"Real" wholemeal bread vs "spongy" sliced w/m bread?

^ I now have difficulty swallowing supermarket bread. It turns into a sticky paste like uncooked pastry and sticks in my throat^

Exactly this MOnica.
Thank you for explaining why.

Grammaretto how lovely to have great breac delivered!

Reading this thread has reminded me how important it is to eat proper bread.
I went to a talk by Andrew Whitley. He is a passionate believer in the importance of real bread.
He is scathing about the supermarket version.
His book Bread Matters explains the science.
I used to, back in the 1990s, make all our own bread and I baked 4 large loaves a week for our local arts café but now I eat very little bread so I buy the best loaf I can and freeze, for toast, any leftovers.
It's made by a French artisan baker in Edinburgh who deliver to our community store daily. It is expensive but worth it.
I also make a savoury bread casserole with any hard leftovers. 😋

Gundy

Bread - the staff of life. I love all bread/flour products but now I’m beginning to wonder if I’m building up to a gluten intolerance? I buy only bakery breads (all kinds) but never that spongy marshmallow stuff - that’s absolute poison.

Some bread (products), but not all flour-made things upset my stomach. I’ve tried to figure out what is it exactly that’s giving me heartburn - is it the way flour is milled? Is it the additives? Is it GMO flour (genetically modified)? Is it the yeast?

I do better with organic bread products but not always either. I do extremely well with sourdough bread. This also applies to pasta, where I find it very starchy, so I eat smaller portions. It’s just a mystery.

I don’t think I can ever give up bread, muffins, scones, cakes, cookies… I’ll just suffer through it.

Bread - the staff of life. Not for everyone.

I’ll just suffer through it.
Not a good idea, Gundy. Some people may develop gluten intolerance or even coeliac disease in later life too and it could cause illness. Perhaps you could ask for a test to find out why you are suffering.

Wheat has been developed to have a much higher gluten content than it had years ago.

This is a great flour and makes good "solid" bread:

hodmedods.co.uk/products/yq-wheat-flour

Do you think we could all join forces to put pressure on Cranks and Waitrose to get Cranks Whole Lotta back on the shelves? I've never set up a grumble group. Does anyone know how to do it?

Jason's sourdough. . . yes, I spotted that in Tesco's the other day. I'll give it a try. Thanks for that, Camila7

About breadmaking: I do have a Russell Hobbs breadmaker, but I fouled up the programming, which is a shame. Since then, though, I've purchased a Sage "desktop" oven, and I think I made a good call here. Apart from its other options (which are considerable) it can bake two loaves at the same time, and this is certainly going to be the future as far as baking my own bread is concerned. Thought I'd just mention it.

We resolved the problem and bought a breadmaker that’s still being used five years later. I have white bread and my OH has wholemeal.

I've not had Cranks wholemeal bread in years but I think you'd like the dense texture of Jason's sourdough that comes in various flavours, Just tried their malted loaf the other day that was amazing. They sell it in Tesco and Waitrose. Plus point is there are no additives and great for gut health.

I was surprised the other day to find that our local Waitrose still (very occasionally) sell Vogel's mixed-grain loaves. It's a decent loaf too, though part of me still shudders slightly when I consider its lengthy carbon footprint trail, originating as it does from New Zealand. But then I also buy bananas, plus other imported foods from similarly far-flung parts of the world. So why single out Vogel?

Back on topic again! Can anyone recommend a good, hearty no-nonsense wholemeal flour, so enabling me to bake something that (sort of) approximates a Cranks loaf? Last week I purchased - though not yet sampled - what McAllister's refer to as their "strong" w/m flour. This, however, was a random shot on my part based on profound ignorance.

Interesting reply from Cranks saying high production costs and being delisted by Waitrose. I wonder if they would start production again if Waitrose asked? Maybe everyone should bombard Waitrose with the request? Slightly different but many years ago my local (West Country)Waitrose stopped selling Rodda’s Clotted Cream. I was told they’d delisted it from the local store. I complained to the manager who turned out to be a Cornishman and it was reinstated.

Gundy I suggest you cook your pasta and chill it for at least a couple of hours (ideally longer) and then reheat in your sauce. It is much more digestible that way - or even frozen. It is the same with potatoes.

I don't know if this applies to bakery items but it would definitely be worth a go I would think.

Fingers crossed.

I've never had Cranks bread but hve been buying an unsliced organic wholemeal loaf from Waitrose for the last few years. Unfortunately this has been unavailable for the last couple of weeks and is no longer listed. Tried 2 others from Waitrose and frankly nowhere near as good.

Bread - the staff of life. I love all bread/flour products but now I’m beginning to wonder if I’m building up to a gluten intolerance? I buy only bakery breads (all kinds) but never that spongy marshmallow stuff - that’s absolute poison.

Some bread (products), but not all flour-made things upset my stomach. I’ve tried to figure out what is it exactly that’s giving me heartburn - is it the way flour is milled? Is it the additives? Is it GMO flour (genetically modified)? Is it the yeast?

I do better with organic bread products but not always either. I do extremely well with sourdough bread. This also applies to pasta, where I find it very starchy, so I eat smaller portions. It’s just a mystery.

I don’t think I can ever give up bread, muffins, scones, cakes, cookies… I’ll just suffer through it.

I buy Vogel sliced Original in Waitrose as it freezes well

Oreo - I wasn't challenging your assertion that there were "levels" of salt - I was trying (obviously badly) to say that you don't need any salt for food to be delicious.

I should have said that I believe you only need salt I suppose if you always have it!

I have hardly bought bread since I treated myself to a very lovely Panasonic bread maker. It makes gorgeous bread and I can use whole meal, add seeds and whatever else I fancy. We live seven miles from the shops so it is brilliant being able to make my own. It doesn’t last as long as supermarket bread but I just cut it in half, freeze half so there is no waste.

We enjoyed a wholemal loaf from a supermarket for several years, and then production stopped. We could find nothing else that tasted as good, so we bought a breadmaker. Every few days I make a loaf that is 80% wholemeal/20% white and it is delicious - no additives, just yeast, flour, butter, a small amount of salt and sugar and water. The effort is minimal, two minutes at most to put ingredients into the breadmaker.

I miss proper unsliced Hovis wholemeal bread.
They don’t seem to manufacture it anymore.

The sliced stuff just isn’t the same.

Oh no !!! I cant believe they have stopped selling it .. I had so much difficulty finding it in Waitrose ... They will now say " there was no call for the bread " ...

If I make bread I usually slice it once it is stiff enough (the next day) and freeze what I can't eat quickly. I have a manual slicer so can get the slices pretty even.

Sago,can you give the exact ingredients you use for the sourdough please.I have never made bread but this sounds good.I don't have a breadmaker do you use one?

NotSpaghetti

Oreo

The reason many things including bread doesn’t taste as good as it used to is low salt.
Salt is what brings out the flavour in cooking and health diktats means that very low amounts are used.

I don't believe this - "real" bread is delicious (my husband's no salt breads are all delicious).
That includes rye, spelt, khorasan, einkorn, yeasted, sodabread or sourdough

Believe what you like.
Commercial bread has had to lower the salt in line with other food manufacturers, for health reasons.
Since I don’t want to eat any of the kinds of bread your DH makes at home I can’t say if it’s delicious or not.
Chefs use an amazing amount of both salt and sugar to make things taste better, but it isn’t good for us.

I make James Martin's Easy Irish soda bread every 5 days or so. Delicious!
www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/irishsodabread_67445
However, I don't use buttermilk, I use 275ml. milk acidulated with a good squeeze of lemon juice 5 minutes before mixing. I tend to buy strong wholemeal and strong white flour (it's half ad half). It takes 5 minutes to mix (with a fork) and bakes in 30 - 35 minutes. Great to have with soup, cheese, as toast with eggs or marmalade & jam. No good for sarnies though - too crumbly!

I only bought Cranks when I felt lazy or couldn’t find a 2 hour slot in my day to put the breadmaker on. In that situation now I can make do with the Heyford loaf or the Sainsburys wholemeal loaf. Not sliced, never sliced. But normally I use my breadmaker every 3rd day to feed three of us and my grandson will groan if I have bought bread and ask for “nanny bread”. The breadmaker is brilliant and I experiment with added ingredients. I always make bread with one fifth rye flour added to the wholemeal flour for the taste and often add milled linseed or other milled seeds on a whim. It’s always delicious whatever shape it comes out as.

It is sad that companies like Cranks are struggling though.. so much has changed in the last 4 years.