There’s a bread out there that you can have as much as you want. It’s called the Barely Bread and comes with a nod of approval from well-known American heart surgeon Steven Gundry, who has created its recipe. He believes it’s the best bread one can have. It contains no grains and is lectin- and gluten-free. A mix of almond, seed and coconut flowers is all it has, making it a gut-friendly concoction.
This is important because ageing, according to Gundry, begins in the gut. Seconds Mumbai-based nutritionist Ruchira Saxena, “What one eats directly influences the gut microbiome—a collection of microorganisms that are crucial to a well-functioning immune system, weight management, and heart health. Bread—a much-liked staple all over the world—is one of the things that causes gut dysbiosis (an imbalance of gut microbes) in some people.” A side-effect of this is poor absorption of nutrients, irregular blood sugar levels, and accumulation of access fat among other problems, that begin to age the body. “Dysbiosis is also implicated in diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), autoimmune arthritis, obesity, allergic disorders, type 1 diabetes mellitus, obesity, autism, colorectal cancer and others. It’s no surprise then that dietitians and nutritionists are increasingly eliminating bread from dietary regimes,” shares Saxena.
Bread is not your enemy. The highly processed ones are. Whole grain bread is good for you because it carries all the nutritional heft—bran, germ and endosperm. “Whole grains offer a bunch of benefits such as providing the body with vitamins and protein that help keep it strong and stable,” he says. Dietary fibre is another extremely important component of whole-grain bread. “Consider it your digestive system’s best friend. Not to mention, consuming bread of this kind controls blood sugar and cholesterol,” adds Saxena.
Not to mention, there is the Gundry bread that you can always try.
Ready then to break bread?
Ingredients
✥ 2 cups almond flour
✥ 1/3 cup + 1 tablespoon of ground flax seed
✥ ½ tsp salt
✥ 1 tbsp baking soda
✥ 1 tbsp whole flaxseed
✥ ½ cup cornstarch
✥ 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
✥ ½ cup Greek yoghurt
✥ 6 tbsp butter
✥ 4 eggs
Method
✥ In a bowl, mix all the dry ingredients. Add flax seeds.
✥ Melt butter and leave it to cool for five minutes.
✥ Add the wet ingredients to the dry ones. Mix well so you make a dough-like mixture.
✥ Transfer onto a baking pan and cover it with baking paper. Sprinkle with flaxseed and bake at 175 degrees for 25 minutes.
✥ Once done, leave it to cool down and wrap it in a towel.
✥ Put it in a Ziploc bag to preserve freshness. —Dr Steven Gundry
Just because a label mentions words such as multigrain, organic, bran, wheat germ or stone-ground, does not mean it is wholegrain. Look for the 100 percent stamp.