Searching for Grains in a Sea of Wheat

Eating healthy does not mean just staying away from sugar and processed food.  Serious health-enthusiasts also require a strict adherence to limiting carbs to whole grains. So naturally, an entire whole grain market sprung up in America to meet this demand: whole wheat pasta, whole wheat bread, whole wheat cereals… the list can go on and on.  It’s hard to even imagine life before the whole grain crazy.  And then I moved to KL, and all whole-grain-hell broke loose.

Not only are most foods here either fried, covered in coconut milk, or fried and covered in coconut milk, but finding whole grain carbs in KL can be likened to finding a needle in a haystack, or more familiar to here – finding a parking spot at the mall on a Saturday afternoon.

For the first month, I literally thought the only bread company in Malaysia was Gardenia. Now don’t get me wrong – I quite like their bread. Their wheat bread is soft, tasty and toasts really well – makes great grilled cheeses and stays fresh for about 5 days without refrigeration. However, it’s just ‘wheat’ and not ‘100% whole wheat’ – and anyone that is a health nut understands that what seems insignificant really makes the difference between the bread being healthy or not.

As an aside, Gardenia’s Butterscotch bread is to-die for!!! It tastes like French toast or crème brulee, and is best toasted. Of course, it’s not healthy at all, but it must be tried if you are in KL – at least once. But be warned, if it’s your first time, you just may eat half the bag in one sitting – I’m definitely guilty of this (shamefully guilty).

Anyway, I slowly discovered that if you shop for bread in the mall, you have better luck of finding whole wheat bread.  Places such as Bread Talk and The Loaf offer specialty breads, with some of their selections containing whole grains, nuts, oats, etc. However, my problem with these places is although their breads are totally divine, they are extremely expensive: RM7+ - whereas Gardenia is a little over RM3. So is it really worth a 100% mark-up just to get some whole grains? On a daily basis, I say no.

So I gave up, being content with eating my Gardenia – well, that was until today.  When I was walking in Kerinchi LRT around lunch I saw this interesting sign in a small convenience store. It was advertising Good Whole wheat.   Upon closer inspection the bread had 100% brown sugar – which I’m not even sure why is needed in the bread…  But that aside, it looked a little better than Gardenia wheat bread.  It had whole grains and seed-like goodness baked inside.  Now it doesn’t say 100% whole wheat on the ingredients (but it does say whole wheat as the number 1 ingredient). The best part, it’s only RM3.50!!! So while it’s not the Holy Grail of whole wheat bread, it’s getting closer to where I want to be à cheap and healthy.

If you know of other cheap and healthy alternatives to the bread I found definitely let me know. Either way, I’ll continue my scour and let you know if I find anything else.