How to choose wraps

The wraps we see today are not a new concept; unleavened bread has been around since ancient times. We take a look at the options.

Note: It’s not just the wrap that’s important — it’s what we put in it! Load it up with lots of vegetables and some lean protein to create a healthy meal.

What’s available

Wraps are a fantastic substitute for a sandwich — in fact, you can often get more filling (especially vegetables) into a wrap than in a sandwich, making them a healthy alternative. Wraps come in many other guises: tortillas, Lebanese bread, mountain bread and roti. Essentially, a wrap is a flat bread that can be rolled. With all this variety available, what should we be looking out for when buying wraps?

Energy

Even though wraps look thin, they may contain more energy (kilojoules) than you think. Two sandwich slices of grainy or wholemeal bread provide around 540—690kJ. The wraps we looked at varied from 285kJ for a Mountain Bread Rice Wrap to 964kJ for a Pams Jumbo Tortilla. So your choice of wrap will depend on your needs. If you’re watching your weight, a lower-energy wrap like any of the Mountain Bread wraps would be a good option. But if you need more energy or need to gain weight, a larger wrap such as the Jabal Lebanese Bread Wheatmeal, at 896kJ, would be suitable.

Fibre

Fibre is important for our bowel health so we need to include it where we can. While some wraps are lower in fibre than others, it’s easy to boost the content by adding high-fibre fillings. Spinach, carrot, avocado, tomato, pumpkin, capsicum, hummus, beans, nuts and seeds are all good high-fibre options. The fibre content also depends on the size of the wrap. We recommend choosing wraps with more than 2.5g fibre per wrap.

Sodium

The sodium content of wraps is something else we need to watch. While the sodium content of those we sampled wasn’t too high, it did depend on the size of the wrap. The range was from 12mg in Pams Naan Garlic Flat Breads to 427mg in Old El Paso Jumbo Tortillas. We recommend choosing wraps with no more than 325mg sodium per wrap.