Bake your bread and eat it

Do you really have to give all this up?

Bread has a really bad reputation. They say our body has trouble digesting it, it's fattening and it doesn't provide much nutrition.

But, all you dieters out there can rest assured that you can still eat bread on a fairly regular basis without having to compromise your health and your diet. You'll just need to make a few changes first.

Get rid of shop-bought bread

One of the main problems is shop-bought bread. Even when you think you're buying really healthy whole wheat bread the fact is that this bread is highly processed, and full of non-food and often toxic ingredients.

Manufacturers want to produce as much bread in the shortest possible time. Unfortunately this means speeding up the bread-making process by using chemical dough conditioners such as azodicarbonamide, which are linked to many health issues.

Additionally, preservatives to prevent spoilage, artificial colorings and flavorings, GMO products such as soy oil and the unnecessary amount of added sugar all contribute into making your whole wheat bread one terribly unhealthy and fattening product. Some of these ingredients have been linked to ADHD, asthma and allergies.

The problem with wheat

Even if you're not gluten intolerant, wheat can be very problematic. For a start, we eat way too much of it. Toast for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, pasta for dinner; it's all wheat. But wheat has also unfortunately been transformed over the years with the intention of trying to create a higher yield and more profitability. Wheat underwent hybridization, changing the structure of the grain and resulting in the possibility of toxins.

Wheat: a manipulated grain

Ancient grains such as spelt, quinoa, kamut, etc, are free of hybridization and GMO manipulation, therefore remaining pretty much unchanged from what they were thousands of years ago, unlike wheat and corn which are not at all reminiscent of their ancient origins.

A grain such as spelt is perfect in a loaf of bread. It tastes and acts almost exactly the same as wheat but is high in fiber and nutrition while remaining unprocessed and easier to digest.

Spelt: An ancient grain 

Sprouted grains

When a grain is soaked and sprouts are formed, the grain automatically becomes more digestible. The phytic acid is destroyed when you sprout grains enabling the body to absorb more nutrients; sprouted grains contain more vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. Conversely, refined flour that's used in commercial bread products doesn't have these properties and our body actually metabolizes it, particularly white flour, like it does a sugar causing our insulin levels to spike. Hence all the talk about bread making us fat.

The good news

But it doesn't have to be this way, if we only make our own bread. And that isn't as hard as it may sound. A bread machine is often a good purchase and can actually end up saving you a lot of money.

All you have to do is add all the ingredients to the pan and you have your loaf of bread made for you. Preferably buy sprouted flour but if you can't get your hands on this then regular whole wheat or spelt flour will also work. Most bread recipes have a handful of ingredients, just the way it should be, leaving you with a pure loaf of nutritious bread. You won't believe the amount of money you can save using your own ingredients and a bread machine over the expensive shop-bought loaves. And if you're still skeptical, there are many dough recipes which are designed to be made by hand with easy kneading.

Here's our favorite basic bread-machine loaf, but you can get creative too.

-         4 cups of sprouted spelt flour (or regular spelt)

-         1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast

-         1 1/2 teaspoons salt

-         3 tablespoons sugar (or honey or date honey)

-         3 tablespoons oil or melted butter

-         1 1/4 cup warm water

Fresh loaves of bread-machine spelt bread

Pour in the dry ingredients first, followed by the wet ingredients. Choose your bread setting and wait for the beautiful aroma of fresh bread to fill your house. Another option is to select the dough setting and upon completion you can shape them into buns, bagels or anything you like, and then proceed to cook them in the oven.