Why you should skip the bread at the beginning of your meal

Everyone has had the experience of being given bread before a meal at a restaurant, and if it is fresh baked and still warm it is really hard to resist!  If you want to be fit and lean it is best to resist the temptation though.

Most bread is essentially sugar to your body.    There are breads with much higher fiber content and this is big step in the right direction, but most bread is pure starch.     The fact is that, with few exceptions, starches are broken down into sugar very quickly.     This process starts in your mouth where an enzyme in saliva called Amylase immediately starts breaking down starch into sugar (starches are just multiple units of sugar hooked together).      Particularly on an empty stomach at the beginning of a meal you will absorb this sugar very rapidly resulting in a big spike in blood sugar and insulin.

This is not a good thing as shown in study published in the Journal of Diabetes Care.    The study looked at a group of individuals with Type 2 Diabetes (non-insulin dependent diabetes) and had them consume bread as part of two different meals on two separate days.   The meals were identical but the order of when they ate each different part of the meal was changed.

In the first meal, they ate bread and orange juice which are highly glycemic followed by chicken breast and roast vegetables.  Then during the second meal they ate the chicken and vegetables first followed by the high glycemic carbs.    During both meals researchers measured blood sugar and insulin before, during, and after the meals at various intervals.

Average glucose (blood sugar) levels were 28.6% lower at 30 minutes, 36.7% lower at 60 minutes, and 16.8% lower at 2 hours after the meal where the chicken and veggies were eaten first!  The overall glucose response was a whopping 73% lower and levels of insulin where also much lower!

Although this was done with people with Type 2 Diabetes this probably happens with everyone to some extent.   In fact, the average American is on the verge of Type 2 Diabetes due to poor lifestyle habits, and they have a lack of insulin sensitivity that is the precursor of Diabetes.     Lower blood sugar and lower insulin tend to lead to greater appetite control, less creation of fat, and help decrease atherosclerosis (heart disease).