Rye
Calories per 100g 201
Calories per small 25g slice 50
You can find rye bread in various forms. The dark rye bread, often called pumpernickel, is made from the whole rye grain that has been crushed or ground. Lighter rye bread is made from rye grains that have been refined to a greater degree, as with white pasta, or by combining wheat and rye flour.
The darker rye is slightly richer in nutrients than lighter versions. Dark has about 1.6g of protein per 25g slice, compared with 1.4g for the lighter rye. Both have similar levels of folate, a nutrient essential for foetal development and the replication of DNA required to make new, healthy cells. One slice has 12 per cent of the daily recommended amount of folate and 10 per cent of selenium, which helps to boost your immune system.
My verdict 5/5
Sourdough
Calories per 100g 230
Calories per 50g slice 115
Sourdough bread is made without commercial yeast, but instead relies on a starter, or levain, which is a combination of wild yeast and bacteria, to help it to rise. The bacteria produce lactic acid, also produced when vegetables ferment such as when making sauerkraut, and the result is a sharp flavour. Sourdough can be made with a variety of flours, including wheat or spelt, and so the nutritional profile will be similar to any bread made from the same flour. The use of wild yeast can make sourdough more easily digested, while lactic acid helps to slow the way in which the sugars found in carbohydrates are broken down.
My verdict 5/5
Wholemeal
Calories per 100g 221
Calories per 29g slice 64
A typical loaf of wholewheat bread — the kind you buy sliced in the supermarket — is made from all the parts of the wheat kernel: the bran, the germ and the endosperm — and as a result it’s a pretty good source of nutrients, including fibre, protein and B vitamins, which the body uses in a myriad of ways including the production of energy from food and maintaining the immune system. Wholewheat is a good source of selenium, important for thyroid function as well as magnesium, important for healthy bones and muscles. Wholemeal also provides folate and vitamin K, which is important for bone health and for helping blood to clot.
My verdict 4/5
Spelt
Calories per 100g 200
Calories per 50g slice 100
Spelt is a cousin of wheat and is often believed to be richer in nutrients. In reality spelt bread sits somewhere between white and wholemeal bread in what it offers. It’s especially rich in manganese, with 100g delivering 50 per cent of your daily needs, although per slice the content isn’t that significant. There’s 3g of fibre per 100g, which puts this above white bread but a lot lower than the equivalent of wholemeal bread at 6.8g.
My verdict 3/5
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Soda bread
Calories per 100g 203
Calories per slice (approx 33g) 67
Soda bread relies on baking soda rather than yeast to make it rise, and includes buttermilk, which is a fermented milk containing lactic acid. Commercial soda bread often includes a little extra oil and sugars in the recipe, which inevitably adds to the fat and sugar content, and so you might expect 3g of fat per 100g in soda bread found on supermarket shelves, part of which comes from buttermilk, part from added oil. The type of flour used dictates the level of nutrients in soda bread, and as with all bread, the inclusion of salt in the recipe can result in 1 or 2g per 100g.
My verdict 3/5
Pitta (white)
Calories per 100g 261
Calories per pitta (approx 60g) 157
The nutritional profile of pitta bread is linked to the type of flour used to make it. Comparing white and wholemeal pitta bread is like comparing white and wholemeal bread. They both have similar levels of protein (9g or so per 100g) while wholemeal can have over 7g of fibre, white pitta has about 3.8g per 100g. The concentration of minerals and vitamins in white pitta bread will also be reduced by maybe a third or more. That’s not to say that white pitta bread is bad, as it offers fibre and some nutrients, but pitta bread made with wholemeal flour has more to offer.
My verdict 5/5 wholemeal, 2/5 white
Tortilla wraps
Calories per 100g 299
Calories per wrap (approx 58g) 175
It’s the addition of oil that helps to make tortilla wraps so soft and malleable, and while that’s good for texture, it means that one wrap contains the same amount of calories as a Creme Egg. As always, the flour mostly dictates the nutrition, and so you will find an array of B vitamins and minerals, with decent levels of folate (about 71mcg per wrap), as well as selenium (there are 14mcg per wrap and we need 55mcg daily), which is good for the immune system.
My verdict 2/5
Sliced white
Calories per 100g 242
Calories per medium-cut slice 97
White bread is in nearly every way a paler version of wholemeal. It offers the same nutrients, but fewer of them. As it is made from white flour it contains only about 0.3g fibre per slice, along with the same spread of nutrients found in wholemeal, but in lower amounts. However, some brands offer more folate if the flour has been enriched, which can be up to double that of wholemeal, at 111mcg per 100g, or 8mcg per slice.
My verdict 2/5
Bagel
Calories per 100g 258
Calories per bagel (approx 90g) 232
Bagels are traditionally made by shaping the dough, consisting of white flour and yeast, before adding it to boiling water before baking. This accounts for their distinctive chewiness. Per 100g, a bagel contains about 3g of fibre, 10g of protein, and various nutrients in relatively low levels, which reflects the processing of white flour. That said, the levels of manganese are decent — 100g contains 25 per cent of your daily needs. However, the second most abundant mineral bagels contain is sodium, equating to 1.3g salt per 100g (the maximum daily intake is 6g).
My verdict 1/5
