ArcaMax

Bread

Right from the top I have to tell you I have been reluctant to have this discussion. In the four years I have been working to develop Plan Z the Diet By Zola, I have never brought up the subject of bread and baked goods. I felt like if I ignored the subject it would not come up. I spend so much time in in the diet laying down the framework for the fact that you don’t need bread, donuts or cupcakes in your life. Or any of the rest of it.

You can get used to not eating it.

But I know the subject of bread comes up in your home and your offices. It’s like the elephant in the room that will make you feel like an elephant if you eat too much of it.

So before we embark on the subject of bread and its good and evils I want to define what bread is.

Bread = Sugar = Dessert

If I hammer home anything today this is all I want you to know. Bread is dessert and it has to be treated like a treat. It’s dessert.

Let’s look at the chemistry.

Your liver processes what you eat and sends the results out to your body for fuel and waste. If there is still excess, it’s turned into fat. Simple.

By the time your stomach juices get finished with what you eat with a fork all your liver sees is what is left and your liver can’t tell the difference between a piece of bread and a Snickers bar. It’s all varying levels of sugar.

So depending on how much sugar you eat (and I mean CARBOHYDRATES). Bread, pasta, potatoes and more. They are all sugar and your liver has to deal with them. When your liver detects sugar in any amount, it decides it has to get its friend, the pancreas, involved. The pancreas has to tone down the sugar because it’s toxic to your body. Your pancreas will pump out insulin to tone down the sugar. We are all so aware of diabetes we know the pancreas sends out insulin. That’s its first job. But if there is more sugar than your body needs for fuel the pancreas has no choice but to turn the excess into fat. Insulin’s second job. That’s why it isn’t just table sugar that makes you fat. All the carbohydrates you eat have the potential to make you fat because they are sugar.

So let’s get back to bread. And now I’ll start to involve the politics and marketing of our food supply.

All of the food marketers, doctors, nutritionists and the government will tell you that you need carbohydrates to live. Maybe so, but you can get all the carbohydrates you need from your veggies, and fruits you eat. And your body can make carbohydrates. You don’t need bread or pasta or potatoes to accomplish the job. You don’t need bread in any form to live. It’s just a bad habit we picked up a very long time ago. And we convinced ourselves we need it. We don’t.

Whole Wheat vs. White

They run all the commercials saying whole grain, whole wheat...and all of that will make you healthy.

I keep telling people there is little difference between whole wheat and white bread. They are both still wheat. They are both still bread. We don’t need either to survive and the carbohydrates are killers.

So here’s the difference.

Whole Wheat Bread (standard whole wheat you find in the grocery store)

Read labels they are all over the block...

Serving size: 1 piece
12 grams of carbs per piece
2 grams of fiber
Glycemic index 70

White Bread (standard white bread in the bread aisle)
Serving size: 1 piece
13 grams of carbs per piece
1 gram of fiber
Glycemic index 73

See how little difference there is? See how we get sucked in?

The Glycemic Index of a Snicker’s bar is 68. The caloric content of the Snicker’s Bar is much higher but the rate of the spike in blood sugar is actually slightly lower. The faster it shoots up the more insulin is produced to process it.

There are low carb breads.

Names include breads like Paleo Bread which comes in almond and coconut flour. If you HAVE to have bread you can order this stuff. I tried the almond right from the bag. I found it gooey. I enjoyed the peanut butter on it but not really the bread. I decided my sliced apple was a better vehicle for eating peanut butter. Then I tried it toasted. It worked fine but all I got for satisfaction was some crunch.

There are recipes out there too if you want to make your own low carb breads.

Truth is we can eat our meal with a knife and fork. We don’t have to carry it around or eat with our hands. So we don’t need bread. Now that we’ve had this discussion I’ll leave it up to you.

Bistro Chicken with Wild Mushrooms

Serves 4

4 skinless chicken breast pieces
Sea salt and pepper
2 Tbl of flour
3 Tbl of olive oil
8 whole cloves of garlic, peeled
1.5 pounds of sliced mushrooms. I used a mix of regular button mushrooms with chantrells. You might also choose shitake, cremini, and/or porcini.
4 sprigs of fresh thyme
1/4 cup of dry sherry
2 Tbl of minced garlic (jar garlic will work fine)
2 cups of white wine
2 cups of organic chicken stock or broth
3 Tbl of butter
1/3 cup of crème fraiche or sour cream
Preheat oven to 375

Season the chicken with sea salt and pepper. Put the flour in a baggie and toss each piece of chicken in the flour to lightly coat it. Add oil to a large sauté pan and heat. Add the chicken and cook on medium high until lightly browned on each side. Transfer the chicken to an oven-proof pan and bake while you make the sauce. Chicken should be finished in about 20 minutes. Just make sure all pink is gone. I check by slicing into the thickest section of one of the breasts just to be sure. Chicken should still be juicy.

While the chicken is baking...

Use the same pan. Add the garlic cloves and mushrooms. Begin to cook them on medium, tossing them around for about three minutes just to get them going. Then add the thyme, sherry and minced garlic. Cook until sherry begins to cook off. Then add the wine and chicken stock. Turn heat up to medium high so that it will begin to boil down. The sauce needs to cook for about 20 minutes to meld the flavors. Then take out the thyme sprigs and toss them.

Turn the sauce off. Add the butter and the crème fraiche or sour cream and stir until they are both melted.

I serve the sauce UNDER the chicken because I want my chicken to remain crispy on the outside.

I served this with simple roasted green beans and a few bits of fingerling potatoes.

Enjoy!
Cheers,
Zola