To wrap or not to wrap? Why lebanese bread might not be your best choice

Susie Burrell
May 20, 2013
news.com.au

HAVE you ditched the bread in favour of a healthier wrap or bagel? Would you rarely eat a sandwich but happily order a wrap when grabbing lunch on the run? Does Lebanese or Mountain bread frequent your shopping basket to be used as a pizza base or low carb bread-like option?

Unfortunately, despite the growing popularity of bread alternatives, it seems that we may be being misled when it comes to thinking that these are a better option nutritionally. In fact, with some wrap style bread options and bagels containing more carbohydrate than four regular slices of bread, a simple sandwich made using small, grain based slices of bread may not be such a bad option after all.

For some time, the humble loaf of bread has been the diet taboo for many, with claims and beliefs that bread is the enemy when it comes to digestive comfort, weight control and cravings for sweet foods. And, to defend this, there are a growing number of people being diagnosed with gluten intolerance, wheat intolerance, other food allergies and coeliac disease, for which wheat based foods are best avoided. In addition, there are also a growing number of people who simply prefer not to eat bread for a range of reasons including the effect these carbohydrate rich foods appear to have on their weight and digestive health in general.

Enter the bread revolution – Mountain Bread, Lebanese bread, a huge range of oat, barley, chia and rice wraps you may have noticed taking up more and more space in bread aisle of the supermarket. Alas though, when we take a closer look at the numbers, what may appear to be a ‘healthier’ choice, may simply be a concentrated volume of various types of flour compressed into a ‘healthier’ looking wrap style sandwich.

Sure, there are some lighter options in which a single wrap is equivalent to less than a slice of regular bread in terms of both carbohydrate content and calorie load, but these options are rarer; they are much more likely to fall apart when you make a decent sandwich out of them and they cannot be guaranteed to taste as good as a hearty sandwich would.

The other nutritional issue is that many of the commonly purchased wraps have a high GI – the nature of processing means that the flour used to make wraps is heavily refined, leaving a bread product that is digested quickly and results in a subsequent quick rise in blood glucose levels and long term this is a big issue for insulin levels and weight control.

So, this is not to say that there are not some great wrap choices out there, but simply check those labels. Just because it is a wrap, does not make it a better choice.

At a glance:
Bread chart