Re: Bought Bread
Some interesting loaves being recommended in this thread.
Once again, good healthy nutritious bread needs just 4 ingredients:
Flour, Water, Salt and Yeast
Let's look at some of the loaves that have been highlighted:
Originally Posted by Lion Queen
: My dad loves Hovis Wholemeal
Hovis Wholemeal Ingredients
Wholemeal Flour (Wheat), Water, Caramelised Sugar, Yeast, Wheat Protein, Soya Flour, Salt, Wheat Flour (with added Calcium, Iron, Niacin, Thiamin), Emulsifiers: E471, E472e, E481; Preservative: E282, Vegetable Fat (Palm, Rapeseed), Flour Treatment Agent: Ascorbic Acid.
(
https://www.hovis.co.uk/our-range/wholemeal#wholemeal)
Hovis, on their website market this as "wholesome" and as having "some hearty-goodness" but that is caveated in the small print as being just the presence of some Vitamin B1. Pretty lame.
The ingredients list, being full of E numbers and preservatives in not, to my mind, conducive of a healthy bread.
There are some 9 or 10 ingredients there over and above the simple 4 that are needed to make bread.
Originally Posted by Eccles
I like Sainsbury's crusty sourdough loaf
Sainsbury's sourdough
INGREDIENTS: Fortified Wheat Flour (Wheat Flour, calcium carbonate, Iron, niacin, and thiamin), Water, Sea Salt, Extra Virgin Olive Oil (1%), Rapeseed Oil, Soya Flour, Spirit Vinegar, Flour Treatment Agent:Ascorbic Acid .
(
https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/webapp/...ifference-400g)
Now this one isn't bad. It has the basic 4 ingredients to which they've added some oils and ascorbic acid (Vit C)
So not unhealthy. However, if you watched a recent episode of "Rip Off Britain" you will know that the "sourdoughs" in the supermarkets are anything but.
Many people now understand that a real sourdough loaf is far more nutiritious and healthy than ordinary bread but many don't really know why nor do they know
how sourdough bread is made. So they are buying the badge "sourdough" which the supermarkets are using imo fraudulently.
The entire point of sourdough bread is that firstly it uses "wild yeast" and secondly the dough, once mixed, is left to ferment from 12 to 24 hours (sometimes longer).
This changes the neature of the grains/flour and produces a sour and wholesome loaf.
What the supermarkets are doing is making ordinary bread, lobbing a little wild yeast in there to tick that box but are not fermenting the dough for 12 to 24 hours.
In essence, supermarkets have cottoned on to the fact that the rise of artisan bakeries has exposed how unhealthy and bad for you
ordinary supermarket bread is and they've cottoned on to the fact that people will pay a premium for sourdough bread.
So all they are doing is creating a vastly inferior and frankly fake product in order to give it that "sourdough" badge so they can charge more for it.
Each to their own but imho I would avoid supermarket sourdough. If you are going to pay for a good sourdough, get a real one from an artisan bakery.
Originally Posted by Summer
Warburtons medium white for sandwiches
Warburtons medium white
Wheat Flour [with Calcium, Iron, Niacin (B3) and Thiamin (B1)], Water, Yeast, Salt, Vegetable Oil (Rapeseed, Sustainable Palm), Soya Flour, Preservative: Calcium Propionate; Emulsifiers: E481, E472e; Flour Treatment Agent: Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C).
(
https://www.warburtons.co.uk/product...g-medium-white)
Another one where the presence of unnecessary 'E' numbers and preservatives make this a no no for me.
Originally Posted by Twink55
Their seeded batch is also very tasty
Warburtons Seeded Batch
Ingredients: Wheat Flour [with Calcium, Iron, Niacin (B3) and Thiamin (B1)], Water, Seed Mix (12%) (Sesame Seed, Sunflower Seed, Brown Linseed, Millet Seed, Poppy Seed), Yeast, Sugar, Malted Barley Flour, Vegetable Oil (Rapeseed, Sustainable Palm), Salt, Emulsifiers: E471, E472e; Soya Flour, Wheat Gluten, Preservative: Calcium Propionate; Flour Treatment Agent: Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C ).
(
https://www.warburtons.co.uk/product...tch-five-seeds)
A similar story to their medium white above. 'E' numbers, preservatives . . .
Note also that they are having to throw in extra wheat gluten to force the crumb structure to be able to hold the seeds.
Originally Posted by Mags
Sainsbury’s multi seeded wholemeal bread, really delicious and tasty
Sainsbury’s multiseed
Ingredients: Fortified British Wheat Flour (Wheat Flour, Calcium Carbonate, Iron, Niacin, Thiamin), Water, Wheat Flour, Sunflower Seeds, Linseed, Sesame Seeds, Poppy Seeds, Wheat Gluten, Rye Flour, Oats, Pumpkin Seeds, Wheat Bran, Yeast, Sugar, Salt, Caramelised Sugar, Malted Wheat Flour, Flour Treatment Agent:Ascorbic Acid;.
(
https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/shop/gb...800g-6504663-p)
I guess the warning signs were there with your description of "delicious and tasty" lol
Another loaf that at face value seems healthy with all those seeds and grains but sadly it is all tainted with the presence of the added sugar and caramelised sugar.
This bread contains 2.5g of sugar PER SLICE ! Remember that 4g of sugar is 1 teaspoonful. This is a horrendous amount imho.
Imagine having a slice of toast, buttering it and then sprinkling over 1/2 teaspoon of sugar all over it!
Not a good way to lose weight nor to stay healthy imho.
~~~~~~~~
Ok so everyone will of course eat as they wish and make their own choices. Each to their own.
What I learn from all this is that what I "think" is tasty food, what I "think" is delicious is frequently nothing more than a false reaction to high levels of sugars that I didn't know were in the products I had bought. Sugars fool the brain and mess with your body systems.
In the case of bread, all we need is Flour, Salt, Yeast and water to which we can add extra seeds and other goodies. Bread that has 'E' numbers, preservatives and lots of sugars, should imho be totally avoided or eaten very infrequently.
You can make your own healthy bread with minimal effort and with an absolutely tiny amount of your own time. I make sourdough loaves regularly. I spend 5 mins mixing ingredients in a food mixer. I spent 2 mins shaping dough and 1 min scoring the dough and loading it into the oven.
That's 8 mins of my personal time expended. All the rest is left to Nature to do its thing.
Most people will spend more than 8 mins travelling to a supermarket walking round and throwing really unhealthy fast mass produced bread in their trolley.
The healthy choice is therefore easy to see imho!