They taste good and have a crunchy texture but is there any nutritional gain over whole wheat or cracked wheat bread? I have Pepperidge Farm 15 grain version on hand. Does eating a few amaranth, splet and flaxseed grains do anything for me?
There are many benefits to flaxseed, most people won’t likely buy and eat it on its own.
Despite the negative hype, the bad thing about wheat is over-refinement not the grain itself (unless you have celiac disease). It’s, effectively, the original superfood.
That said, the other grains are also mostly equivalent superfoods. They’re all very good and probably all have a little something extra (except sorghum - which looks to be a worse wheat). But, realistically, since wheat is so much better for bread making and you’re mixing in a variety of them, you’re probably getting only very small amounts of each of the other grains, and they’re mostly still generally in the same territory as wheat. You’re probably not getting much out of the extra grains.
Seeds, though, those are going to be bringing some extra oomph. Pumpkin, flax, chia, etc. are all excellent. A seeded whole wheat bread is probably where it’s at (from a nutritional standpoint).
The only thing to consider is whether you can find a whole wheat, seeded bread that’s also delicious and that didn’t achieve that level of deliciousness through adding a bunch of sugar to get the flavor quality back up. Ultimately, you sometimes need to balance health with your willingness to actually be healthy every day. If your healthy foods are so horrible that they make you cheat then it might be better to find something that’s a better middle ground.
Personally, though, I don’t think it’s too hard to find a good whole wheat, seeded bread. Some cam be quite delicious without doing anything bad. Just avoid the ones that look like sandwich bread and you’ll probably be okay.
Flaxseed is a laxative. If your digestive system needs a laxative, then it’s most likely good for you. If your system, like mine, tends in the other direction, flaxseed is not a good idea at all.
ETA: I like multigrain breads – but I can’t eat most of them, because most of them have flaxseed in them. I spent large parts of a conference in the bathroom once before I figured out what was wrong.
I make a lot of my own bread, and make it with rye flour or cornmeal added to the wheat flour; both for flavor, and because eating a variety of things is generally good for you.
This isn’t necessarily true. It may be, it might not. I don’t think we know for certain.
Foods give us certain simple elements like the vitamins, some specific atoms, and the macros. Past that, there’s a variety of more complex molecules that can act as medicines and poisons. Every plant produces thousands of different compounds and we eat the ones where the balance of biological effect ranges from next neutral to positive.
For the easy stuff - the actually nutrients - the value to us for each nutrient probably falls on a J curve. There’s a quick rise from deficiency to optimum and then a slow fall in health value as we approach toxicity.
With a variety of changing foods, it’s almost certainly impossible to achieve that optimum across the board. It’s unlikely that could even achieve the optimum without manufacturing something, artificially. But, through a natural diet, you’d just run everything through a computer and it would spit out a best match set of ingredients and that would just be that. More, less, or different would be (by definition) less than optimum.
And, likewise with the more complex molecules. The best foods are those that have the strongest balance of beneficial medicinal effects and the fewest poisonous effects. And those are simply the best. Mixing in others just means you’re increasing your poison load.
Again, the ideal state comes from isolating the positive compounds, determining the ideal level of supplementation, and artificially producing those. (Which would vary from person to person, and modulate through their life.) A natural plant is always going to have some amount of toxic, poisonous, or damaging compound in it because plants need to use chemical warfare to protect themselves. They can’t run from insects and critters. We’re eating the things that don’t kill us, not the things that went through the FDA process for medicinal safety.
But, at any rate, I don’t know that we know whether a computationally ideal diet, made from natural products, would tend to be small or large. It might be a list of five things. It might be 100.
I believe there’s evidence that eating a variety of different foods produces a healthier microbiome. I don’t have a cite handy right this moment, but might try to find one.
Also: there’s a very great deal we’re just starting to learn about nutrition; but part of what we’re learning is that “the best” foods for one person aren’t necessarily the best ones for somebody else.
Negative Hype?
Yes, whole grain bread and whole grain multi grain bread are good- but check the label- They can call something with 90% white flour and 2% of five other multi-grain.
Mind you, if you just love white bread, and dont have any issues with enriched white bread- that will added fiber- well, go ahead. Remember- a lot of fast food breads have little fiber and too much sugar.
Most American dont get enough fiber.
95%
Furthermore, USDA experts report that 95% of Americans don’t get enough fiber, and on average, American adults consume only half the fiber they need. It’s worth noting that dietary fiber naturally occurs only in plant foods.
An American Fiber Crisis - AFA.
Flaxseed contains healthy omega fats. Multigrain breads are often higher in fibre. Few Westeners eat enough fibre, and this is a problem. Why?
Dietary fibre has long been established as a nutritionally important, health-promoting food ingredient. Modern dietary practices have seen a significant reduction in fibre consumption compared with ancestral habits. This is related to the emergence of low-fibre “Western diets” associated with industrialised nations, and is linked to an increased prevalence of gut diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease, obesity, type II diabetes mellitus and metabolic syndrome. The characteristic metabolic parameters of these individuals include insulin resistance, high fasting and postprandial glucose, as well as high plasma cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein (LDL) and high-density lipoprotein (HDL). Gut microbial signatures are also altered significantly in these cohorts, suggesting a causative link between diet, microbes and disease.
Cite: (Cronin, Nutrients 2021).
Quite a bit: https://macleans.ca/general/on-the-evils-of-wheat-why-it-is-so-addictive-and-how-shunning-it-will-make-you-skinny/
True. I believe that’s more in the correlative side (e.g. a diverse diet tends to include more plants and fiber, which are good for you and that could be the majority of that) but causation could well be incoming, or already here and I’ve missed it.
A mild tangent but I’ll also note that white rice is the East Asian equivalent to white flour. Brown rice is going to be the healthier option.
That is some nutjob, and other than the weird gluten scare, I havent heard that.
The GMO stuff is the usual GMO stuff.
The addictiveness of wheat and sugar, I think, rely largely on a misunderstanding of things.
As he says, wheat causes opiates to be triggered in your mind. But, likewise, so does petting your dog.
Anything that makes us happy, anything delicious, etc. boosts dopamine, serotonin, etc. The more delicious the food, the more likely it is that you’ll become addicted to the food and, just in general, delicious foods are higher in macronutrients and lower in fiber. White flour falls into that realm but so does butter, sugar, and bacon.
You just need to learn to love food that’s a bit more fibrous, grainy, hard to chew, and less delicious.
Crazy cat ladies show that anything that makes you happy is able to make you addicted.
If you hate whole grain bread, try enriched bread with added fiber. Not as good, but an acceptable substitute.
Yeah, that is not “addiction”, really- other than if we dont eat we get sick and die.
But you are right- cookies, sugar cubes, steak, petting a cat or dog, watching fish in an aquarium- all make you happy. Basically - we like to be happy.
Ah, the “Wheat Belly” guy.
This is all true.
It’s also true that flaxseed gives me the shits. And that I eat a lot of fiber in other foods; including in my homemade multigrain (but nonflax) breads.
I didn’t say flaxseed isn’t good for anybody. I said that it isn’t good for everybody. There are an awful lot of foods that are good for a lot of people but not good for some other people.
Variety in food is certainly good, but multigrain bread isn’t really all that varied. It’s all grains, and grains are all fairly similar. Now, if you take your bread (of whatever sort), and combine it with several different vegetables, and some dairy, and maybe a little meat, and that’s a varied diet.
This is true. People are diverse. Different people have slightly different dietary needs, and wildly different dietary sensitivities.
But I’m pretty sure the primary benefit of multigrain bread is that it has a different flavor and texture from plain white bread. And variety is the spice of life.
Okay. A little odd, but nothing off the charts. Stay safe.
Yep. I love Peanut butter (crunchy) and blueberry jam on whole grain bread- the textures are all over the place.
Ah, yes, the (South)-East Asian equivalent of something everyone eats, and in a vast locale where “brown rice” is considered an abomination fit for feeding of livestock only, if that.
Do you have some sort of inside information that “brown rice” is healthier, other than the negligeable amount of added fiber and various micronutrients which neither have measurable quantities nor even potentially virtuous other qualities?
Two words- Beri Beri. 
Mind you, Brown Rice is no miracle food as some allege, you are correct is is hardly a nutritional powerhouse. But if you eat a LOT of white rice and little else, you are looking for trouble.