Questions about bread machines

Schlackity
Schlackity Posts: 268 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Hi all - I would appreciate any input from those of you who use bread machines. Do you find that bread made in a bread machine is healthier or has less sodium than packaged bread you can buy at the store? I am watching my sodium intake and most packaged breads (along with most processed foods) are higher in sodium than I'd like.

I don't own a bread machine yet, but I'm considering buying one so I can still enjoy bread but keep it healthier.

Thanks!

Replies

  • wheird
    wheird Posts: 7,963 Member
    Well, healthier in what way? Just sodium? Not noticeably. But fresh baked bread is delicious. I <3 my bread machine.
  • FredDoyle
    FredDoyle Posts: 2,273 Member
    Bear in mind that even with your own recipe, bread requires some salt to inhibit the yeast or the loaf doesn't rise properly.
    It's not cohesive without it. Try it, you'll see. It's fun to experiment.
    That said, I make my own and add about half of the salt you'd normally find in store/bakery bought bread.
  • sue_stef
    sue_stef Posts: 194 Member
    I used to have a 1lb loaf bread machine it took 4 hours for this bread to be finished
    it was fabulous tasty delicious homemade bread
    however it was gone very quickly because I have kids and they eat fresh baked things very quickly
    SO taught myself how to make bread in larger quantities so I might get more than one slice

    sadly bread is made with salt flour water yeast and usually sugar of some sort

    I was recently diagnosed with high blood pressure and was able to cut out a lot of salt from most of my diet but what about bread?

    I found this recipe for no salt tuscan bread
    it has no salt no sugar just takes a bit of time to make it and makes enough bread for 30 slices (ish I made two loaves in the shape of a French bread)

    http://tastebuds.bangordailynews.com/2013/06/06/whats-for-supper/crusty-saltless-tuscan-bread/

    I also made this same bread using Mrs Dash mixed in the dough it was very good
  • knittinlady
    knittinlady Posts: 143 Member
    It really depends on your recipe. Bread does need some salt, but probably not as much as commercially made bread has. :smile:

    I love my bread machine. My kids and I make pizza every Friday, complete with homemade crust. My health-conscious twelve-year-old likes to add whole wheat flour to the recipe.
  • VBnotbitter
    VBnotbitter Posts: 820 Member
    You still need some salt and sugar as stated above but it is much nicer. Be warned though when we first got ours we ate such more bread as it was so delicious, and stacked on weight as a result. This settled down and we still make all our own bread but just eat less.
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 10,093 Member
    It also may depend on the bread you're currently buying, and the recipes you choose to make. The commercial loaves in my freezer both have 200 mg sodium per 2 oz of bread; the two most recent bread machine recipes I made and entered into the recipe builder on MFP had 176 and 123 mg of sodium per 2 oz of bread. Percentage-wise that's roughly a 12.5% and 37.5% reduction in sodium, but in raw numbers it may not be a huge benefit for you, depending on what your sodium goal is, how much bread you eat, and what the rest of your diet looks like.

    As others have said, bread requires salt to help control the yeast. Your bread also would probably be pretty tasteless without it.

    If you will be baking for more than 2 people, you might want to consider learning to bake it without a machine, so you can make more than one loaf at a time. When I was growing up and there were 3 or 4 of us at home, my mother would bake 3 loaves at a time, and we'd generally finish one loaf and start on a second as soon as it was cool enough to slice. I've been using a bread machine more often than the oven since I've been baking for just one or two people, because it seems silly to use the energy to bake one loaf in the oven. Also, I probably wouldn't bake bread from late spring to early fall if it meant turning on the oven.
  • Pintado
    Pintado Posts: 33 Member
    We had a bread machine for a couple of years and used it 3-4 times a week. The best thing about it was the timer setting, so you could dump all the ingredients in at night and set the bread to be ready when you wake up in the morning. (The trick is to keep it on your bench so that you're REMINDED to dump the ingredients in when you finish cleaning up after dinner!)

    Homemade bread is a hundred times better for you than store-bought. You can control all of the ingredients you put in, and there's a lot less sodium and fewer preservatives when you make it yourself; you can tell because homemade bread goes rock-hard after a couple of days, instead of lasting for forever. Most importantly (mainly for Americans), there won't be any high-fructose corn syrup in your homemade bread – a common ingredient in most US supermarket breads, unfortunately.

    We've moved countries recently, so now we just make our own bread by hand, without a bread machine. There are lots of low-knead recipes around – Dan Lepard has lots of good ones here: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/australia-food-blog/2013/jun/13/baking-best-bread-lepard
  • twixlepennie
    twixlepennie Posts: 1,074 Member
    'Healthier', no but it tastes awesome! I love making cinnamon rolls in my bread maker-500 calories of pure awesome :bigsmile:

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