Is Bread Healthy? 5 Shocking Truths

Is bread healthy? Uncover 5 shocking truths about hidden chemicals and ingredients in your daily slice. Find the answer here.

Introduction: The Daily Bread Dilemma

Hello friends! Have you ever paused to look at the back of the packet of the brown bread you innocently pick up from the supermarket shelf? That seemingly wholesome loaf effectively marketed as a healthy staple—what are its ingredients truly hiding? Today, all over the world, bread is an extremely common food item. It is ubiquitously consumed by everyone, at all times, across borders and cultures.

In India, especially, it has woven itself into the culinary fabric in numerous delicious ways. From the quick breakfast of bread jam to the indulgent dessert of bread gulab jamun; from the savory comfort of bread halwa or a spicy bread roll to the rainy-day favorite bread pakoda or a protein-rich bread omelette. It is everywhere. But amidst this culinary love affair, you need to ask a critical question: Is bread healthy?

What exactly is inside that soft, fluffy slice? Is it beneficial or actively harmful to your health? What is the real difference between the pristine white bread and the “healthy” brown bread? And importantly, how does it compare to our traditional Rotis? Similar to our deep-dive analysis of soft drinks, in this extensive guide, let’s understand bread in forensic detail.

We have grown up hearing slogans like, “You want to grow bigger and stronger? Eat a sandwich daily,” or “Filled with the goodness of wheat, and health in every slice.” We’ve been sold the idea that bread is a source of energy and vitality. But is bread healthy, really, or is it just a marvel of modern marketing masking an industrial chemical cocktail?

To answer “is bread healthy”, we must peel back the layers of history, chemistry, and industrialization. This isn’t just about carbs; it’s about a transformation of a sacred food into a commercial product defined by preservatives and profits.

The Anatomy of Bread: What Goes In?

Let’s begin with the basics to answer the question: is bread healthy? Fundamentally, traditional bread is made up of four main ingredients. If you were to bake it at home today, or if you were a baker in ancient times, this is what you would use:

1. Flour: The body of the bread, either whole wheat or refined.
2. Water: The hydrator that brings the flour to life.
3. Salt: The flavor enhancer and structure builder.
4. Yeast: The magical microorganism responsible for the rise.

The process starts with kneading. The flour is kneaded into a pliable dough using water. We do the exact same thing while making rotis at home.

The Critical Role of Salt

You might ask about the purpose of putting salt in breads. It isn’t just for saltiness. There are three critical scientific reasons for its inclusion:

• Natural Antioxidant: First, salt acts as a natural antioxidant. It works as a natural preservative that enables us to store the bread longer without it spoiling immediately.
• Flavor Profile: Second, the taste of the bread improves significantly with salt; without it, bread tastes flat and insipid.
• Gluten Strength: Third, and most importantly, the gluten strands strengthen with salt. When you knead the dough, the gluten proteins in the flour come together. This network is what allows the bread (or the roti) to remain in one cohesive piece. Putting salt in the dough tightens and strengthens these gluten strands, allowing them to trap gas effectively.

Yeast: The Living Ingredient

Then comes our fourth ingredient: Yeast. Friends, yeast is a single-celled microorganism included in the fungi group. In Hindi, it is known as Khameer. This tiny organism is the engine of bread making.

When these microorganisms are introduced to the dough, they start to feed. They react with the carbohydrates (sugars) present in the flour. As they consume these sugars, two components are released as byproducts: Ethanol and Carbon Dioxide.

As you already know from school, this biological process is known as fermentation. The carbon dioxide bubbles that are released in this reaction get trapped in the elastic gluten strands we just strengthened with salt. This trapped gas forces the dough to expand and rise. This is why, if you look closely at a slice of bread, you notice numerous round and oval bubbles or holes—these are the footprints of the carbon dioxide that lifted the bread.

But in this reaction, ethanol is also released. As you know, ethanol is actually alcohol. So, does your bread contain alcohol? What happens to it? When we put the fermented dough in the hot oven and start baking it, the heat causes the ethanol to evaporate. This evaporating ethanol actually helps the bread expand even more before it escapes.

However, an interesting fact remains: the entire alcohol content doesn’t always evaporate completely; a minute part of it remains trapped. The American Chemical Society ran experiments as far back as the 1920s and found that the alcohol content in breads may be between 0.04% to 1.9%. But there is no need to be wary of this. This tiny amount of alcohol will not harm you or intoxicate you. In fact, scientists observed that this remaining trace of alcohol enhances the flavour of the bread. The bread tastes better due to this subtle chemical residue.

This traditional method—Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast—is the gold standard. If we stick to this, the answer to “is bread healthy?” leans towards yes. But unfortunately, the story doesn’t end here.

Bread vs. Roti: A Flat Comparison

Before we dive into the industrial horrors, let’s compare this with our staple: the Roti. Our roti and bread differ in fundamentally only two ways. While making rotis, we generally do not use yeast or salt (though usage varies, yeast is the key differentiator).

Because we don’t use yeast, there is no fermentation, no carbon dioxide release, and thus, the rotis do not expand or become fluffy like the breads. This is also why we cannot preserve rotis for long. If you keep cooked rotis at room temperature, they wouldn’t be edible a day later—they spoil or dry out. Bread, thanks to fermentation (and later, chemicals), lasts longer.

Since rotis do not expand, we categorise them as flatbread. Flatbreads like roti are popular all over the world, not just in India.

• Mexico: You’d find Mexican tortillas, which resemble rotis a lot. Often tortillas are made of corn (Maize), while rotis are predominantly wheat.
• Southeast Asia: You’ll find many such flatbread variations.
• Africa: Flatbreads are a staple in many African cuisines as well.

So, is bread healthy compared to roti? Historically, they are cousins. But the modern loaf has strayed far from the simple family tree of the flatbread.

A Slice of History: From Ancient Ovens to Industrial Lines

Who came up with the idea to put yeast in the normal flatbread to make it expand? This is a topic of intense debate for historians. It is speculated that its origin was around 4,000 BC.

The legend goes that a baker in Egypt was making traditional flatbread. He kept the dough aside for some hours and forgot about it. There happened to be wild yeast spores in the air—naturally occurring microorganisms—that landed on and interacted with the nutrient-rich dough. When the baker finally put the dough in his traditional oven, instead of staying flat, it started expanding and rising.

Everyone was surprised to see the result. They found that this new “mistake” was softer and easier to eat than the hard flatbreads. Since they liked it, they decided to try to make it again. They believed that simply keeping the dough out in the open for some time would result in this bread. But the presence of wild yeast in the air was unpredictable. Often, it wasn’t there, and the dough didn’t rise.

Then, human ingenuity struck. Someone discovered that they could take a piece of the older dough that had already risen (containing the yeast culture) and keep it to mix with the fresh dough the next day. This enabled the transfer of yeast to the fresh batch. This “starter” method is what we now know as Sourdough. And so, steadily, humans developed the consistent process of making leavened breads.

By about 2,000 years ago, in 300 BC, in Ancient Rome, baking had evolved into a high art. Baking was considered a respectable, noble profession. Wheat was a critical commodity, imported from African countries—regions in present-day Algeria, Tunisia, and Egypt—to feed the Roman appetite for bread.

Moving forward in history, it is said that Christopher Columbus was the first to take the concept of wheat bread to America.

The Portuguese Connection in India

In India, the bread with yeast was brought by the Portuguese traders. They introduced it in the form of Pao (Pav). Yup, that’s right. The Portuguese introduced it to Goa first, and from there it travelled to Mumbai. This historical exchange is the reason why, even to this day, Mumbai’s Vada Pav is iconic. The “Pav” is a colonial legacy.

By the 1800s, bread had become a natural, homemade staple food in cultures all around the world. It was eaten every day. Making bread was still considered a domestic art or a noble craft of the village baker. We saw bread enter Art, Religion, and Spirituality. Just look at the famous painting by Jean-François Millet, in which a woman is baking bread at home with reverence.

At this point, if you asked “is bread healthy?”, the answer was a resounding yes. It was simple, nutritious, and free of chemicals.

And then, friends, the Industrial Revolution happened. And everything changed.

The Industrial Revolution of Bread: Efficiency vs. Health

A wholesome, homemade food like bread turned into an industry. The primary goal shifted from nutrition to mass production, consistency, and shelf life.

The commercialisation began with the yeast itself. People didn’t want to rely on wild yeast or slow sourdough starters to bake their breads. It was too slow, too unpredictable for mass manufacturing. They wanted to “trap” the yeast somehow so that it could be used at will, instantly.

And so, Pressed Yeast was introduced. It was sold in the form of solid cubes. Some bakers in Vienna were credited with making the first pressed yeast in 1867. Today, we refer to it as Baker’s Yeast. It is a specific strain bred for speed. You can buy a packet of it anywhere today.

But the industry didn’t stop there. Someone wondered: why was the yeast needed at all? We used it primarily to release a gas (CO2) that helped the dough rise. They decided to use chemistry to achieve the same result faster.

Enter Chemicals: Baking Soda & Powder

This is where Sodium Bicarbonate came into the picture. Also known as Baking Soda. Baking Soda reacts with acid to chemically release Carbon Dioxide that helps in expanding the bread instantly—no waiting for fermentation.

But where does this acid come from? Back then, people introduced the acid into the dough by using milk, buttermilk, or lemon juice. But the industry wanted a “just add water” solution. So, someone combined the baking soda with a dry acid (like tartaric acid) and sold it in a moisture-free packet. As soon as it is added to water, it starts reacting. This idea worked well. This is Baking Powder.

These were the very first chemicals to be included in the bread. And after this, things started getting out of hand.

The Death of Nutrition: The Steel Roller (1873)

In 1873, an invention changed bread forever. Edwin Lacroix improved the Swiss Steel Roller. This machine could efficiently separate the parts of a wheat grain. To understand why this was a disaster for health, we must look at the wheat grain itself.

A grain of wheat has three parts:

1. Bran: The outermost layer. It looks brown. Most of the nutrients, fiber, vitamins, and minerals are in this layer.
2. Endosperm: The thickest, largest middle part. This is mostly starchy carbohydrates. It isn’t very nutrient-rich.
3. Germ: The innermost part, rich in healthy fats and vitamins.

When we talk about Whole Wheat vs. Refined Wheat, the simple difference is that the outermost layer of Bran (and often the Germ) is removed in the refined version. Refined flour is just the starchy endosperm.

It is the same as when you eat an apple. You know that the most beneficial nutrients are often in the skin. If you remove the skin and eat the apple, you do not get as many nutrients. The skin was the healthiest part.

This is the difference between whole wheat flour (Atta) and refined flour (Maida). With the steel roller machine, after 1873, it became very easy and cheap to make refined flour on a massive scale. This was the first monumental step where the answer to “is bread healthy” started shifting to “no”.

Why did they do it? Because removing the bran and germ (which contain oils) made the flour last longer. It increased profits. But it stripped the bread of its soul and its nutrition.

And the second event following this was even worse…

The Chemical Cocktail: What Are You Eating?

If the removal of nutrition wasn’t enough, the industrial obsession with aesthetics took center stage. The wheat flour naturally gets a white colour when it reacts with atmospheric oxygen. But this is a slow process; it takes time for the flour to age and whiten naturally.

But these large-scale industries did not want to waste time. Time was money to them. They wanted to appease their customers by showing them the pristine white flour immediately. They couldn’t wait for nature. So they started to whiten the flour by using chemicals.

Initially, they used crude substances like chalk, alum, and borax. But in 1898, chemical bleaching agents were introduced. These companies started bleaching the flour simply because they wanted to lure consumers with a “purer” looking whiter flour. Patents were being filed in countries like Britain, the US, and France.

Several people were strictly against this even then. They saw the harm in the practice. Leaders like American Chemist Harvey Wiley raised their voices with slogans like ‘Save the Bread, Save the Nation.’ But when the matter went to the courts, the bread manufacturers argued that since they were using a minuscule amount of nitrates and chemicals, it wouldn’t be very harmful. This argument won, and to this day, flour is bleached in America.

So, is bread healthy when it is chemically bleached? The answer gets darker with the next ingredient.

Potassium Bromate: The Silent Killer

A bleaching agent chemical that became very famous is Potassium Bromate. It was used in bread for the first time in 1916. Not only did it make the bread whiter, but it also helped the gluten network strengthen, making the bread expand more and look fluffier.

The problem is, today we know this chemical is a carcinogen. It causes kidney problems and thyroid cancer in rats. This is why this chemical has been banned in the European Union, Canada, Brazil, and China.

What about India? In a lab study in May 2016, by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), to check the levels of harmful Potassium Bromate and Potassium Iodide, they tested 38 different bread samples. The results were shocking:

• In 84% of the samples, either or both of the chemicals were present.

The good news is that, a few days after this study was released, the All India Bread Manufacturers’ Association decided to stop using potassium bromate and potassium iodide in breads voluntarily. A month later, the Indian government officially banned Potassium Bromate.

The American Paradox Shockingly, both chemicals are still permitted in America. You’d think, how could this be in a developed country like the USA? Friends, America is often criticized as the country where Crony Capitalism thrives. Many chemicals that have been declared toxic and banned in various parts of the world are freely used in America.

If you are reading this in the US, you need to ask yourself seriously: is bread healthy when it contains cancer-linked additives?

The Rise of Artificial Preservatives

Now, let’s talk about shelf life. As I told you, salt was being used as a natural preservative. Apart from this, we can use ginger, garlic, honey, clove, and cinnamon as natural preservatives. When we make pickles at home, why can we store them for so long? Because they contain these natural preservatives.

But over the last 100 years, Artificial Preservatives gained popularity.

On 7th July 1928, for the first time in an American bakery, Sliced Bread was sold. Before this, you bought a whole loaf and sliced it yourself. But slicing broke the crust seal, and the bread became stale very quickly. This was a big flop initially.

But convenience is king. To make sliced bread viable, more preservatives were added. In 1943, America briefly banned sliced bread to save steel during the war, but the public protest was so huge it was revoked in 2 months. People were hooked on convenience.

Let’s fast forward to the present day and investigate the ingredients of a typical bread packet to see if bread is healthy.

Label Decoder: What’s Hiding in Fine Print?

Let’s look at the back of a typical white bread packet.

1. Refined Wheat Flour (53%): The base is the nutrient-stripped starch we discussed. Without the bran fibre, this starch turns to sugar in your blood instantly, spiking your insulin.
2. Sugar: The second ingredient is often Sugar. Not natural sugar, but added sugar that your body doesn’t need.
3. Emulsifier E-481: Used to soften the dough.
4. Class II Preservative E-282 (Calcium Propionate): This is where it gets scary.

Calcium Propionate is used to prevent mold. But at what cost?

• A study published in June 2019 in the International Journal of Molecular Epidemiology and Genetics showed that this chemical can specifically cause allergies, intolerances, skin rashes, and migraine headaches.
• Another study in August 2002 (Journal of Pediatrics and Child Health) showed that if children consume this daily, it causes irritability, restlessness, and affects attention span.

If your child is hyperactive or irritable, have you checked their sandwich? Is bread healthy for them if it alters their behaviour?

The Sodium Bomb

Then there is Salt. But not just a pinch.

• 100g of bread often contains 497mg of sodium.
• People usually eat 4-5 slices. With butter (another 250mg sodium), a simple bread breakfast can meet 50% of your daily sodium requirement.

In America, the top contributor to dietary sodium is bread. Excess sodium leads to high blood pressure. If you are eating this much salt in just bread, is it safe?

The Biological Impact: What Happens to Your Body?

To truly answer “is bread healthy?”, we need to move beyond the ingredients list and look at our own biology. What happens inside your body when you eat two slices of modern industrial bread? The reaction is immediate, profound, and for many, surprisingly damaging.

The Glycemic Rollercoaster (Minute 0-30)

The moment you start chewing that slice of white bread, digestion begins. But unlike complex foods (like broccoli or lentils), industrial bread is predigested by the refining process. The starch in the bread is so simple that your saliva breaks it down into glucose almost instantly.

Is bread healthy for your blood sugar? The Glycemic Index (GI) answers this. Pure Glucose has a GI of 100.

• White Bread: GI of 75-85.
• Whole Wheat Bread (Industrial): GI of 74.
• Coca Cola: GI of 63.
• Sucrose (Table Sugar): GI of 65.

Read that again. Modern bread can spike your blood sugar faster and higher than table sugar or soda. Why? Because sugar (sucrose) is 50% glucose and 50% fructose. Fructose takes time for the liver to process. But the starch in bread is 100% glucose chains that explode into your bloodstream.

The Insulin Tsunami When your blood sugar skyrockets, your pancreas panics. It releases a massive flood of Insulin to clear the toxic levels of sugar from your blood. Insulin is a storage hormone. Its job is to shove that energy into cells. If you aren’t running a marathon right after your sandwich, your cells don’t need that energy. So, insulin unlocks your fat cells and stores the excess sugar as Visceral Fat (belly fat). This is why many nutritionists say: “Two slices of whole wheat bread can raise your blood sugar more than two tablespoons of pure sugar.”

The Crash and Craving (Minute 30-60)

The massive surge of insulin does its job too well. It clears the sugar so fast that your blood sugar levels crash below baseline. This is called Reactive Hypoglycemia.

• The Symptom: You feel tired, brain fogged, and shaky.
• The Signal: Your brain screams for more quick energy.
• The Result: You crave… more bread, biscuits, or sugar.

This is the Addiction Cycle. Industrial bread is engineered to be addictive. The combination of salt, sugar, and high-GI starch hits the dopamine receptors in the brain similar to how mild drugs do. You aren’t just hungry; you are withdrawing. So, is bread healthy if it hijacks your brain’s reward system? The science says no.

The Gluten Assault: Use of Vital Wheat Gluten

“But I don’t have Celiac disease,” you might say. “So gluten is fine for me.” Not necessarily. Modern wheat is not the wheat your grandmother ate. During the Green Revolution (1960s), wheat was hybridized to be shorter and higher yielding. This new “Dwarf Wheat” contains different gluten structures. Moreover, because the industrial baking process is so fast (remember, no fermentation time), the gluten proteins are not broken down. In traditional sourdough, the bacteria break down the gluten for 24 hours. In factory bread, the gluten is tough and intact. To make it worse, factories add Vital Wheat Gluten (extra isolated gluten) to ensure the bread doesn’t fall apart despite the lack of quality fermentation.

The Leaky Gut Theory When this indigestible, tough gluten hits your gut, it triggers the release of Zonulin. Zonulin is a protein that regulates the tight junctions of your intestinal wall.

• Healthy Gut: The wall is a solid barrier.
• Bread Gut: Zonulin commands the junctions to open up. This is “Leaky Gut”. Undigested food particles, toxins, and bacteria leak from your intestine into your bloodstream. Your immune system sees these invaders and attacks. The Result: Systemic Inflammation. This inflammation is linked to autoimmune diseases, skin issues (acne/eczema), and chronic fatigue. So, even if you aren’t “allergic” to wheat, the question “is bread healthy?” for your gut barrier often returns a negative result.

The Anti-Nutrient: Phytic Acid

Whole grains contain Phytic Acid. This is a molecule that binds to minerals like Zinc, Calcium, Iron, and Magnesium. It prohibits your body from absorbing these minerals.

• Traditional Eating (Soaking/Fermenting): breaks down phytic acid.
• Industrial Eating (Quick Baking): leaves phytic acid intact. This means even if the label says “Fortified with Iron,” the phytic acid in the unfermented wheat might be stealing that iron from you. You are eating the nutrients, but you aren’t absorbing them. Is bread healthy if it steals minerals from your body? This is the paradox of “Whole Grains” when they are processed rapidly.

The “Fortified” Myth

You see “Enriched Flour” on the label and think it’s a bonus. But why is it enriched? Because the refining process stripped away 25+ natural nutrients (Vitamin E, B vitamins, Magnesium, Fiber, Healthy Fats). The industry adds back 4 or 5 synthetic vitamins (Iron, Niacin, Thiamine, Riboflavin, Folic Acid). This is like someone stealing your car and giving you back the steering wheel and calling it a “generous gift.” Synthetic vitamins are not absorbed as well as natural ones. Plus, the synergy of the whole grain is lost forever.

So, when we analyze the biological impact—from the sugar spike to the gut inflammation to the mineral robbery—the answer to “is bread healthy?” becomes overwhelmingly clear. The convenience of the slice comes at a metabolic cost.

The Great Deception: White vs. Brown Bread

“Okay,” you might say, “I’ll just eat Brown Bread. That’s healthy, right?”

This is perhaps the biggest marketing scam of the century. Some people choose to eat brown bread assuming it to be a healthier option made of whole wheat.

But if you look at the back of a famous brown bread packet in India or elsewhere, you might see something startling:

• Ingredients: Wheat Flour (32%), Refined Wheat Flour…

Wait. They put refined flour (Maida) in brown bread? Yes. They mix both. And then they label it brown bread. The companies defend themselves by saying, “We never claimed brown bread would be 100% whole wheat.”

The Caramel Lie So how does it look so brown if it has white flour? The most astounding thing is that they add Artificial Colour. Specifically, Caramel Colour (Class III or IV). This is the same substance added to colas to make them brown.

Several caramel colourings produce cancerous byproducts (like 4-MEI). A petition was filed before the US FDA to ban these. Yet, here it is in your “healthy” breakfast.

So, when you ask is bread healthy because it is brown, the answer is often: it’s just white bread in disguise, with added paint.

Even breads that claim “Whole Wheat” often lists “Wheat Flour 52%”. What is the remaining 48%? They provide no explanation. It is often filled with fillers, chemicals, and refined flour.

Is Bread Healthy? The Alternatives & Solutions

By now, you might feel discouraged. You might be overwhelmed and thinking, “Cold drinks are bad, now bread is bad. Should we stop eating?”

The answer is not to stop eating, but to start eating consciously. Is bread healthy? The industrial version: No. But the concept of bread? Yes, if done right.

The Real Healthy Alternatives

What is healthy food? It is food that doesn’t need an ingredient list to decipher. There are many healthy choices available for a nutritious breakfast:

1. Daliya (Cracked Wheat): Made of whole grains, cooked in milk or with vegetables.
2. Oats: Excellent fibre source. Add milk or make it savoury.
3. Bajra/Millet Khichdi: Traditional, gluten-free, and nutrient-dense.
4. Fruits & Nuts: Almonds, walnuts, sprouts—foods that come straight from nature.
5. Idli Sambar: A fermented, steamed breakfast that is highly nutritious and gut-friendly.

What do all these share? They are homemade. When you cook at home with raw ingredients, you don’t add Class II preservatives, E-481, or caramel colour. You add love and nutrition.

If You MUST Eat Bread: How to Do It Right

If you cannot give up bread, you have three options to ensure the answer to “is bread healthy” is yes for you:

1. Return to the Roots: Roti The simplest way is to stick to rotis. Whether made of wheat, bajra, or chickpea flour (Besan). If you make it at home, it is chemical-free.

2. Bake it Yourself If you want the fluffy bread texture, bake it at home!

• You can control the ingredients: Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast. That’s it.
• Sourdough: If you want to go a step further, make Sourdough Bread. This uses wild yeast (just flour and water fermented over days). It is gut-friendly and easier to digest.
  • The Science of Sourdough: Unlike commercial yeast which acts in 2 hours, wild yeast fermentation takes 24-48 hours. During this long process, the Lactobacillus bacteria (the same good bacteria in yogurt) produce lactic acid.
  • Gluten Breakdown: This acid pre-digests the gluten proteins, breaking them down into amino acids that are harmless to your gut.
  • Mineral Absorption: The fermentation also deactivates Phytic Acid, unlocking minerals like Iron, Zinc, and Magnesium for your body to absorb.
  • Low Glycemic Index: Because the bacteria consume the simple sugars, the resulting bread has a much lower Glycemic Index (53 vs 75), meaning no sugar crash. It takes patience, but the health benefits are immense.
• There are excellent tutorials online (e.g., Nisha Madhulika for simple bread, Parth Bajaj for sourdough) that can guide you.

3. Buy Smart (The Label Test) If you must buy, be a detective. Ignore the front of the packet. Look at the back.

• Check the Flour: It must say “100% Whole Wheat”. Not 52%. Not “Wheat Flour”.
• Check for Chemicals: If you see numbers (E282, E481) or words you can’t pronounce (Potassium Bromate), put it back.
• Expiration Date: Real bread spoils in 2-3 days. If it lasts 2 weeks, it’s embalmed, not baked.
• Trusted Brands: Some organic brands (like Akshaykalpa Organic, as found in our research) do offer 100% whole wheat options without preservatives. (Note: Always verify current labels).

Conclusion: The Verdict

So, is bread healthy?

• The White Loaf: A chemical cocktail of bleached starch, sugar, and preservatives. Verdict: UNHEALTHY.
• The Commercial Brown Loaf: Often a painted imposter with refined flour. Verdict: MISLEADING/UNHEALTHY.
• The Homemade/Sourdough Loaf: A nutritious source of energy made with time and care. Verdict: HEALTHY.

The choice is yours. The bread industry has optimized for profit, shelf life, and whiteness. You must optimize for your health. Next time you pick up that packet, remember what lies beneath the crust. Choose wisely, choose natural, and perhaps, rediscover the joy of breaking (real) bread at home.