Freezing bread creates health benefit? (2024)

parabellum

Do we have any nutritionists here? What do our physicians think about this?

The impact of freezing and toasting on the glycaemic response of white bread

6guns

I don't eat and lot of bread and because if that, I usually keep it in the freezer.

I do have an english muffin almost every morning and if I buy more than one package, one will go in the freezer. The opened package of muffins are always kept in the fridge.

joel9507

The reference appears to be to this study: The impact of freezing and toasting on the glycaemic response of white bread - Eur J Clin Nutr . 2008 May;

(I don't have access to the full article, maybe some other Forum-ian does?)

Would be interesting to see what the academics/medical profession has done with the info since then.

rduckwor

I read the abstract and have no clue why they got the results they got. Clearly toasting might offer some chemical modification of the contained sugars and starches, but freezing?

Don't know.

I do know that you can find scientific and medical literature to support just about any theory you want.

Besides, I like toast.

RMD

smschulz

I don't know about bread but it is a fact for potatoes.
Since going low-carb I eat almost no bread anymore but will have to on occasion (sometimes you need a sammich to keep the goodies inside).
Since there are a lot of carbs in each I eat very little of either.

FWIW, it is hard to see how chilling bread will have the same benefit but you never know.

kkina

quote:

Originally posted by joel9507:
The reference appears to be to this study: The impact of freezing and toasting on the glycaemic response of white bread - Eur J Clin Nutr . 2008 May;

^That's the article Para linked in the OP. Anyway, very interesting, I'd never heard this.

Acc. to the abstract:

Toasting alone reduced blood glucose levels by 25%.
Frozen and defrosted by 31%.
Frozen, defrosted, and toasted by 39%

Those are pretty significant results.

kkina

The article below seems to explain and possibly refute a lot of those claims.

E.g., this only works on home-made bread, not store-bought. Different type of flour, special additives, different processing, who knows. I'd need to see a lot more studies before assuming this, however.

Cooking and/or freezing starch causes it to gelatinize, making it harder to digest. That's a good thing, as digestion takes longer and happens further down the digestive tract, and therefore is less prone to making blood glucose levels spike.

The article suggests that although there is a difference, that difference is relatively small with respect to the overall nutrition picture.

TikTok Myth of the Week: Freezing Bread Makes It Healthier

kkina

quote:

I read the abstract and have no clue why they got the results they got. Clearly toasting might offer some chemical modification of the contained sugars and starches, but freezing?

I wondered about cryogenic treatment of gun barrels, too, whether it really did anything. Then I tried it on a couple of our test rifles. Couldn't believe the difference it made. I automatically cryo all my rifle barrels now.

wcb6092

Good to know. We make sourdough which is already lower on the glycemic index so freezing and toasting will make it even lower.

_________________________
"Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it."
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ZSMICHAEL

Gustofer

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:
The ones in the freezer ALWAYS tasted like crap.

Meh. I can't speak to whatever bread your mom used to buy, but I've made my own bread now for a few decades and always keep it in the freezer (thawing only what I need when I need it) as there are no preservatives and it'll mold quicker than the garbage store-bought stuff. I've never noticed any difference in taste between fresh and frozen/thawed and only a slight difference in texture. Pizza crusts are the same. I make 10 at a time and freeze the extra dough. Once thawed and cooked, there is no difference in taste, crunch, or chew.

________________________________________________________
"Great danger lies in the notion that we can reason with evil." Doug Patton.

229DAK

Resistant starch (RS) is any starch or starch digestion products that are not digested and absorbed in the stomach or small intestine and pass on to the large intestine. RS has been categorized into five types:

RS1 – Physically inaccessible or undigestible resistant starch, such as that found in seeds or legumes and unprocessed whole grains. This starch is bound within the fibrous cell walls of the aforementioned foods.
RS2 – Resistant starch is inaccessible to enzymes due to starch conformation, as in green bananas, raw potatoes, and high amylose corn starch.
RS3 – Resistant starch that is formed when starch-containing foods (e.g. rice, potatoes, pasta) are cooked and cooled. Occurs due to retrogradation, which refers to the collective processes of dissolved starch becoming less soluble after being heated and dissolved in water and then cooled.
RS4 – Starches that have been chemically modified to resist digestion.
RS5 – Starches that are complexed with lipids.

Link

Culinary strategies to manage glycemic response in people with type 2 diabetes: A narrative review: Link

"Resistant starch formation -- When applying heat treatment, or cooking to a food rich in starch, it becomes gelatinized. If it is subsequently cooled for a minimum of 12 h, it will retrograde, thus obtaining type 3 resistant starch. The food can be consumed directly or reheated to a temperature of <130°C, preventing it from turning back into the non-resistant structure."

_________________________________________________________________________
“A man’s treatment of a dog is no indication of the man’s nature, but his treatment of a cat is. It is the crucial test. None but the humane treat a cat well.”
-- Mark Twain, 1902

ZSMICHAEL

quote:

Meh. I can't speak to whatever bread your mom used to buy,

^^^^^^^^^^
Cheap white bread. Whatever was on sale. It seemed to take on the taste of whatever else was in the freezer.

Reedman

quote:

Originally posted by kkina:

I wondered about cryogenic treatment of gun barrels, too, whether it really did anything. Then I tried it on a couple of our test rifles. Couldn't believe the difference it made. I automatically cryo all my rifle barrels now.

Left over refrigerated rice has the same good response for blood sugar.

Brass instruments, reportedly have more of a "centered" tone when exposed to very low temps (resulting in more of the fundamental vibration, but still with overtones). Very popular with trumpets and horns. This has been going on for the last 20 years or so.

selogic

arfmel

quote:

The ones in the freezer ALWAYS tasted like crap.

“It seemed to take on the taste of whatever else was in the freezer“

Well, there’s your answer.