Bread: Overview: Health Breads

The nutritional value of white bread has long been questioned. Its most famous critic was Sylvester Graham, who, in 1837, quoted a sea captain as saying, “the coarser my ship bread, the healthier my crew.” Graham developed his own “Graham Bread,” made with coarse, unsifted flour, which was adopted by many both in America and abroad. Others also made “health breads,” often with whole wheat flour, which was known to be more nutritious. This was popular enough to be used in cookbooks, but in the 1940s government experts thought whole wheat bread unlikely to gain wide acceptance, opting instead for the “enriched” white bread.