Seen At 11: Experts Say These 'Better Breads' Could Help You Lose Weight

NEW YORK(CBSNewYork) -- For decades, dieters have been told to stay away from carbs, but now the tables have turned and bread is back on the menu.

Experts say this 'better bread' is not only nutritious, it can even help us lose weight.

We have a complicated relationship with bread. We love it, and we love to hate it. But some experts say the bread backlash may be coming to an end.

"You could live off bread like this," Adam Leonti told CBS2's Kristine Johnson.

Leonti is the executive chef at the Williamsburg Hotel, and he's leading the carb cause.

"Right around the mid 19th century, you had the whole industrial revolution," he said.

It changed the way wheat was milled, and experts say there's a huge difference in the quality of flour that's milled by a hand grinder and wheat milled by a machine.

"What commercial processing does is it breaks the kernel into pieces and then sorta puts them back together again. It's a little Humpty Dumpty, and you can't really put it back together again and have it healthy," nutritionist Lauren Slayton said.

What we're left with is starch, which isn't very good for us, but now there are other options.

"There are breads that you can eat and feel good and even lose weight eating," Slayton said.

Those options include breads that are made more traditionally, on a small scale, using ancient grains.

Slayton suggests eating pre-fermented breads like sourdough, or sprouted wheat breads which are higher in protein.

"You can really look at the texture of a bread. You don't want something that looks uniform and perfect," Slayton said.

She also said to look at the nutrition label.

"Any good bread is definitely going to have some fiber and some protein. You don't want zeroes in those categories, low in sugar," she said.

At his Brooklyn Bread Lab Leonti experiments with various grains that he mills fresh daily.

"You're getting all the fiber from the bran, you're getting all the vitamins from the germ," he said.

Since starting his research, which lead him to living on a diet of cards, Leonti says he's lost 15-lbs.

"It's one of the best things you can eat," he said.

The cost of these 'better breads' will be a little higher than you typical load. You can find them at farmers' markets and in your market's frozen section because they have a short shelf life.