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A Closer Look at What's in Our Daily Bread
April 2012
Author(s): Erin Smith, Charles Benbrook and Donald R. Davis
Bread plays an important role in the overall consumption of grains, particularly whole grains. Today there is an increasing variety of organic, "natural," and conventional bread—white, wheat, whole wheat, sprouted wheat, and gluten-free. Each with its own claim about freshness, taste, nutrition, and other benefits. But what's really in our daily bread? Does the type of bread you eat really make a difference? And in particular, how do organic bread ingredients differ from those in "natural" and conventional bread?
To help answer these questions, we examined the ingredient lists of a selection of 36 organic, "natural," and conventional wheat breads and identified and counted the number of ingredients in five categories: Whole Foods, Refined/ Processed, Preservative/Additive, Nutritional Supplements, and Other.
Full Report: A Closer Look at What's in Our Daily Bread (17 pages, 500KB PDF)
One Page Summary: Daily Bread: Do You Know What's In Yours? (1 page, 1.3MB PDF)
