If you have a specific dietary need, this can affect your choice of bread and related products.

Diet means ‘eating pattern’. If you're in any doubt about what's right for you, or the person who has a specific dietary need, you're advised to contact your GP, registered dietician or other relevant medical professional.

Vegetarians

Vegetarianism is an increasingly common lifestyle choice, for a variety of reasons.

Some people want to lead a perceived healthier lifestyle. Others are adhering to strong religious, moral or ethical beliefs, while some are concerned over the meat-related health scares in recent years.

Whatever the reason, a vegetarian is someone eating a diet of grains, pulses, seeds, vegetables and fruits with or without the use of dairy products and eggs.

What should you eat?

The key thing to remember, as with any other dietary choice, is maintaining a healthy, balanced diet – if you are cutting out certain protein foods such as meat and fish, you need to ensure they are replaced with suitable choices such as pulses like lentils, beans and nuts. If you are cutting out dairy foods you will need alternative sources of calcium. 

Base meals on starchy carbohydrate foods like bread, rice, pasta, potatoes, or oats. Try to have 5 servings of fruit and vegetables a day, include high protein foods like pulses, and calcium containing foods.

If animal-product free, bread is suitable as part of a balanced vegetarian diet and is a useful source of non-animal protein, iron and calcium.

How Brennans can help

Most of our products are suitable for vegetarians. Those that are not suitable are clearly labelled on the packaging.

Vegans

Unlike some vegetarians, vegans do not eat or use any animal or animal-derived products, ranging from the obvious (like meat and fish) through to other foods like cow's milk, cheese and eggs, to animal-based materials and clothing (like leather).

What should you eat?

Together with fruit and vegetables, soya-based alternatives, nuts, beans and pulses typically form part of a balanced vegan diet. Starchy carbohydrate foods like bread and pasta are also an important part of the vegan diet, helping to provide energy and B vitamins. Bread is also a useful source of non-animal protein, iron and calcium.

Vegans will often need to take a supplement of vitamin B12 as the main dietary sources are excluded in their diet.

With diabetes, your body doesn’t produce enough insulin, (a hormone), to help your body to convert food into fuel (blood sugar). This means that high levels of glucose, (sugar), remain in your blood.

There are two types of diabetes: 

Diabetes

Insulin dependent diabetes - this means you have a severe lack of insulin, and is treated by insulin injections and diet.

Non-insulin diabetes - this is the more common form, and means you have some, but not enough, insulin, or your insulin is not being used properly. This is often treated using diet alone.

What should you eat?

If you’ve been diagnosed with diabetes, you should have already met a registered dietician for advice on the right food choices to help you manage the condition.

A healthy diet for diabetes is all about balancing your food choices and achieving and maintaining a healthy weight. The diet recommended is very similar to the healthy eating recommendations for those without diabetes and is low in fat, sugar and salt. Meals are based on low fat, low GI wholegrain starchy foods like pasta, bread, other cereals, and pulses, plus lots of fruit and vegetables.

Why bread?

Bread belongs to the starchy food group and in a healthy balanced diet, meals should be based on these foods. Bread products can provide a healthy snack choice too. Choose the varieties with a low to medium GI to aid blood glucose control.

How Brennans can help

We produce a wide range of bread products that are suitable for practically everyone, including those with diabetes, and offer the kind of variety that makes the largest part of your diet more varied and interesting.

Osteoporosis

Osteoporosis literally means 'porous bones'. Bones are made up of a thick outer shell and a strong inner mesh that resembles a honeycomb, with bone marrow and blood vessels in the spaces between the bone. When the honeycomb mesh thins the bone becomes fragile and can break more easily.

It's been estimated that 1 in 3 women and 1 in 12 men will develop osteoporosis over the age of 50. Your lifestyle, including ensuring you eat a balanced, calcium rich diet, can affect your bone health now and in the future.

As well as eating a bone friendly diet, regular weight bearing exercise (jogging, aerobics or even brisk walking), avoiding smoking and drinking alcohol at a sensible level are important to bone health. 

What should you eat?

One of the main ways to build healthy bones is to eat a balanced diet that’s rich in calcium (99% of a body's calcium is in its bones) as well as providing the other vitamins and minerals that healthy bones need. This means including milk and dairy products (even low fat varieties are good sources of calcium), fish with soft bones, nuts, dark green leafy vegetables and fortified bread.

Coeliac

Coeliac disease affects the digestive system resulting in malabsorption of the nutrients in food. Coeliacs cannot digest gluten, a protein in wheat (wheat flour is the primary ingredient in bread) and similar proteins in rye, barley and oats.

It affects adults and children alike (about 1 in 300 people in the UK) who need to follow a gluten-free diet following specialist dietary advice from a registered dietician.

If you're concerned about Coeliac disease, seek medical advice from your GP. If you are cutting out certain gluten containing foods such as wheat flour, you need to ensure they are replaced with suitable choices such as corn flour. You may need specialist dietary advice from a registered dietician to help maintain a healthy balanced, gluten-free diet.

What should you eat?

A strict gluten-free diet is usually all that's required to return the digestive system to normal — which means no wheat, rye, barley and oats, or any foodstuffs made from these ingredients. This includes flour, bread, rolls, buns, crispbreads, biscuits, cake, pastry, pasta and breadcrumbs made from wheat, barley, rye or oats. Coeliacs need to maintain a gluten-free diet for life.

If you're diagnosed with Coeliac disease, none of our products will suit you. This is because traditional bread making is dependent on the gluten in wheat flour.

However, some companies do make special gluten-free products, such as Glutafin, and these types of products are often available on prescription for diagnosed Coeliacs.

Nut & Seed Allergies

Any allergic reaction to food can be very unpleasant and can bring on a range of different symptoms. However with nuts and seeds the reaction can be life threatening if it is not treated quickly. This extreme reaction is called anaphylaxis and thankfully is quite rare. If you are at all concerned about this, talk to you GP, practice nurse or health visitor.

Which foods should be avoided?

People who know they are allergic to nuts or seeds normally carry medication with them. It is very important that they are sure the food they are eating does not contain nuts or seeds or any possible traces of them. Food labels provide vital allergen information.

How Brennans can help

Look out for the back of pack information on our products. Any which contain seeds are clearly labelled. We’ve taken the extra step to help you by labelling any breads which may contain even tiny traces of seeds. These unseeded breads may have been made in a bakery which also make products containing seeds.