90% of the bread in Iran is white bread, without nutritional value

The
president of the Institute for Nutrition and Food Research said that more than
90% of the bread produced and consumed in the country is white bread, while in
the developed world, 95% of the bread consumed is whole wheat bread. Dr. Jalal
Mirzarazzaz said that one of the main problems existing in the country is the
bread being consumed. He said that more than 90% of the bread consumed in the
country is white bread type while in the developed countries 95% of the bread
is of the whole wheat type.

The issue
of bread and its health has been discussed for many years but so far no
practical steps have been taken to address the problems.

The head of
the Institute for Nutrition and Food Research said that whole bread is a type
of bread made from whole wheat and referring to the issue raised at the Eastern
Mediterranean Health Ministers Summit, stated: WHO organization representative at the summit emphasized the
special attention to bread and its methods of cooking in Iran and believed that
wheat used in flour making should be reviewed.

 According to statistics provided by the WHO
representative, we isolate and dispose of 28% of wheat nutrients through bran
in the country, he said.

The head of
the institute of Nutrition Research and food industry of Iran criticized the
high percentage of bran in the country, and noted: by doing bran, we discard
the wheat nutrients and turn the whole wheat flour into white flour then the
same nutrients as Iron, Zinc, Vitamin D and …, which are integral to people’s
health, are turned into white flour with a wrong method that has been
criticized by international organizations.

The Head of
Shahid Beheshti University School f Nutrition, pointing out that the high salt
content in bread is another problem, stated: salt consumption per capita in
developed countries is 5 grams per day, but it is 13 grams per day in our
country meaning every Iranian on average, consumes salt at about 2.5 times the
world average.

 He said according to the latest statistics
every Iranian consumes an average of 320 grams of bread a day, so every Iranian
receives about 3-5 grams of salt only by eating bread during a day, which is
high.

Mirza
Razzaz advised of the re-examination of bread consumption per capita in the
country and said the results of the study would be announced in the next few
months.

Criticizing
the method of bread baking, he stated: Bread that is overly exposed to direct
fire and roasted because of the production of toxic substances such as
acrylamide, increases the risk of cancer, although toast tastes better, it also
needs to change the taste and culture of people’s health.

One of the
tyopics we will be discussing in the new Nutrition Institute is the public
health education and encouraging people to use whole bread, he said. We will
have to cook and produce bread so that the community will move towards using
whole bread.