WHOLEMEAL BREAD BETTER THAN WHITE BREAD: GERMAN EXPERTS

Many nutrition experts will tell you it's better to eat wholemeal bread than white bread, and not without reason. But white bread also has its merits, they say - you just shouldn't eat too much of it, Bernadette Winter reported for Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa).

One of the pluses of wholemeal bread is that it makes you feel full faster thanks to its higher dietary fiber content. "It fills the stomach without delivering a lot of calories," points out nutritionist Maike Groeneveld. In the opinion of experts, wholemeal spelt, also known as dinkel wheat or hulled wheat, is the healthiest bread and has a taste that children also like. The more finely ground the flour, the more easily digestible it is. On the negative side of the slate, fresh, still-warm bread often isn't tolerated well, says Restemeyer. Krueger adds that coarse, water-insoluble dietary fiber can lead to abdominal pain and intestinal gas. 

Dietary fiber can help lower your risk for type 2 diabetes, lipid metabolism disorders, colon cancer and cardiovascular diseases, according to Silke Restemeyer, a nutritionist at the German Nutrition Society (DGE).

In dark-bread-loving Germany, commercial use of the term "wholemeal" is even regulated by law: The German Food Code stipulates that to designate bread as such, at least 90 per cent of it must consist of whole grain. Although the whole grain - including the bran and germ - is used to make wholemeal bread, this doesn't mean that the loaf is grainy inside or that you can see individual grains, as the flour may be very finely ground.