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Bread needs lots of ingredients to have the right texture and shelf life. Even my homemade bread has 9 ingredients.
Mine has five: AP flour, rye flour, salt, water, and yeast. However, I've seen variations of this bread (Bauernbrot) that use up to nine ingredients by adding milk, oats, caraway seeds, and yogurt.
But with most of Sprout's bread, you don't know how long it has been in the freezer. The last time I tried to by rye bread at their Tucson store, it was frozen solid. No thanks.
It's located on their fresh baked bread rack and there are 3-4 different types of 3 ingredient bread. It's not frozen or in the freezer like Ezekiel bread you have to eat it fast since it doesn't have all the preservatives to keep it fresh for 2 months and never mold.
So I was at the grocery store yesterday and really wanted to make toast. I don't buy much bread at home because I rarely eat it outside of breakfast, and I eat breakfast at work.
So I was scanning the labels, looking for a bread that didn't seem too processed. And every loaf had 10-15+ ingredients. Eventually I found a sourdough with flour, starter and salt. But this took 10 minutes!
Why does all packed bread have so much stuff in it?
We has a similar thread about this recently, and the upshot is as already stated by others; modern supermarket bread must have an extraordinary shelf life so it is packed with chemicals.
In many urban areas local bakeries for mass "store bought" goods like Hostess, Entenmann's, Wonder Bread, etc... have been shut down. Instead for sake of economies and efficacy things are produced at one large central plant often miles away. Goods are then shipped (by truck and or train) to warehouses, then distributed. Once they arrive on store shelves it could have been two, three or more days ago since made and still now must sit for at least a week (or longer) before sale (hopefully).
If you've had "normal" baked goods like home made bread or cakes you know a day or two is usually the limit most remain "fresh". With some breads you have a tooth chipping rock in < 48 hours. So obviously something had to be done in order to extend shelf life of store bought goods.
Also consider sales of breads in particular white aren't what they once were as Americans shift away from carbs and or want "artisanal " type goods. So the stuff that is made has to last longer on shelves in a perverse way to avoid making more of it. This helps reduce the amount of unsold bread that is thrown away.
Here in NYC there has been an explosion of various artisanal or whatever bakeries. Things like Pain de Quotidien, Maison Kayser, Pret a manger, and so forth. Every night they all throw away tons of unsold baked goods, much to the delight of the rodent population who feast upon plastic bags full of breads, cakes, and pastries. The other happy group are dumpster divers including the homeless who like the aforementioned rodents know where a steady source of food is to be found.
Then your question is curious, because you already knew the answer.
Go to a local bakery or specialty shop.
I do often but those places close early. I spend little time at mainstream grocers. And when I go, I remember why I don't go. It is too hard to find minimally processed things. But it seems strange that out of 30 loaves of bread I could only find one with a reasonable ingredient list at Safeway. And the house made stuff was equally processed. How do they make it in-house with all of those ingredients. Do they keep corn syrup in the pantry?
Homemade bread is the best. Sadly I am not home enough to eat it even if I put in the time.
Many breads freeze wonderfully. You can even pre-slice and thus take out what is needed at the time.
We used to bake bread quite often, but went on a carb reduction kick so now not so much. Would rather have my daily portion as croissants or something with coffee/breakfast then maybe potato, rice or pasta for dinner.
It's located on their fresh baked bread rack and there are 3-4 different types of 3 ingredient bread. It's not frozen or in the freezer like Ezekiel bread you have to eat it fast since it doesn't have all the preservatives to keep it fresh for 2 months and never mold.
A LOT of their bread arrives at the store frozen. The bread should NOT be put out ice cold but it has been the last two times I went there.
I am NOT talking about Ezekiel bread and I am not talking about frozen dough.
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