Would you eat a bread that’s purple? Yes purple bread! It’s the new exciting addition to the bread family – it apparently tastes like white bread but doesn’t contain all its bad properties.
We eat cake in various colours so purple bread should go down well, especially when it’s made from natural ingredients, releases energy slower than regular white bread, and doesn’t cause the spike in blood sugar levels associated with non-nutrient white bread. What a win!
Tell me more…
We all love the taste of fresh white bread, be it ciabatta, baguette, focaccia, the list goes on. But we don’t like the fact that it is unhealthy and because it releases energy too quickly, we want more if it at a time and this can lead to weight gain. Also, because bread has a high glycemic index, sugar is released into the blood too quickly so our sugar levels spike and then crash rapidly.
Enter the purple bread offering a solution to our love for white bread. Developed by Professor Zhou Weibiao, from the University of Singapore, purple bread offers a healthy alternative to white bread. The bread contains ‘cancer-fighting antioxidants’ and CNN has termed it the ‘superfood of the baked goods world’. The Super bread!
The special ingredient that gives the purple colour and antioxidants is anthocyanins which is a natural pigment found in plants, fruits and vegetables that gives them a purple, blue or red colour depending on the existing pH level.
But how?
Weibiao explained to CNN that he set out to change the formula of white bread without compromising its texture. He extracted the anthocyanins found in black rice, and success was found in the discovery of purple bread. Not only did it have antioxidants but the anthocyanins reacting with the starch enzymes slowed down the digestion rate by 20%. Can you believe it?
On top of that, 80% of the antioxidant properties are actually ‘preserved’ within the bread when it is baked at 200°C. These benefits include:
– Reduction in inflammation
– Lower obesity risk
– Prevention of cardiovascular disease
– Lower risk of diabetes and as said before it helps prevent certain cancers.
The use of anthocyanins in bread will hopefully inspire and pave the way for future food development with this seemingly magical and unexplored ingredient.
(Images taken from iStock)