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By Yoon Ja-young
While Koreans are increasing their consumption of bread, they seem to be drawn too often to "unhealthy" types rather than healthy ones, according to a research paper that especially warned against Ang-Butter and croissants.
A research team led by Kim Byung-hee, a professor at the Department of Food and Nutrition of Sookmyung Women's University in Seoul, analyzed the fat, sugar and sodium content of 13 types of commonly consumed bakery items in Korea. Among them, nine including sweet red bean bread, croissants, plain bread, castella (Japanese sponge cake), muffins and choux cream pastries were on the government's list of 728 "key foods," while the remaining four were frequently searched for by consumers using online search engines. They include "mammoth bread," or a sweet bun with a streusel-like crust stuffed with jam and Ang-Butter, which has layers of sweet red bean paste and chunks of butter in between.
The research noted that the risk of non-communicable illnesses such as obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease rises with the consumption of Ang-Butter and croissants, pointing to the trans-fatty and saturated fatty acids they contain. A 100 gram-portion of dough for Ang-Butter, for example, has 19 grams of butter and 7 grams of oil, which pulls up the content of saturated fat in the product. Castella, also among the most-sought-after items in Korean bakeries, had low saturated and trans-fatty acids compared with Ang-Butter and croissants, but a huge amount of sugar.
"The high content of trans-fats in Ang-Butter seems to be due to margarine. In the case of castella, between 21 grams and 37 grams of sugar is added for every 100 grams of dough," Kim said.
Mammoth bread, meanwhile, had the highest content of sugar per serving. The research was introduced by the Korea Food Forum and published by the Journal of the Korean Society of Food Science and Nutrition.
Experts have warned that Koreans enjoy sweet and crispy bread, which means they consume more sugar and fat. In a column for the Hankook Ilbo, the sister paper of The Korea Times, Kang Jae-heon, a professor of family medicine at Kangbuk Samsung Hospital, noted that when he recommends patients with hyperlipidemia, diabetes or fatty livers to decrease wheat flour in their diet, they usually ask why they should do that when Western people eat bread and spaghetti every day.
"The bread they have for meals is not sweet and fatty like the types we eat. We put in a lot of sugar, salt and butter while kneading the dough, and they often come with diverse additives and special processing methods for taste. Also, the addition of salt is essential to maximize the sugary taste," he noted.
"If a person eats bread that has a lot of sodium, salt and additives while lacking in fiber as a dietary staple, it will certainly have negative effects on their health."
Koreans consumed on average 21.3 grams of bread per day in 2018, up 17 percent from 2012. The country's bakery market is seeing annual growth of 4.1 percent on average.
