Surprise Benefits of Bread

Surprise Health Benefits of Bread

As people have become more conscious of limiting their carbohydrate intake, bread has gotten an increasingly bad name.

But several years ago, German researchers made a surprising discovery. They found that the process of baking bread produces an antioxidant amino acid called pronyl-lysine which may have anti-cancer properties. This potent antioxidant is eight times more abundant in bread crust than in the rest of the bread, but is not present in the original flour. Pronyl-lysine is found in both yeast and non-yeast, so called “quick” breads, and is most abundant in bread products that are broken into little pieces and baked such as stuffing. (J Agric Food Chem 2002 Nov 20; 50 (24): 6997-7006.