Is roti healthier than bread?

While we know that roti is nothing but another form of bread, we have always been told that it is a far healthier option to consume. In the days when bread was white, there was a pretty sound argument on behalf of roti.

But today when bread is available with all sorts of multi grains, and roti is still primarily wheat but evolving in healthy kitchens too, is bread still the unhealthier cousin? For that we need to know what the difference is between bread and roti.

What is bread? Bread is a staple food prepared by cooking dough of flour and water and frequently additional ingredients. Doughs are usually baked, but in some cuisines breads are steamed, fried, or baked on an unoiled skillet. Nutritionists, though, frown upon bread, as the modern practice of bread-making removes much of the roughage from the flour. Roughage is an important component of diet as it aids bowel movement and digestion.

Roti on the other hand is a staple food in the south Asian sub continent. Roti is made from unleavened flour, i.e., roughage is not removed from the flour, so it normally gets the thumbs up from nutritionists on this count.

No yeast is added to the dough in the case of roti, while yeast is added in the baking of bread. Yeast may not suit some people when it comes to digestion. Today there are many options where bread is made exceptionally healthy. Whole grain bread with a mixture of healthy grains give you all the wholesome goodness a roti can. But these can only be store-bought and most of them contain preservations. Let’s not forget that these good quality healthy breads are also much more expensive than your regular white bread or brown bread that you get from your local kirana store.

On that count, roti can be made at home, fresh without any surprise ingredients with all the goodness of whole grains. Roti can be made from millets, jowar, bajra, whole wheat and almost all healthy unrefined grains.

Therefore, it is easy to conclude that roti for this very reason is healthier than bread.

However, like almost everything we cannot conclude this as roti and bread is rarely eaten in isolation but is only a small part of the entire meal. So what your accompaniments are, is of probably more importance than only roti or bread. For example, if you are eating roti on its own with some ghee as a meal, then your healthy roast chicken sandwich may be a healthier meal than your plain ghee roti as it is unbalanced.

Healthy and nutritionally balanced meals are important and so if you do indulge yourself with eating bread or roti for that matter, let that be only a small part of your entire healthy meal.