Sir, The Federation of Bakers’ denial of Joanna Blythman’s critique (letter, Mar 20) of sliced bread is what we’d expect from an industry which in 1981 had to be forced by law to stop mixing chalk with flour — a wartime expedient to offset calcium shortage in other foods.
Mass-produced loaves receive the very minimum proving (rising) time, sometimes only a few minutes, but loaves need several hours to attain food value thanks to the beneficial lactobacillus bacterium which enables us to digest the food value in bread fully and earn it the epithet “the staff of life”. High-speed production necessitates far higher yeast usage.
Bread’s problems are caused less by wheat or gluten than by accountants and minimal investment strategies.
Roger Baker
Llanddeusant, Carmarthenshire