Why? The point of the quotation was to question if this was a problem in the quantities listed. I know I’d rather eat whole grain enriched supermarket bread than refined white flour bread from some low protein source wheat.

I’ll take the home bread

If you added preservatives to your bread it wouldn't stale quickly either. Add a small amount of white vinegar to your bread and it will stale much less quickly.

Literally the only difference is typically some sort of preservatives, some added vitamins, and possibly a dough conditioner.

In general, bread is just not that healthy if you make the fluffy white kind. The preservatives and slicing have little to do with it. If anything, the added vitamins may make it healthier than something you make at home.

What really sets apart the typical white flour seen in most processed products in the US is the bleaching process, which mostly serves to make the flour more visually appealing. It also destroys a large percentage of the micro-nutrients. For many flour products the added vitamins you mention are added back in making the flour "enriched", but really this is just trying to match the nutrient profile of unbleached white flour. It's unlikely the added vitamins you see in the nutrition label alone would make a bagged, commercial pan loaf healthier than even the equivalent you would make at home.

Wonder bread white has 140 calories, 1.5g of fat, 5g of protein, and 29g of carbs for two slices. 5g of claimed added sugar.

In comparison, a recipe I’ve used to make very good white bread (the zojirushi recipe for their bread maker, for reference) has, for an equivalent weight of bread: 137 calories, 2.2g of fat, 3.9g of protein, and 24.8g of carbs. The recipe has roughly 2.5g of “added sugar” per that bread weight.

I wouldn’t consider 4g more of carbs per equivalent weight, or 2.5g more sugar, to be a “lot” more sugar.

Yeast ferment sugar, so depending on how much yeast you have, how active they are and the fermentation time, a small amount of sugar can easily be long gone by the time the bread comes out of the oven.

Aren't you? What meal typically has more than 2 slices of bread? A sandwich is two. Breakfast meals where toast is used is typically 2 slices.

And, if we limit ourselves to the 50g of added sugar a day, I'd say 10% of that for a component of one meal is pretty reasonable.

* 4 for breakfast as toast

* 4 for lunch to make 2 sandwiches (1 sandwich would be too small and I would be hungry all afternoon)

* sometimes another 2 with soup or an evening snack.

"Give us this day our daily bread", the old prayer goes: because bread was food, and everything else was accompaniment.

Bread became ubiquitous because it didn’t require hunting or gathering, i.e. it supported ever growing communities of stationary humans. Not because some ancient nutritionist decided it was good for you.

If you get the majority of calories from bread then you are, at best, eating far from the optimal amount of protein and lacking some useful nutrition. At worst, you’re eating a poorly balanced diet that will lead to overeating or malnourishment (or both).

https://www.npr.org/2020/10/03/919831116/irish-court-rules-s...

I bake my own bread (can't remember the last time I bought some) without sugar.

You don't need sugar if you use sourdough starter with an overnight fermentation in the fridge.

That doesn't match my experience, at least in the US. Per 1/4 cup:

KA organic unbleached white flour - 0 vitamins or minerals

Arrowhead Mills organic unbleached white flour - 5 mg calcium, 36 mg potassium

Bob's Redmill organic unbleached white flour - 7 mg calcium, 41 mg potassium

Caputo 00 - 9 mg calcium, 0.2 mg iron, 48 mg potassium

These levels aren't remotely close to decent.