Hi
@Bluebell22. I'll just take one of the things you asked about and that is bread.
If you eat a lot of bread, then it will be one of the big hitters in my approach to carb reduction.
You have two ways to go... eat less of it, halving the amount you eat will halve the carbohydrate, or eat lower carbohydrate bread.
Take the second first.
There are breads made from grain and flour mixtures which have less carb than most other breads but they are very specialised and are few and far between.
The first thing to remember is that to all intents and purposes virtually all the bread you can buy has the same carb content, around 50-60 g/100g. White, brown, wholemeal, seeded, sourdough it does not matter, if it is made mostly from wheat flour it will have the same carb content despite what the marketing departments of the big bread makers tell you about how "healthy" their particular product is. I know of one bread sold by Booths that has a flour mix which is contains low carb flours and claims to be genuinely lower carb, weight for weight, than other breads. I don't know of any other although those who live outside Booths country might know of some others.
You can try and make your own low carb bread but if you go looking for recipes all you will find are things that do not use yeast and are bound with eggs which makes the product more cake than bread for me. Makes me think that making yeast risen bread from low carb flours is not a straightforward task and even though I am a reasonably competent cook and baker I have given the idea a miss. Life is too short and all that.
Take the first, cut back on the amount of bread you eat.
If you look around the supermarket you will find low carb breads
but if you look closely they will be quoting carbs per slice! If you make a smaller loaf and slice it thinner then you will get fewer carbs per slice than the same bread offered in standard format. Carbs in your sandwich will be reduced but so will the size of the sandwich.
Nevertheless, this gives you the best clue to cutting carbs from bread ... use less bread. They way I go about this without feeling deprived is to develop a taste for more highly flavoured breads, use smaller size loaves, and slice it thinner. You can rummage around the "artisan " bread section in the supermarket and trying a few until you find something you like. I get there by making my own bread using seeded wholemeal flour, baking it to give a decent crust and a low cross sectional area when compared with supermarket stuff. That way the carb content of one of my slices is about 25% of that of a slab of sliced white. The compensation is that it tastes far better (it actually has some flavour) and you can up the volume of the sandwich by putting in more (low carb) filling. Same for my breakfast toast. Small highly flavoured slice with butter and the most highly flavoured marmalade you can find so you need hardly any of it. And you have guessed it, make your own marmalade when Seville oranges are in season and you will never touch shop marmalade again.
They are my thoughts on bread. Fundamentally eat less of it but make the experience more enjoyable.
Same principles apply elsewhere. Eat less of something of better quality - chocolate, pasta, potatoes whatever. You can also use psychology.... eat French fries rather than chip shop chips. For a given weight of spud, the pile of French fries you get is much bigger than that you would get from chip shop chips so you don't feel deprived. Its why burger places always use French fries........
Some ideas to start with.
www.veganfoodandliving.com
