My mom always used to tell me to eat my crusts, because they were the healthy part of the bread, because “that’s where the nutrition goes!”.
True or false? And if it’s true, why would the nutrients go to the outside?
(Keep in mind, we’re talking white bread, sometimes homemade, sometimes bought - so obviously no matter WHERE the nutrition was found, it was negligible).
Well if that’s the case, I’m done for because I can’t eat crusts (except the very very pale ones). They make me gag.
I would just like to chime in that my mother also claims this, as well as my grandmother and probably all my relatives…
A quick google search revealed this article, that, in a round-about-way, disproves the idea that the crust contains the majority of the nutrients:Crustless Bread
The relevant part of this being: "The bakers are keeping the recipe top secret, but experts say it is just as good for you as a loaf with crusts. "
Now excuse me, this thread is making me hungry.
There’s no logical reason the crust would be any healthier or less healthy than the bread that is a millimeter underneath it. It’s all the same dough, cooked in exactly the same way at the same time. The crust is the “crust” only because it’s on the outside. Why would it have any different nutritional properties than the rest?
I suspect this is a mutation of the “the most nutritious part of the potato/carrot/apple is the peel/just under the peel”, which at least makes more hypothetical sense, as a plant does put different things into different tissues. Whether even that is true, or if it’s the invention of lazy cooks who don’t like to peel, is beyond my personal knowledge.
I love the crust. It’s my favorite part. My wife always lets me have the heels from a loaf of bread.
I always figured it was a combonation of parents believing becuase that’s what they where told and/or trying to get their kids to finish the rest of the sandwich.
From here.
:dubious: Nearly half, seems kind high doncha think?
Me, too. The thicker and crunchier, the better. I like serving baguettes that cut lengthwise first, then in about 3" pieces.-- seems to best optimize the crust to inards ratio in a given slice.
Yeah, but does she make you sit up and beg first?
munch, munch
Purely in the interest of scientific research, I just made a PB&J (smooth peanut butter, McKenzie’s Own Strawberry Grand Marnier Jam and Baker’s Inn Harvest Multigrain, for those wishing to reproduce the experiment) and cut the crusts off in a skinflint-but-in-a-hurry Mom manner (I feel qualified to judge this, being both a skinflint and a Mom, and quite often in a hurry), and the results were surprising:
In View A, we can see nearly equal portion of crusts and “edible” sandwich.
View B reveals the surface area to be very close when the crusts are stacked on the innards.
However, it can be seen in View C that the answer to the OP for this particular loaf is “yes”, as the crust is where all the yummy and healthy fiber filled gerbil food is located on this hippie bread.
I’m afraid this particular lab specimen has been “liberated” and is no longer available for measurements or further testing. We await more funding to repeat the experiment, perhaps with grilled cheese and tomato soup.
The carbohydrates in the crust might be a little harder to digest, due to being more cooked, which would make the crust a little higher in fiber than the rest of the bread.
I’ve heard that that one is a myth, too, but that it has some grounding in fact. Vegetables are healthier if cooked with the skin still on, so I’ve heard, since that helps prevent nutrients from leeching away, but once it’s cooked, the skin is no better or worse than any other part.
The biggest differences between the crusts and the rest of the bread are moisture content and the presence of various compounds known as Maillard molecules, which result from the Maillard reactions which occur when amino acids and sugars are heated in an environment where the amount of free water is low – in other words, when food browns as a result of heat (as opposed to the enzymatic reactions that cause cut apples and potatoes, peeled bananas, and other foods to brown when exposed to air). They’re why browned foods taste different from, and to many of us better than, cooked foods that aren’t browned.
There’s still a considerable amount of debate about the health effects of these compounds. Some of them have been determined to be mutagenic in animal testing, but the degree to which they contribute to cancer or other health problems in humans is still largely unknown. Others (particularly the ones that result from roasting coffee) have been shown to be antimutagenic in some experiments.
Maillard reactions, in fact, occur naturally in humans as part of the aging process, with implications for the onset of diabetes and other chronic health problems. There is research that suggests that Maillard reactions may decrease the bioavailability of proteins in food.
In other words, while there’s no question that the crusts have a different flavor than the rest of the bread, one that many people like and many don’t, it’d be a stretch to say that it’s the healthiest part – probably the opposite, in fact.
My mother always used to say that the patrt I didn’t eat – crust on the bread, skin on the apple, green beans in the casserole – were always the healthiest part.
Years later, reading the bio of Charlemagne by his contemporary (either Einhard or Notker the Stammerer – they were bound together in the same Penguin edition) I came across a description of an abbot asking Charlemagne why he didn’t eat the rind of the cheese. “It’s the best part, milord!”
Charlemagne picked up the rinf with his knife and made the Abbott eat it. It’s Good to be the Emperor.
I copied out that section in neat calligraphic letters, framed it, and gave it to my mother.
The crust should have more carcinogenic PAHs than the rest of the bread, so less healthy.
A great GQ post! Thanks.
I happen to agree with the abbott. The rind on cheese, the end slice of the roast, the crust on bread, etc - these have always been my favourite parts.
I always assumed (no cite, sorry) that ‘eat your crusts, they’re good for you’ might have arisen in times of relative scarcity, where eating your crusts was good for you - in the sense that they represented calories that you genuinely needed, and should not be wasted.
Eggs, too.
Mangetout (appropriately enough, given the name) writes:
This is probably correct. I feel lucky enough to be living in a time when I can get by eating only certain parts of a cow. But it wasn’t that long ago that scarcity was a real issue. Try reading Carlo Collodi’s original book Pinocchio sometime – Pinocchio’s lessons in being a real boy include some about the Hard Knocks School of Life. He asks Gepetto for an apple, then asks for the skin to be cut off. He eats the apple and is still hungry, so Gepetto tells him to eat the skin. Pinocchio refuses, but, hungry, finally gives in, because there isn’t anything else to eat.
Still, I’;d rather be Charlemagne than a puppet.
(Catty remark about a ruler goes here.)
Heh-heh. I just made Mr. K a peanut butter ‘n’ jelly sammich on “the butts” of the bread. I don’t think he particularly likes it, but hey…we’re out of bread.
That’s certainly the part that’s richest in calcium!
