Did your parents tell you to eat your crusts because they’re better for you than the squishy bit in the middle? Maybe they convinced you that eating your crusts will make your hair curly? Now it’s official – neither old wives’ tale is true. A bread specialist has confirmed the crust of a loaf has no more nutritional value than the middle, nor will it make your hair curl. Shame!

The news ends mass speculation fuelled by a study undertaken in Germany in 2002, which claimed bread crust is rich in the cancer-fighting antioxidant pronyl-lysine. The crust gets the most exposure to heat, and the so-called ‘Maillard reaction’ browns the surface when that heat makes sugars react with amino acids to create a brown colour as well as a different texture and flavour. Some bread makers add a coating of caramel colouring to make the crust look browner.

It’s true that the Maillard reaction creates cancer-protecting pronyl-lysine. But it also creates a cancer-causing material called acrylamide. So it turns out that you there’s no one part of a loaf that’s any better than the other. Every crumb is equal, every crumb is good for you!

Heroes heading for a watery bake-off

A team is embarking upon the toughest rowing challenge on the planet… and they’re going to be baking at sea. The team, named ‘Row Row Row Our Boat’, is set to row an awesome 3,000 miles from La Gomera to Antigua, together with 30 other teams, in the extraordinarily difficult Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge.

Their journey kicks off on 12th December 2018 and it’s going to be incredibly gruelling. Apparently more people have been to space than have completed the row, which is notorious for storms, forty foot waves, sea sickness, sunburn and sleep deprivation. And it’ll take an amazing 30-40 days to complete the journey.

All of which is impressive enough in itself. But there’s more. The team is also determined to break a world record by being the first rowers to bake a suite different types of bread while crossing the Atlantic. The money they raise will go to the charity Over the Wall, and to the Royal Surrey County Hospital Charitable Trust. To find out more, visit the team’s website.

Poisoned bread affects dogs in Derby?

Dog walkers are worried by pieces of bread covered in a mysterious substance turned up in two different parks in Derby, Sunnydale Park and King George V Playing Fields. They think the substance might be poison, after one dog walker had to take one of her dogs to the vets with sickness and diarrhoea. The bread has been seen near the main entrance of Sunnydale Park and in different areas of the King George V Playing Fields. It looks like ordinary sliced white but has regular greyish dots all over it.

Australian bakery triumphs with hemp flour, seed and oil

Hemp food products are legal in Australia these days, and now one enterprising baker is using hemp to create a variety of wonderfully healthy breads. Alpine Breads is finalising plans for their special hemp bread and hemp rolls, which they say will soon be on sale at selected Woolworths and Coles supermarkets. They’re already selling it online, and locally, and by all accounts it’s totally delicious, hemp being “too good not to be used in bread.” Apparently the product’s biggest fans are the 50-60 age group, some of whom travel 200km to buy the bread. No wonder when hemp seeds are high in protein, and such a rich source of omega 3 and 6.

Our wholemeal breads are made from 100% wholemeal flour

It’s a scandal. It looks like some supermarket ‘wholemeal’ bread isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be, with a collection of wholemeal loaves containing as many as four different types of flour. It matters because the regulations say bread can only be called wholemeal when all the flour it contains is wholemeal. The consumer group Which? Did the research, discovering soya flour, fortified wheat flour, fermented wheat flour and barley flour, in small amounts, in every ‘wholemeal’ loaf they tested.

You can rest assured our gorgeous wholemeal breads and rolls contain 100% wholemeal flour. If you want to know exactly how delicious they are, get in touch and we’ll send you a free box of samples.