Prayers Answered: Grain-Free Bread Is Now a Thing—and It’s Delicious!

zeljkodan/ShutterStockThere’s a new diet in town, and it might as well be called the Bread Diet. Sure, you should still get enough protein and plenty of fruits and veggies, but this time bread is really the shining star. (Here are science-backed reasons to eat more bread.)

Not just any bread, though. This is bread without the grain or the guilt (translation: those pesky carbs), gluten-free and packed with protein and a giant helping of fiber that looks and tastes like your favorite loaf. “We are a bread with benefits,” says Amanda Orso, founder of Barely Bread, a grain-free bread line available online and at several grocery stores, including Whole Foods.

There are plenty of breads that are technically “grain-free” in your supermarket’s gluten-free aisle, but many have a laundry list of ingredients and preservatives. Barely Bread is a “cleaner” version of those, says Orso, since it contains only the most natural ingredients (like almond flour, flaxseed meal, coconut flour, sweet potato flour, and egg whites, to name a few). “I couldn’t find any breads that I felt met my health requirements and also tasted good and performed well, so I decided to make my own,” says Orso.

Six months of experimentation in her tiny New York City kitchen lead to a version that met her expectations and even satisfied her Italian, bread-loving husband. “We are foodies and believe food should taste good. I didn’t want to create something that was merely a vessel for your meal. If it doesn’t taste good, it’s not worth it, and he thinks this tastes great,” she says.

Barely Bread comes in sliced loaves, rolls, baguettes, and bagels. A regular bagel can have up to 50 grams of carbs and top 300 calories, but BB’s version has only nine grams of net carbs, 13 grams of fiber, nine grams of protein, plus iron and calcium for a fulfilling 250 calories. And while grain-free bread may have a higher fat content than traditional bread, BB’s comes from healthy sources like almond flour. “The bread I created also happened to be low glycemic, so blood sugar levels won’t spike,” says Orso.

It’s also sturdy enough to hold up to toasting or sandwich-making. “It was important that my bread stand up to how people traditionally eat bread without crumbling or getting soggy,” she says.

Mikey’s also makes an all-natural grain-free bread option that looks, tastes, and acts like regular bread. Their English muffins are less than 100 calories, low-carb, and have some protein and fiber.