White bread wins a round in nutrition debate

Does your BLT sandwich on whole-grain bread lack the taste and nostalgia of the one your mom made with Wonder Bread? Well, there may be some benefits to white bread after all, a new study finds.

Spanish scientists recently found consumption of white bread led to higher amounts of lactobacillus, a species of beneficial digestive bacteria. Scientists monitored the diets of 38 healthy adults and then examined samples of their subjects' stool to find out which bacteria were present. The study was published in the American Chemical Society's Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

The link between white bread and good gut bacteria was “the most novel finding” of the study, scientists said, because whole-grain foods are more often associated with positive nutrition outcomes. When certain digestive bacteria—such as lactobacillus—dwindle in number, people become more susceptible to various diseases.

But don't crack out the butter knife and plow through a fresh loaf just yet. Nutrition experts still recommend whole-grain bread over the white, fluffy version, saying many nutrients are lost in the milling process of refined grains.

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