instead?  OK, maybe that was an unbelievable exaggeration, but you get my point.

When making white bread, it’s stripped of a lot of the nutrients that are in a grain of wheat, but to compensate for the loss of nutrients during the milling process, an attempt is made to put the missing nutrients back into the bread before it hits store shelves.  (I explain all this in better detail here.)  White bread can never regain the all the nutrients that left it, just like apple juice-soaked paper can’t regain all the nutrients of an apple itself.

The answer is because slice for slice, whole wheat bread has way more nutrients than white bread.

Here’s another thing, whole wheat bread is more filling than white bread.  Since whole wheat bread has more fiber in it, it’ll leave your appetite suppressed for a longer period of time. 

This fact means that you can combat the bad effects of a whole wheat blood sugar spike with a suppressed appetite and more nutritious meal, meaning less “useless” calories consumed throughout the day and less excess fat stored in the body.

To sum it all up, whole wheat bread and white bread have about the same glycemic index rating, so they’ll spike your blood sugar just as fast, but whole wheat bread has a lot of other benefits to compensate for this. 

Here’s a neat fact, although a little off topic.  The blood sugar spikes that come from eating bread result from the body converting starch into glucose.  The good news is, when our bodies break down starch into glucose, we can actually pull stored sunlight energy out of starch’s chemical bonds and use it for ourselves.  Pretty cool, huh?  

Anyway, so whole wheat and white bread result in about the same rate of blood sugar spiking.  Like I said, though, to offset the blood sugar spike of whole wheat bread, there’s actually more fiber in whole wheat bread compared to white bread.  This means that even though the rate of blood sugar spikes might be the same, with whole wheat bread, you’re going to feel full longer and less likely to succumb to eating more junk food as a result of the blood sugar drop after the initial spike.

This is why whole wheat bread can be considered a better choice than white bread.  Even though their glycemic index ratings are about the same, there is more fiber and other nutrients in whole wheat compared to white bread.  This fact means that you can combat the bad effects of a whole wheat blood sugar spike with a suppressed appetite and more nutritious meal, meaning less “useless” calories consumed throughout the day and less excess fat stored in the body. 

That’s not to say that you can eat as much whole wheat bread as you want; it’s still high on the glycemic index, so you want to eat it in moderation.  At least it's a better choice, though, than the less nutritive white bread option.

Dan Falkenberg is the cofounder of Your Live Trainers. He can be reached at DanFalkenberg.com.

Tags: nutrition, weight loss