Zoe guru Prof Tim Spector reveals the healthiest supermarket loaves - eating the right one could ward off colon cancer

Daily Mail​

08-06-2025

Nutrition guru Professor Tim Spector has revealed the type of bread he eats every day for optimum health.
Many of us will be guilty of grabbing a meal deal for lunch, but according to Prof Spector these meals are the worse invention ever in the name of convenience.
Regularly eating ultraprocessed food including white, packaged bread from the supermarket has recently been linked to increased risks of colon cancer, with new studies suggesting diets high in these foods could raise the risk of dying from the disease by more than a third.
But, according to Prof Spector, if you choose the right loaves, the pantry staple can be great for your gut health.
Writing in the Telegraph, Prof Spector advised looking out for loaves that are high in fibre, boast short ingredient lists, are free from additives and low in sugar.
He said: 'The top-selling breads all tend to have a nice healthy label promoting vitamins or fibre, some seeds scattered on top and they tend to look brown.
'But you're never going to be able to tell from the appearance or the front of the packet if you're buying healthy bread.
'Instead you need to look at the ingredients list on the back of the label. There, you're looking for a high percentage of fibre in your bread (ideally over 6-10 per cent) and as little sugar as possible.'
Prof Spector added that loaves made with rye or spelt flour and wholegrains like ats are best.
He also suggested avoiding products with lengthy ingredient lists, especially those that contain additives like emulsifiers and palm oils.
According to the Zoe guru, added vitamins are another red flag, which often point to refined flours that may have been dyed to make the loaf appear better for you.
Currently there are no regulations stopping companies from slapping 'wholegrain' or 'freshly baked' labels on their loaves, even if dyes have been added to the product, he explained.
'If it's baked on the premises, supermarkets don't have to share the ingredients in it,' he added.
'This category includes breads that have been made in a factory, kept frozen for up to two years in warehouses and then thawed out and baked in-store.
'They're full of sugar, packed with artificial ingredients and won't fill you up.
'Even sourdough is sadly often added as a "fake" ingredient to sell the product', he added.
'I know this is a really difficult food for people to work their way around and I don't think people should stop eating bread, but if you're just a bit fussier about the bread you eat, you can actually improve your health a lot.'
Prof Spector said that he mostly eats sourdough rye bread that he makes himself, with wholemeal flour, rye flour, malted flakes, water, salt, a sourdough starter and some mixed nuts and seeds.
'It's free from from additives and preservatives, full of high quality grains, is high in fibre and fills you up—meaning you eat much less of it than you would a shop-bought equivalent,' the co-founder of Zoe added.
When he doesn't have time to make his own bread, the health enthusiast opts for either Gail's rye and barley sourdough, or a pre-packaged long life German rye bread.
He said: 'Whilst these don't look very appetising, they are nutritious and do the job until I can next make my own.
'I certainly wouldn't now buy the heavily processed supermarket bread that I used to, like white or even wholemeal sliced.'
This comes as young diagnoses of bowel cancer, also known as colon cancer, are on the rise, having shot up by an alarming 80 per cent across the globe in the last 30 years.
Scientists have suggested a host of factors are likely behind the phenomenon—from increased pollution to rising obesity and even invisible particles of plastic in drinking water.
Now, experts believe eating a diet high in processed foods and refined carbohydrates—like packaged supermarket bread—could be an overlooked cause.
It's because these types of foods are known to be low in fibre, the undigestable part of plant-based foods that has been proven to lower cancer risk.
Other research suggests eating more fibre might help flush out cancer-causing 'forever chemicals'.
Also known as PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances), these toxic chemicals don't naturally break down in the environment.
Instead, they leech from plastic containers and nonstick cookware into food and build up in vital organs, increasing the risk of organ failure, infertility and bowel cancer.
The researchers, from Boston, believe fibre helps filter out excess bile from the digestive tract, which PFAS latches on to to get absorbed by the bloodstream.
While mountains of research has demonstrated the deadly effects of forever chemicals on the body, the new study is one of the first to offer a scientifically proven way to get rid of the toxins, which were thought to live in the body forever.
However, Dr Catherine Elliott, Cancer Research UK's director of research, told MailOnline: 'We need more high-quality research like this to help us uncover more about how our diet influences cancer outcomes.
'When it comes to food and cancer risk, our overall diet is far more important than any single food or ingredient.
'A healthy, balanced diet includes eating lots of fruit, vegetables, wholegrains, and healthy sources of protein like beans and chicken.
'Cutting down on processed and red meats, and foods high in fat, sugar and salt also helps.'
Colon cancer, long considered a disease of old age, is increasingly striking people in their 20s, 30s and 40s in a phenomenon that has baffled doctors around the world.
Over the last 30 years, young diagnoses of the disease have shot up by 80 per cent across the globe.
Around 32,000 cases of colon cancer are diagnosed every year in the UK and 142,000 in the US.