I have to have a little rant today about sugar in unexpected places. Well, what happened is that we fancied some soft brown rolls for our lunch at the weekend and as we were out doing our food shopping, we picked up a packet of wholemeal rolls. Lunch was to be a roll filled with lovely ham from our deli with a bit of lettuce, a smear of mayo and lots of sugar. What? No, the latter hadn't been the plan but you wouldn't believe just how sweet those bread rolls were. When I looked at the list of ingredients, sugar was listed in third place, even before yeast and salt. There is absolutely no need to add sugar to bread and especially not that much. Needless to say that we didn't really enjoy our lunch that much :-( What makes me really mad is that a lot of this stuff is labelled as healthy food - even those rolls had a big sticker on the packaging declaring the wonderful amount of fibre they contained. I am sure they have a lot of fibre from the wholemeal flour but what about all that sugar?
Next time you buy ready-made stuff from your supermarket or shop, have a look at the ingredients and you'd be surprised what items have been sweetened: soup, bread, so-called low-fat cereals and "healthy" yogurts. Before you know it, you will have eaten several teaspoons of sugar without even realising you've done it. Don't get me wrong, I love to have a sweet treat now and again and you will find plenty of cake recipes on my blog. But the thing is that I'd like to decide myself when I have something sweet.
Anyway, rant over! Guess I will just have to try to make even more stuff from scratch and where I don't or can't, I need to read the labels even more carefully.
The positive result of all of this is that I have since discovered a wonderful recipe for a fluffy sandwich bread that will satisfy when we crave soft bread - minus the sugar. I will share the recipe for that tomorrow, so watch this space...here's a picture to get you drooling :-)
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| Soft white sandwich bread |
Kirsten a small (emphasis on small) amount of sugar is always in bread or bread rolls because it works with the yeast to make the dough rise. However having said that the fact that sugar was third on the list is a bit much. I have been perusing the ingredient list before it even became the in thing to do because my son was diagnosed as a Type 1 Diabetic at age 14 (he is now 34) and the Diabetes Educator showed me what to look for. I have finally come to the conclusion the only thing which does not contain sugar is salt and the only thing which does not contain salt is sugar. Although that has possibly changed by now :-)
ReplyDeleteThank you :-) I agree that a little sweetness helps the yeast work faster although it also works by using the starches in the flour. I guess what upsets me is the vast quantities & the places you don't expect it :-( Your eyes must be well trained in reading those labels - it's great that you had the diabetes educator show you what to look for. I'm still learning what to watch for and on this occasion just didn't read the label until after - silly me :-) Kirsten x
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