How cutting off bread crust could lead to cancer

Many people have a love-hate relationship with bread. Perhaps you’re one of them.

Maybe you’ve been avoiding bread because you don’t want to put on weight. Or, you’re embracing a gluten-free diet in an effort to improve your overall health.

Unless you’re someone who has a medical reason to avoid gluten, such as celiac disease or gluten intolerance, you’re missing out on some great health benefits.

Not only that, if your bread crusts end up in the trash, you’ve been throwing away a chance to slash your cancer risk.

Cancer protection: More than just fiber

For decades, we’ve been told that the fiber in foods like whole-grain bread was a powerful way to lower cancer risk.

However, studies done in 2002 and 2009 reveal that there’s something else entirely that makes whole grains work to inhibit cancer.

In 2002, German scientists were the first to show that a well-known chemical process, the Maillard reaction, produces a cancer-fighting compound called pronyl-lysine.

The researchers, working with the German Research Center of Food Chemistry, also showed that this powerful antioxidant is eight times more abundant in the crust than in the rest of the loaf.

The Maillard reaction, well-known to both chemists and bakers, is what gives the outside of a loaf of bread its dark color. Apparently, it’s this chemical reaction, rather than just fiber content, that makes your bread crusts a powerful anti-cancer food.

Blocking colon cancer

In 2009, researchers in India took this research a step further. They wanted to see whether pronyl-lysine could limit the formation of pre-cancerous cells in the colon.

Researchers at Annamalai University fed rats bread while exposing them to a chemical that triggers bowel cancer. After fifteen weeks, they concluded that eating crusts daily reduced the development of pre-cancerous lesions by as much as 72 percent.

How to get the most out of your bread

Now that we’ve convinced you not to cut the crusts off those sandwiches, here are a few more pointers for getting the most out of the bread you eat…

• Go for dark breads. Remember the Maillard reaction? It gives bread its dark brown color, so it stands to reason that, the darker the bread, the more cancer-fighting antioxidants you’ll get.

That’s why you’ll want to try developing a taste for breads like pumpernickel and whole wheat.

• Enjoy some stuffing. Thomas Hofmann, PhD., the lead researcher in the German study, says that eating bread stuffing is one way to maximize your anti-cancer benefit.

When bread is broken into smaller pieces, as it is in stuffing, there is more surface area in which the Maillard reaction can take place, and thus, more pronyl-lysine.

• Don’t over-brown your bread! Ironically, it is possible to reverse the beneficial effects of the Maillard reaction if you try to brown your bread by placing it in the oven, or toasting it until it becomes very dark.

Related: The cancer in your sandwich meat

Dr. Hofmann warns that strong over-browning of bread actually reduces the level of antioxidants.

So, just make friends with that bread crust, and get some cancer-fighting power with every sandwich!