Ultra processed bread

I use the free app YUKA to help me to decide when I am face with what to buy. Unfortunately, certain brands of bread sound healthy as does the advertising but don’t score very highly.

I have just bought a loaf of sliced bread with the name Ancient Grains. From Tesco.
It’s brown and rather bland, but I wouldn’t call it ultra processed. I’m assuming it’s healthier than normal brown bread.

I used to enjoy the original uncut Hovis loaves of bread bought from a baker shop.
The sliced stuff is not the same.

Another vote for M and S spelt and seed loaf as mentioned by elusivebutterfly. It’s quite dense and makes fantastic toast. It’s not very big and inevitably expensive.

Jason sourdough as I find it filling.

Sago

Basgetti I use Waitrose own flour, their seeded one is excellent.

If I find my self in a farm shop I love to buy artisan flours.

Here’s today’s loaves

Loving your loaves. Might give it a go but am sure my first few tries won’t look anything like your bread.

I've recently discovered a brand that launched in Waitrose in 2024 and it comes as both sliced and unsliced.

Tesco has very recently started selling the sliced only.

It is called Wildfarmed Regenerative & now its the only bread I'll buy as it truly delicious. I have an a free app called Yuka which I highly recommend as it analyses all the ingredients and rates the product out of 100. It's so so simple to use - just point and scan the barcode - Wildfarmed bread is rated excellent 84/100 . I now check just about every item I purchase and often put things back on the shelf as a result.
wildfarmed.com/?srsltid=AfmBOorfIFUd62QBsjlaRF6_pqmwEtREewMAiKAVVMMPiEY38kLMXTgE

www.wcrf.org/about-us/news-and-blogs/healthy-new-you-the-yuka-app-review/

Any bread with wheatflour on the ingredient list is likely to be UP. Not all UP food is bad for us, there are different levels of UP and they have been around in foods for decades. One of the worst I can think of is the cheese slice used to top off burgers, now that is UP food.

I have been buying Morrisons Wheat, Spelt and Rye Cob when I can get there and if they actually have any on the day. Today I was disappointed. The shelf was empty. No flour delivery, I was told. It does not classify as "Real bread" as it contains added ascorbic acid (vitamin C) but it does not have the mono and poly esters of whatnot or a load of other stuff most bread contains to make it "super soft".
I hate "super soft". It is packed with extra wheat gluten and chemicals to make that gluten tough so they can pump air into it. It gives me horrible indigestion.

This is at a Morrisons where they bake their own bread and don't just finish it. Always read the ingredients label as from experience I believe that if they can't make it themselves and bring it in then it does seem to be adulterated. The texture and taste on those occasions is quite different - and not in a good way - and the ingredients list is definitely longer!

I have read on X that from next year the government have approved adding folic acid to bread and flour. How true this is remains to be seen but if true my question is why?

Why does everyone seem to push this Yuka app all the time?

Found this on google

My husband watched a programme on the chemistry sets most commercially produced bread is, and now insists on home produced bread. A bit of a sauce, as I very rarely eat bread! At least I can use the bread maker.
We did try a few of the lesser horrors, which seemed to mostly be sourdough but we didn't like that.

Don’t know what happened, I will try again

Not ‘pushing ‘ it 😄- just a suggestion as I find it really helpful and thought others would like to know.

My favourite bread is Allanson's Scandalous, I love the texture and the great mixture of seeds and as long as Sainsburys continue to stock it, I' ll continue to buy it.

I love bread, and I'm not prepared to study before eating it.
These things tend to change, anyway.
I enjoy "healthy" bread in preference to white, nondescript stuff, only to be told I shouldn't eat seeds, because of my bowels.

Fallingstar

Sago

Basgetti I use Waitrose own flour, their seeded one is excellent.

If I find my self in a farm shop I love to buy artisan flours.

Here’s today’s loaves

Loving your loaves. Might give it a go but am sure my first few tries won’t look anything like your bread.

I am a few years in.
If you look up Elaine Boddy and follow her simple sourdough instructions you won’t go far wrong..
My starter sits happily in my fridge, I feed it weekly to bake and if I’m not baking I discard.
A large loaf costs me about 75p!

I also use Yuka. It’s eye opening what additives are in a lot of everyday food

There's surely going to be, though?
Its not as if a cow is milked directly into a bottle, which is rushed to us "as is", and will last seven days.

tis not just the ingredients that count, but also the proving and baking process.

Proper baking gives you a hard outside crust that keeps the middle moist and doesn't get mouldy.

In the 1960s a food research centre developed the Chorley wood process. The research bakers at Chorleywood discovered that by adding hard fats, extra yeast and a number of chemicals and then mixing at high speed you got a dough that was ready to bake in a fraction of the time it normally took. Chorleywood bread is soft crusted, goes mouldy earlier. The bread is cooked in steam ovens not traditional hot ovens.

I cannot eat UPF bread, it gets stuck in my throat and nearly chokes me.

I once say a famous chef take a piece of Chorleywood bread in one hand and a piece of traditional bread in the other and knead them. The traditional bread turned into crumbs, the CW bread turned into a pasty lump like putty.

ViceVersa

Why does everyone seem to push this Yuka app all the time?

Because it informs people of certain details that are not evident from the information on the packet. It’s something that may help to know the better of two products taking into consideration the high-risk additives. It rates each product out of 100.

Bookfan

Not ‘pushing ‘ it 😄- just a suggestion as I find it really helpful and thought others would like to know.

I hadn’t heard of that - looks useful. Thank you

Just don’t look as to what is in supermarket, big brand bread! Horrendous!
I know it’s expensive but I go to a local bakery and buy a large brown sliced sourdough loaf! No chemicals.
I freeze half, it last two weeks. They have a loyalty scheme so the 10th one is free!

Babamaman

Just don’t look as to what is in supermarket, big brand bread! Horrendous!
I know it’s expensive but I go to a local bakery and buy a large brown sliced sourdough loaf! No chemicals.
I freeze half, it last two weeks. They have a loyalty scheme so the 10th one is free!

Our only bakery has closed down as they couldn’t afford the staff.
They sold beautiful Artisan sourdough bread.
You can’t beat proper baked sourdough 😋

Menopauselbitch
In the UK we have had mandatory fortification laws for decades which apply to most "ordinary" non-wholemeal wheat flours
It used to be "just" Calcium Carbonate, Iron, Niacin, and Thiamin but now includes Folic Acid as well.

This applies to:
​Standard white flours - such as supermarket own brands as wrll as named brands such and Homepride (both plain and self-raising)
​Also Strong white bread flour
Strong brown flours
​other Brown flour (that isn't 100% wholemeal)
​Most general-purpose or cake flours.

The folic acid was brought in to help prevent neural tube defects.

Exemptions are in place for:
artisan mills that produce less than 500 metric tonnes of flour and for
less usual grains (eg einkorn, spelt, semolina or rice flours.)
100% Wholemeal doesn't need to have it.

There used to be a workaround by buying imported flours from (say) France or Italy but that loophole was closed some time ago. 2022 I think, from memory.
This is true now even if bought by the sack instead of by the bag.