Gluten-free bread

Gluten-free bread is low here, but not for the reason most people assume. Gluten-free bread was measured at about the same fructan content as wheat bread - 1.0 against 0.6 to 1.9 grams per hundred - so removing the gluten did not remove the FODMAP. Why the finished loaf still tests low on the whole axis is not something this measurement can say: it counted fructan and nothing else, per hundred grams rather than per serving. The starch explanation is often repeated and nothing published carries it. Gluten-free and low-FODMAP are two different claims. The brand is the variable that matters: the gluten-free loaves measured ranged from 0.36 to 1.79 grams per hundred, five times apart.

Gluten-free bread uses milk powder or whey protein for the job gluten used to do - holding the crumb together and browning the crust. That makes dairy far commoner in gluten-free bakery than in ordinary bread, which is the opposite of what most people assume.

Gluten-free bread is low because it is usually chemically raised or quickly proved, without a long ferment. Baking and drying are the two processes that end the amine question rather than starting it - heat kills the bacteria and dryness stops the rest. A sourdough proved for two days is the counter-example.

Gluten-free bread was measured at about 1 gram of fructan per hundred, and a fructan is an oligosaccharide. Whelan measured it at 1.00 g/100 g, against 0.61 to 1.94 for the breads tested, and called the resemblance to wheat bread surprising. What varies most is the brand and not the type: gluten-free loaves ranged from 0.36 to 1.79, a fivefold spread on one shelf. The authors describe these quantities as low.

Gluten-free bread often carries more sugar than wheat bread, because sugar helps the substitute starches brown and hold moisture. It is one of the places where removing one thing adds another.

Gluten-free bread is built from rice, maize and starches — cereals too — so removing the gluten does not remove the nickel, and the loaves pass through the same processing equipment the surveys point at. Two national surveys put bread and cereals among the groups that deliver most of the dietary nickel — near the top because they are eaten in quantity rather than because they are concentrated, and neither publishes a figure for a single grain.