Love your bread & don't want to give it up? Here's how to have healthier bread on a budget
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Katherine Isacks, MPS, RDN, CDCES - Registered Dietitian and Certified Diabetes Care and Education Specialist (CDCES)
Do you buy bread or make your own? Whether your bread is homemade or store bought, here's how to have healthier bread on a budget.
How to have healthier bread on a budget
We are creatures of habit. Most of us buy bread because we assume we don't have the time or skill to make our own. But you don't need to be a professional baker to make good whole grain bread. All you need is patience while you experiment with recipes to find one you like. To make good bread with very little skill, consider trying no-knead and bread machine recipes as a first step.
Healthier breads are those that are whole grain. For store bought bread, the first ingredient should be a whole grain (e.g. whole wheat, whole oats, etc). For homemade bread, most of the flour you use (or at least half) should be whole grain.
Cost comparison
Not only do you save money when you make your own bread, but you also control the quality of the ingredients. To help convince you to consider making your own healthy bread, I have provided a cost comparison. The weight of one slice of bread is typically 1 oz (for a thinner, lighter slice) to 2 oz (for a heartier, heavier slice). I used a large supermarket chain in Colorado for my pricing. For the homemade breads (the first two on the list below), I used non-brand (or store brand) pricing for all ingredients (e.g. flour, salt, yeast, canola oil, etc.). Note that the energy cost (gas or electric) for baking the homemade bread has not been included in this cost estimate.
- 4 cents/oz: Homemade Whole Wheat Bread using The Master Recipe (by Hertzberg & Francois), 1 lb (16oz) loaf, $0.64
- 5.6 cents/oz: Homemade 100% Whole Wheat Bread for the Bread Machine (by KingArthurFlour.com) 1.5 lb (24 oz) loaf, $1.34
- 7.4 cents/oz: Kroger® Round Top 100% Whole Wheat Bread 24 oz loaf, $1.79
- 16.6 cents/oz: Pepperidge Farm® Whole Grain 100% Whole Wheat, 24 oz loaf, $3.99
- 23 cents/oz: Wonder® 100% Whole Wheat Sliced Bread 16 oz loaf, $3.69
One-year savings from making your own healthy bread
Using 3 oz per day as an average intake (2 slices of bread at 1.5 oz/slice), one person would save $36.50/year if they made their own whole wheat bread (using The Master Recipe listed above) vs. buying the store brand, Kroger® Round Top 100% Whole Wheat Bread. A family of four would save $146/year for making the switch.
An even more dramatic savings occurs when one compares homemade whole wheat bread to a big brand like Wonder® 100% Whole Wheat Sliced Bread. One person would save $208/year whereas a family of four would save a whopping $832/year. Wow - that is a lot of money to save on a single food item! For those of you on a tight budget or trying to feed a family on one limited income, making your own healthy bread makes a lot of sense.
Tip for MyNetDiary Members: Learn how to enter your own custom recipes to get accurate calories and nutrition information for your homemade recipes by reading Tips For Accurate Recipes.
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Originally published on November 8, 2011
Updated: October 21, 2019
Oct 21, 2019
