Bread perfect for snacking from The Orlando Baking Co.

Week 2: The Perfect Snacking Bread!

The word’s officially out that I am eating bread again. So this week, I received a nice little basket from Orlando Baking.

What is so special about this bread?

John Orlando, VP of Operations at Orlando Baking, mentioned that there aren’t many baked goods out there touting high antioxidants and can improve gut health. With a high amount of illnesses originating in the gut, they believe that probiotics can promote digestive health. Therefore, when Orlando Baking Co. launched the True Grains® line, they really wanted to provide a loaf packed with nutrients and probiotics.

The True Grains® Purple Wheat Raisin Bread was a moist and lightly sweetened loaf. It helped with my diet because I didn’t need much butter or spreads to go along with it. If anything, I was just eating it slice by slice. In fact, I had to stop myself from eating the whole loaf this way (darn, this losing weight on bread thing is getting on my nerves).

So that is the downfall of this whole dieting-with-bread exercise. I just can’t stop myself eating the bread. Therefore, the weight I am losing is minimal. But hey, at least I’m losing weight and keeping off the hunger pangs with bread.

Bread is the perfect low-calorie snack

My daily ritual looks like this: Eat bread all day. I know you may not believe its true that I would just reach out and eat a whole slice when I am hungry or if I need something to snack on. Most of the time I eat it straight from the bag. Sometimes I toast it to give it a crunchy texture. But if you’re in the same office as me, you will hear the bread bag constantly rustling all day. After all, bread is the perfect low calorie snack. With True Grains® Purple Wheat Raisin Bread, it’s only 80 calories per slice.

This is what a typical day with True Grains® Purple Wheat Raisin Bread look like:

Food Portion Calories
True Grains® Purple Wheat Raisin Bread 8 slices 640
Butter 1 Tbsp 100
Coconut Water 8.5 oz 45
Raspberry Peach Champagne Jam 2 Tbsp 60
Clementines 1 90
Apple 1 80
Ground Sausage 3 oz 285
Steamed Carrots 1C 60
Chocolate Eggs* 6pc 160
Total Calories: 1520

*chocolate eggs are not part of a healthy diet. However, I have a weakness for Cadbury’s chocolate eggs, and I had lots of leftovers. So, someone had to finish them!

My weight at the start of the 90 days.

The first weigh-in: 147.4

 

Week 2 weigh-in: 145.2

Week 2 weigh-in: 145.2

whole grain bread

Did You Know You Can Get Probiotic Bread? Days 75, 76 and 77   

You heard that right. I’m not kidding. I ate probiotic bread was bursting with benefits – True Grains® Seed’licious, Purple Wheat Raisin and Honey Wheat. How can bread have probiotic benefits if all the good bacteria are killed in the baking process? Well, the True Grains® line of product from Orlando Baking Co. uses a patented strain of probiotics that are resistant to high heat in the baking process. And no, it’s not GMO either.

probiotic bread

 

How do we know that the probiotics are working in the bread? Meredith answers this tough question here.

Probiotic Bread and More

True Grains® Purple Wheat Raisin, made with Purple Wheat that’s high in antioxidants and stops your glycemic index from spiking, was my favorite. If by now you haven’t figured out my weakness for fruity bread, you haven’t been following me very well. I really enjoy eating something so special and nutritious, and I’m very happy to see this particular innovation from Orlando Baking Co.

Beneficial bacteria are known as probiotics and found in foods such as yogurts, kim chee, sauerkraut, and kefir. The most common probiotic strains added to foods belong to several species of Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium.1

Probiotics are thought to prevent or treat a variety of health problems such as digestive disorders, colic in infants, periodontal disease, and even the common cold.1

probiotic bread

The popularity of baked goods makes them the perfect vehicle to deliver probiotics to consumers. However, there are some challenges. During the baking process changes in pH, activity in water, ethanol production, Maillard reaction products and high temperatures are a challenge to the survival of probiotics. Microencapsulation is the only way to overcome this and produce probiotic bread. It is a coating technology that protects sensitive compounds or living cells during the entire food processing operation, including storage.

One study looked at application of encapsulated L. acidophilus on the surface of par baked bread loaves.  It was found that the shorter baking time and temperatures used for par baked bread allowed greater survival of  L. acidophilus while maintaining the desirable sensory characteristics of the baked bread.

probiotic

Bread has the potential to provide both prebiotic and probiotic benefits. Once again proving that bread is the ultimate functional food!

 

  1. Hibberd, P. L., Phd, Linda Duffy, Phd, and David Shurtlef, Phd. “Probiotics: In Depth.” National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 16 Jan. 2017. https://nccih.nih.gov/health/probiotics/introduction.htm#hed3. Accessed 19 June 2017.

Here’s what I ate on Days 75, 76 and 77 of EB90:

Food  Portion   Calories
Day 75 
Seed’licious Probiotic Bread 4 slices (39g) 280
Purple Wheat Raisin Probiotic Bread 2 slices (39g) 160
Honey Wheat Probiotic Bread 2 slices (39g) 160
Buckwheat w/ Cherry 50g 100
Rye Sourdough 50g 100
Pumpkin Seed Currant 50g 100
Butter 2 Tbsp 200
Smoked Ham 4 Slices 60
Swiss Cheese 1 Slice 106
Lemon Curd 2 Tbsp 120
Ricotta Cheese 1/4 C 100
Tamale 1 pc 200
Cherries 1 C 74
Kale (cooked) 1 C 33
 Total 1793
Day 76
Seed’licious 4 slices (39g) 280
Purple Wheat Raisin 4 slices (39g) 320
Honey Wheat 4 slices (39g) 320
Hash browns, sausage and eggs 1C 400
Butter 2 Tbsp 200
Strawberries 1C 50
Pineapple 3 oz 41
Lemon Curd 2 Tbsp 120
POG Juice 2 C 200
Terriyaki 3 oz 250
Roasted Pork 1 oz 100
Rice 1/2C 50
 Total 2331
Day 77
Seed’licious 4 slices (39g) 280
Purple Wheat Raisin 4 slices (39g) 320
Honey Wheat 4 slices (39g) 320
Butter 2 Tbsp 200
Nutella 2 tbsp 200
Breakfast Burrito 1 200
Butternut Squash Soup 150
Edamame 50
Steak 200
Asparagus & Portabello 150
Corb on Cob 100
 Total 2170