Bread is commonly known as a culprit that causes diabetes and obesity because refined wheat flour is the main ingredient in bread. Refined grains digest and absorb quickly, rapidly raising blood sugar levels in the body. So, if all Westerners who eat bread as a staple food should develop diabetes, but in reality, they do not. The reason lies in the types of bread. Westerners typically eat bread that is coarse, hard, and bland, while Koreans enjoy soft, greasy, and sweet bread as snacks. There are also differences in ingredients and manufacturing methods among various types of bread. For this reason, some breads contain high levels of saturated fats, trans fats, and sugar that harm our bodies, while others do not. We explore the types of bread that negatively impact health.

◇Ang butter, castella, croissants… Snack breads increase the risk of chronic diseases

Bread types such as ang butter, croissants, and castella, which are consumed as snacks, increase the risk of chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. Unlike bread consumed as staple food in Western countries, these breads tend to have relatively high contents of saturated fats, trans fats, and sugars. In fact, there is a study analyzing the nutritional components of breads mainly consumed in Korea. Professor Kim Byeong-hee's research team from the Department of Food and Nutrition at Sookmyung Women's University analyzed 'potentially harmful nutrients for health' such as trans fats, sugars, and sodium in a total of 13 types of bread, including 9 types frequently eaten by Koreans and 4 types with high search frequency on domestic portal sites like Naver and mobile nutrition management apps. The 9 types of bread include red bean bread, white bread, castella, muffins, cream puffs, jam bread, rye bread, buttercream bread, and croissants, while the 4 types include mammoth bread, ang butter, whole wheat bread, and pretzels. The breads were collected from bakeries located in Seoul.

According to the research findings, among the bread products sold in domestic bakeries, an butter and croissants had particularly high levels of saturated fats and trans fats, which are harmful to vascular health. Additionally, castella had the lowest levels of trans and saturated fats among bread products, but recorded the highest sugar content per 100g. The highest sugar content per serving was found in mammoth bread. On the other hand, whole wheat bread and white bread had relatively higher sodium content but lower sugar content compared to other products.

The research team believed that the high trans fat content in ang butter was influenced by the use of margarine containing trans fats alongside butter during manufacturing. Additionally, ang butter is a type of bread with red bean paste and butter pieces inside, and before baking, approximately 26 grams of fat are added per 100 grams of dough, including 19 grams of butter and 7 grams of olive oil. This explains the high saturated fat content in ang butter. Furthermore, the reason why castella recorded the highest sugar content is because a surprisingly large amount of sugar is added during the manufacturing process. In fact, before baking, 21 to 37 grams of sugar are added per 100 grams of dough in castella.

Replace with rough, hard, firm, and unsweetened bread

Even when eating bread, it is better to choose coarse, hard, firm, and not sweet staple bread. Examples include rye bread and whole grain bread. In Germany, where rye is more prevalent than wheat, they traditionally consume dark, hard rye bread as a staple rather than white bread. Traditional European bread does not contain sugar. Whole grain bread made by grinding wheat bran and germ together has a glycemic index of less than 40-50, which raises blood sugar levels more slowly. Additionally, it provides vitamins, minerals, and dietary fiber. If you cannot give up greasy, soft, and fluffy snack bread, try eating it together with beans, seaweed, or vegetables. This can help slow down the digestion and absorption of the bread to some extent.

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Bread is all delicious.

I think I liked the red bean bread among those. Haha.

For health, like a baguette

They say hard bread is better.