Bread - ultra processed

[PineappleB]

I am trying to cutdown the amount of ultra processed food my family have. DC love bread- white bread , and they eat loads. Thought may be those baked in store would be better because they have shorter shelf lives, may 1-2 days. But just checked that they also have emulsifier. So are they equally bad?
Is home baked the only option? Have busy day to day life so really want to find easier way other than home baked to avoid Ultra processed bread.

Co-op fresh baked bread doesn't have nasties. Just calcium added.

Although my information is a few months old. I've been trying not to eat bread at all! So definitely check the pack 😁

If you have a bread machine, setting up homemade takes about 2 min.

This is the ingredient of Sainsbury's white farmhouse
INGREDIENTS: Fortified Wheat Flour (Wheat Flour, Calcium Carbonate, Iron, Niacin, Thiamin), Water, Salt, Yeast, Flour Treatment Agent: Ascorbic Acid.

French sticks, pitta and sour dough generally have ok ingredients.

What supermarket do you use?

I wouldn't worry too much about a bit of emulsifier in fresh bread OP. If you bake bread at home, the recipe will often call for a 'bread improver', which will have various enzymes and emulsifiers. It's a very small amount in an overall quite low processed food.

I think aiming for a big reduction in UPFs is a really good goal. But trying to stamp out absolutely everything is exhausting, time consuming and expensive. You can get big benefits from just removing the really big offenders like shelf stable meals and snacks that are full of numbers in the ingredients lists.

Bertinet bakery bread from Waitrose or Jason's bread from Tesco.

Jason's are UPF free

Ascorbic acid is vitamin C

I bought a bread maker to work around this and can't for the life of me slice the bread properly, so no one bloody eats it 😐

Morrison

2 min?
What bread machine you use? Can you share recipe?

This one always works well for me @PineappleB

www.dovesfarm.co.uk/recipes/bread-machine-wholemeal-loaf

You have to make sure you get quick yeast for bread makers. It will have added ingredients to it but I figure it is still better than shop bought bread.

Hope you can slice it better than me 😂

Dove's farm quick yeast ingredients:

IngredientsYeast, Emulsifier (Sorbitan Monostearate).

Honestly, OP, it's absolutely fine to buy the fresh bake bread. You just need to steer clear of the packaged versions with extra additives to extend the shelf life.

I have a Panasonic bread machine and everything is kept in a basket, flour, salt, oil, flat scale, measure jug & scoop.

the yeast is kept in the fridge as it prolongs shelf life.

making bread literally takes 2 minutes from opening the bread machine door, placing tin on scale and measuring out water, flour, salt sugar and yeast maybe oil. Then setting the timer so it’s ready either when I get home in the evening or first thing in the morning

I can also make brioche bread for weekend toast yummy and this replaces cheap croissant that are also probably UPF and mass produced

fruit loaf for Sunday tea time

Goldenkiwi i feel your pain! My only tips are to let it cool before slicing and get a really good long breadknife! But my slices are still quite rubbish…slowly improving though!

Panasonic, which I've had for about 15 years, so I know my favourite recipes by heart, hence the 2 min set up!

I invested in a good bread knife but still disastrous slicing. I think I will buy a gadget from Lakeland

I buy mine from the local bakers shop and they put it through their slicing machine. I then divide it up into useable portions and freeze it as it doesn't keep very long. I've no idea of the ingredients but as it doesn't stay fresh for more than a day or 2 I figure it can't be too bad.

I also have a Panasonic bread maker and it is so easy. Takes hardly any time to measure out the ingredients into the machine and set the timer.

It takes 2 mins to set up bread for baking on a bread maker. Set it up before going to bed and it's ready in the morning. There are no mentions of bread improvers at all in recipes - water, salt, flour and yeast. I bought a bread maker last year from Lidl for £35 and have not looked back. That means you cut down on another important thing- plastic! Go for it!

^^ This. Bread would be pretty far down my list of UPF priorities in a child's diet. Mass-produced snacks, sweets, juice drinks, other rubbish... get rid of that first.

Switching them to wholemeal would be a lot more useful than making white bread from scratch at home, even if the wholemeal bread is still UPF.

My DH is good at slicing home baked bread. I just couldn't get the technique right with a bread knife, unless doorstops were required. My MIL gave me an electric knife which was better.

Bread is one of the most consumed upfs and emulisers in bread is probably one of the upf ingredients you really want to avoid as the evidence is increasingly showing if effects our gut microbiome. Jason's sourdough is good, it is also easier and quicker to make homemade wraps if homemade bread it too much of a faff. We make up a batch a freeze the dough so you don't have to do it from scratch each time.

Let the loaf cool completely and use a good quality bread knife. I only slice what we need at the time and wrap the rest of the loaf in foil.

Looking at Panasonic bread maker. It's much more expensive than other brands. Is it worth it?