Wonder Bread, the nation’s No. 1 bread brand, is going against the grain.
This month, it’s coming out with a 100 percent whole-wheat loaf aimed at mothers worried about their children’s nutrition.
Made with an albino wheat variety that doesn’t have the harsh taste of whole red-wheat flour, the bread has the same spongy texture, the same mushability and pretty much the same taste as Wonder Bread. But it’s a shade or two browner because it’s made from 100 percent whole wheat – and it has three times the fiber.
Whole-wheat, or whole-
grain, flour contains all three parts of the wheat kernel: the bran, germ and starchy endosperm. Traditional Wonder Bread, made with white flour from which the bran and germ are removed, isn’t going away.
Manufacturer Interstate Brands Corp. has bestowed the loaves the somewhat clunky name “White Bread Fans 100 percent Whole Grain.” Chief marketing officer Jacques Roizen explains it’s meant for fans of white bread that’s 100 percent whole grain.
It’s to roll out of the ovens in six U.S. markets July 18 – San Francisco; Sacramento, Calif.; Kansas City; Omaha; Memphis, Tenn.; and Little Rock, Ark. The rest of the country will follow by the end of the year.
The new product comes as Americans are beginning to turn away from no-carb diets that vilified bread. At the same time, new federal dietary guidelines are recommending at least half of our bread and cereal intake be from whole-grain products to potentially aid heart health and weight maintenance.
It’s a tough row to hoe when an estimated 40 percent of Americans eat no whole grains at all, according to the Tufts University Health and Nutrition Letter.
But to Marion Nestle, a nutritionist at New York University, the long list of dough conditioners necessary to give the new Wonder Bread its distinctive soft, mushy texture means it’s hardly bread at all.
“Bread is flour, water, yeast, salt. Period. This has something like 20 other ingredients. The texture comes at a price. Why not buy your kids real bread?”
