For example…did you know that the inclusion of hydrogenated oils, artificial preservatives, emulsifiers, additives and other chemicals in bread became standard practice in the mid 1950′s?

At this same time whole wheat flour was replaced by bleached, enriched white flour. In this process, grain is bleached and sterilized with chemicals to make it white and soft.

It is then artificially enriched by adding vitamins, minerals and other materials destroyed in the chemical process.

Despite what you may have been told, trying to ”enrich” something with the very vitamins and minerals that were removed from it in the first place, does not make it even half as healthy as the natural unrefined version.

When you think about this, it doesn’t even make much sense.

It is also a growing practice in many bread producing factories to replace white flour with substances like alum, ground rice, and whiting.

Alum is the most commonly used of all these substances, because it gives the bread a whiter color and causes the flour to absorb and retain a larger amount of water than it would otherwise hold.

This enables the factories to produce bread which imitates bread made from a higher quality flour.

This tainting of your bread with harmful chemicals, such as potassium bromate, emulsifiers (both commonly used in bread production), and alum, jeopardizes your health.

Do you know why your store bought bread has such a long shelf life?

The mysteriously prolonged shelf life is because of a particular emulsifier used in making the bread. This emulsifier is mainly used as a softening agent and tends to deceive buyers as to the real age of their bread.

This emulsifier can hide the signs that your bread is rotting (it certainly doesn’t stop the rotting) for a few extra weeks, but the harm it does to your body (and the harm in eating the half rotten bread) makes the cost for this ”convenience” very high.

Is it any wonder then, that every year a growing number of people just like you and I, are being hospitalized with illnesses and incurable diseases?

Is it possible for you to protect yourself and your loved ones against unhealthy and harmful bread?

Well, buying bread from a store is certainly not the right choice to make. Even if you buy commercially produced whole wheat bread you’re not getting healthy food.

A lot of times what passes for whole wheat bread is actually white bread colored with caramel.

If the first ingredient in a loaf of whole wheat bread is unbleached enriched flour, then you’re not truly buying whole wheat bread at all, just white bread (loaded with chemicals) that is disguised as whole wheat bread.

There is only one true solution to ensure that you avoid poisonous, toxic bread. And that is to bake your own healthy whole wheat bread.

This is no where near as difficult as it sounds. In fact it’s dead set simple. All you need is a good proven recipe, and an expert guide to teach you just once what to do.

- Beth Scott

Beth Scott is the author of The Ultimate Whole Wheat Bread Baking Guide. For more information visit her Easy Bread Baking website.