It’s no exaggeration to say that bread shaped modern humanity - it was the cultivation of wheat for flour that transformed our ancestors from hunter-gatherers to city dwellers.

Today, millions of us start the day with a slice of toast, and most lunches in the US and UK are wrapped in a slice of bread or a burger bun as a cheap, flexible, and delicious energy source.

But modern industrial processes designed to reduce the time and cost of baking mean today’s bread would be unrecognizable to our ancestors.

Today’s bread tastes good but has lost most of its nutritional content. With most of its fiber gone, and no time for bacteria to work its fermenting magic, bread has become a simple starch, rapidly turned into sugar in our blood and offering little to support our gut bacteria. For this reason, bread is increasingly demonized as an evil carb.

In today’s episode, Jonathan speaks to two authorities on the subject to ask: Can bread can ever be healthy?

Vanessa Kimbell is an author, founder of the sourdough school, and a specialist in bread nutrition and digestibility.
Professor Tim Spector is a co-founder at ZOE and one of the top 100 most cited scientists in the world.

If you want to uncover the right foods for your body, head to joinzoe.com/podcast and get 10% off your personalized nutrition program.

Timecodes:
00:00 - Intro
00:09 - Topic introduction
02:13 - Quickfire questions
04:20 - Why bread matters
05:44 - Is bread empty calories?
09:38 - What is bread?
12:39 - What is bran?
13:33 - The difference between the types of grains
15:56 - What is the impact of bread on our microbes?
19:06 - What should you look for in bread?
21:18 - What sort of bread should you look for?
22:49 - Supermarket bread is not fresh!
23:29 - On gluten intolerance
26:24 - How should we think about sourdough?
37:13 - How to know whether sourdough is real or fake?
40:46 - Practical advice on how to choose bread
44:25 - Summary
46:23 - Goodbyes
46:34 - Outro


Episode transcripts are available here: https://joinzoe.com/learn/category/nu...

Follow Vanessa:   / vanessakimbell  

Follow Tim:   / timspector  

Follow ZOE on Instagram:   / zoe  

This podcast was produced by Fascinate Productions.