Food - Breads

If you sit down and really think about it, there are more kinds of breads than you can possibly imagine. While we're certainly not going to try to cover every single variety and brand, we will touch on a few of the more common ones.

While nutritionists will claim that it's probably the most worthless thing you can put in your mouth because of the refined white flour, white bread is probably the best selling bread in the United States anyway. The brands of white bread are numerous to say the least. You've got your Arnold, Wonder, Pepridge Farm and a slew of others, not to mention all the bargain basement store brands. But white bread isn't just white bread anymore. You've got your thin sliced, you diet white, your enriched white and so on. No two white breads even taste anything alike. When you think about it, that's not a bad little trick, even if they all do have the nutritional value of a tree stump.

So thank goodness we have whole wheat bread to the rescue. While most commercial whole wheat breads probably still have too much sugar in them, they're still a step up from white, especially in the fiber department. White breads have almost no fiber at all while whole wheat breads have anywhere from 2 to 3 grams of fiber per slice. So if nothing else, whole wheat breads, not to be confused with whole grain or multi grain breads, are great for keeping you regular. Most of the white bread companies also make whole wheat, but your better whole wheat breads are the off brands.

Then of course you have your rye breads. Rye bread is something that you just have to have with corned beef. There's nothing like a corned beef sandwich with a little mustard on a good Jewish rye bread. Most of the better rye breads come with caraway seeds, which are pretty much an acquired taste, but there are those that come without seeds. Probably the most popular rye bread is Beefsteak Rye.

Think we've covered it all? We haven't even scratched the surface of the bread army. There's rye's fancy cousin, the pumpernickel bread. This bread is probably one of the heartiest and tastiest breads you will ever want to eat. These breads are very high on fiber and can be a meal in themselves.

Then of course you've got bread's cousins. These are your rolls, bagels, croissants and the like. Each one of these has their special purpose. For example, rolls, which come in a zillion varieties alone, are great for sandwiches where you want to really pile up on the lettuce and other condiments. Bagels are great for cream cheese and other spreadables and croissants are good all by themselves or with a little butter or jam.

And still, we've just scratched the surface. Yes, there are more kinds of breads for more kinds of occasions than you can possibly imagine. Of course that doesn't mean that you can't slap a couple of meatballs between two slices of rye bread.

Who knows? It might actually be good.

Michael Russell Your Independent guide to Food

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