The chef baking bread that won't spike your blood sugar

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Interview with Yoon Hwa-young of Fredmoi

Chef crafts health-conscious bread designed to curb blood sugar spikes

'Same taste as white-flour bread, without the glucose surge'

A chef's chef admired by Korea's culinary elite

'I just want to be remembered as the ajeossi next door who happens to cook well'

Chef Yoon Hwa-young. [The Herald Business]

Carbohydrates have become something of a public enemy. They are increasingly cast as a sweet poison — fattening, inflammatory, life-shortening. The rise of not just low-carb but zero-carb diets speaks to just how deep that fear has taken root.

The reputation is somewhat unfair. Carbohydrates are a primary energy source the human body depends on, playing a particularly important role in brain function and muscle activity. The real issue is not carbohydrates themselves, but which kind, how much, and in what form they are consumed.

The more problematic variety is refined carbohydrates — the bright-white kind. Refining strips grains of much of their dietary fiber, vitamins and minerals, leaving behind a product that is almost pure carbohydrate.

Fredmoi's whole-wheat campagne. [Provided by Fredmoi]

Refined carbohydrates such as white rice and white flour are digested and absorbed far more quickly than whole grains, causing blood sugar to rise rapidly. That spike triggers a surge in insulin, and over time such eating habits can be linked to weight gain and an elevated risk of metabolic conditions including type 2 diabetes.

Bread is among the most common foods made from refined carbohydrates. It also tends to contain large amounts of sugar and butter, compounding the intake of simple sugars and fat — a combination that can significantly raise the risk of diabetes and other lifestyle diseases.

The spread of diabetes has added fuel to the fear of carbohydrates. According to the Korean Diabetes Association, as of 2024 an estimated 5.5 million adults aged 30 and older in South Korea have diabetes — roughly one in three people aged 65 and above. The number of people in the pre-diabetic range stands at about 15 million.

Diabetes can no longer be seen as a condition confined to older generations. As awareness grows among younger age groups, managing carbohydrate intake and blood sugar through everyday food choices has become one of the defining dietary concerns of the era.

A special flour with arabinoxylan keeps blood sugar in check

Chef Yoon Hwa-young. [Provided by Fredmoi]

Chef Yoon does not want people to give up bread for their health, or to force themselves to chew through whole-wheat loaves they do not enjoy. His question is not which to sacrifice — taste or health — but how to hold on to both at once.

"It breaks my heart to see customers who want bread but grimly chew whole-wheat loaves like medicine," he said. "There has to be a way to eat healthily and deliciously. That is what I mean by 'making fine dining everyday.' Healthy and delicious — only then does it become something you reach for daily, not just on a special occasion."

Research supports the approach. A team at the University of Pavia in Italy had 24 healthy adults eat white bread enriched with arabinoxylan, then compared the results with ordinary white bread. Blood sugar measured 30 minutes after eating averaged 107 mg/dL in the arabinoxylan group, compared with 121 mg/dL in the control group. However, because the study involved only healthy adults and was small in scale, the findings should not be interpreted as evidence of a treatment effect for diabetes. The researchers themselves noted that further research is needed to determine whether the ingredient provides long-term benefits for people with type 2 diabetes.

Slowzy, Chef Yoon Hwa-young's bread brand formulated with arabinoxylan to help curb blood sugar spikes. [Provided by Fredmoi]

The ingredient that first drew Yoon's attention was an Italian specialty flour called Farina Intera, which applies the same principle. Farina Intera uses enzymatic catalysis technology to break down the plant-based structure of wheat bran, increasing the bioavailability of soluble dietary fiber that is difficult to absorb from conventional flour. According to the manufacturer, the process enhances the usability of soluble fiber components derived from wheat bran.

Yoon took the idea a step further. He now collaborates directly with an Italian flour mill to produce a custom flour tailored to his exact specifications. The goal is to add dietary fiber while preserving a taste and texture close to white-flour bread — smooth and light, nothing like the coarse, dense quality of a typical whole-wheat loaf.

"Because it uses white rice flour, the taste and texture are not very different from conventional bread," he said. "You can eat bread that is both healthy and delicious. With this flour you can make baguettes, ciabatta, sandwich bread — all of it."

Slowzy, Chef Yoon Hwa-young's bread brand formulated with arabinoxylan to help curb blood sugar spikes. [Provided by Fredmoi]

What matters here is what "healthy bread" actually means. It is not about sacrificing taste for health. It is about refusing to give up on taste — and therefore going back to the very beginning, to the ingredients and the milling process, to find a better way.

Behind Yoon's drive to bake healthier bread is something more personal: his family.

"My maternal grandfather died from diabetic complications, and my mother has diabetes," he said. "I am not diabetic myself, but I live with that risk. Diabetes is not a distant disease to me. It was only natural that I started thinking about healthier bread."

A chef's chef who dreams of being the ajeossi next door

Before he became known for bread, Yoon Hwa-young was already celebrated as one of South Korea's foremost French chefs. He had originally dreamed of becoming a photographer, and it was on a trip to France to study photography that he stumbled into cooking. At first it was merely a way to make ends meet. It quickly became his calling.

He learned his craft on the floor, working alongside giants of French cuisine — Pierre Gagnaire, Eric Briffard and Jean-François Piège among them. His résumé includes stints at the Hôtel de Crillon in Paris, Pierre Gagnaire Paris and the Four Seasons Hotel George V. Over roughly a decade in the kitchens of France's finest hotels and fine-dining restaurants, he absorbed the fundamentals and principles of French cooking firsthand. For a Korean chef to be taken on as a full member of the kitchen staff at a palace-category Paris hotel was, at the time, exceptionally rare.

"The first fine-dining meal I had in Paris was a shock," he said. "I had no idea a world like that existed. I fell deep into the world of French cuisine — and into the passion those people brought to gastronomy. I think I spent ten truly intense years in France. Sharing a kitchen with famous chefs, going through every emotion together. It was an invaluable experience."

The Fredmoi store. [Provided by Fredmoi]

After a decade in France, Yoon boarded a flight back to South Korea in 2012. He opened a French restaurant called Merciel on Dalmaji-gil in Haeundae, Busan. Bringing authentic French fine dining to Busan at a time when such experiences were scarce there was close to a gamble — even in Seoul, the market for French fine dining had yet to fully take shape.

"The word 'outsider' feels right," he said. "It was true when I was in France, and it was true when I came back to Korea. Fine dining was still unfamiliar here. I spent a lot of time on my own. In a way, that gave me the space to think — to try to realize things through cooking, just by myself. Expanding on my own, attempting new things, failing sometimes, succeeding sometimes. That is how I moved forward, one step at a time."

Chef Yoon Hwa-young's quenelle. [Provided by Fredmoi]

The French cuisine Yoon built over those years never abandons its classical foundations, yet it never hesitates to add something new. In the early days he conceived a different menu every single day, never letting his creative instincts go idle. What emerged was something remarkable. He is known in the industry as a "chef's chef" — a measure of the profound influence he has had on South Korea's culinary world. It is why the country's top chefs today unanimously name him the elder statesman of fine dining in Korea.

Chef Yoon Hwa-young's Reuben sandwich. [The Herald Business]

When Yoon opened a bakery in 2024, the industry was puzzled. Rumors circulated that some grander ambition must lie behind the move. His actual intention was simpler: to get closer to his customers. And bread was never really new territory for him — it had always been part of the cooking he had done all along.

"I did not have any grand plan," he said. "I just wanted to meet customers in a more accessible place. I chose sandwiches because I thought bread was something many people love. I also wanted to make bread that was more delicious and healthier. Making bread is not a new challenge for me — I was already baking bread alongside my French cooking. I am just continuing what I have always done."

Chef Yoon Hwa-young's pavlova. [Provided by Fredmoi]

Yoon says he does not want to be remembered as a grand television chef or a chef of sweeping philosophy. He would rather leave a warmer impression — the neighborhood bakery ajeossi, the guy next door who happens to cook well.

"When people ask why I started cooking, my answer is always the same: because I am happy when I see the smiling faces of the people eating my food," he said. "I do not want to look like a celebrity chef, an artist or a philosopher. I just want to be remembered as the ajeossi next door who is pretty good at cooking. Like the chefs who came before me."

The neighborhood bakery ajeossi — today, as always, Chef Yoon Hwa-young is baking health into every loaf.

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