Since going vegan in 1989, the only food I’ve longed for is bread. I remember going on a trip to Montreal when I was in grade school and we went to a French bakery. Without doubt, it was the best bread I’d ever had. From that time forward, fresh, warm bread has been one of my favorites treats.
However, commercial bread causes a few problems. It is a highly processed food that you should be leery of. Even bread that is “fresh made” can be problematic, depending on the ingredients.
Given the food labeling guidelines, the public is often misled when it comes to what is actually in the products that we buy. In order to produce food and have it last on the shelves in the grocery store, all types of chemical additives are used to preserve it. That said, something can be labeled “natural,” although it has an “unnatural” additive in it. For instance, sodium benzoate is often used to preserve bread products. Emulsifiers (a/k/a dough strengtheners) like sodium stearoyl-2-lactylate are used to keep the bread from falling apart. Coloring agents are used to give bread a consistent color, batch to batch. For those reasons and many others, I cut down my bread consumption to almost nil, which really hurt because I love vegetable sandwiches.
However, lately, I’ve been eating Ezekiel bread, and I’m enjoying it. It touts being flourless, made with sprouted grains and no preservatives, so I figured why not give it a try. But the most convincing reason I tried it is that it’s stored in the freezer section of the grocery store to preserve it. Ezekiel bread can’t be store with the other breads on the shelves because it will spoil due to lack of preservatives (which obviously boosts the price). And, although I’m not really into reading food labels—partly because of Michael Pollan’s “Food Rules”—there are no other chemical additives on the label.
The biggest reason I’m convinced that Ezekiel is superior for me to consume is that commercial bread would oftentimes inflame my sinuses. That doesn’t happen with Ezekiel. That said, this is not an endorsement of any particular bread brand, but I do recommend trying flourless, sprouted bread if you love bread as much as I do, but most breads don’t agree with your system. It will cost you more money, but it appears to be much safer than commercial bread.
