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The Perfect Bite: The healthiest, but worst-tasting bread

The wide selection of bread available in today’s supermarkets — whole wheat, whole grain, multigrain and white — means it can be difficult to keep track of what is actually good for you and what is just fancy marketing speak.

Today on The Perfect Bite, host Andrea Jenna and co-founder of ACE Bakery Linda Haynes test five whole wheat breads in the Yahoo! kitchen to determine which is the healthiest and which is the tastiest.

“Whole grain is what you’re really looking for, because that has everything,” explains Hayes. “That’s the three parts of the kernel of the grain: the bran, the endosperm and the germ.”Whole wheat bread usually has the germ removed, and multigrain is a mix of grains that can be either whole wheat or white wheat flour.

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Today, Andrea and Linda are testing five brands of whole wheat sliced breads:

Dempster’s Original 100% Whole Wheat Bread

Country Harvest Stone Milled 100% Whole Wheat Bread

Stonemill Bakehouse Organic Spelt Bread

Wonder+ 100% Whole Wheat Bread

Villaggio Italian-Style 100% Whole Wheat Bread

The healthiest bread of the lot is Stonemill Bakehouse Organic Spelt Bread, both Andrea and Linda’s least favourite from a flavour perspective.

“It’s really dry. Like sawdust,” says Linda, “and I don’t see any grains in it.” While it might not be tasty, with no chemicals, artificial preservatives, oil or sugar, it sure is good for you.

They both selected Country Harvest Stone Milled 100% Whole Wheat Bread as the tastiest of the lot.

“This looks better because it has flaked oats or something on top,” says Linda. “It feels a little heavier as well.”

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Among the other breads, Linda finds Dempster’s Original 100% Whole Wheat Bread and Wonder+ 100% Whole Wheat Bread to have a sweet taste, while Andrea finds that they both smell like vinegar.

The Villaggio Italian-Style 100% Whole Wheat Bread is “fresher than the other ones,” according to Andrea, who finds it “nice and fluffy.” Unfortunately, Linda suspects the bread may owe that fluffiness to preservatives.

So what should guide your decision-making when it comes to choosing a bread?

Linda advises searching for breads labeled 100 per cent whole grain whole wheat, and to remember the age old adage, “Less is more.”

Her words of wisdom: “Less ingredients gives you a better product.”

Tune in next time for another taste test investigation on The Perfect Bite.