Wheat Bread -- Not All It's Cracked Up to Be?

So let me go on record as saying that I like Wonder Bread! I liked it as a kid and I enjoy it now. I hardly ever eat it, because they don't sell Wonder Bread it in Italy. Heck, if I want bread I'll get a fresh loaf or two at the local baker. But every month or so I'll drive about four hours to the nearest American military installation and I'll pick up a loaf of Wonder Bread for the sheer joy of watching it float out of my hands.

I never quite understood what makes Wonder Bread so soft and mushy and maybe its better that way. But on my last trip to the base commissary, I was quite surprised to find Wonder Bread WHEAT competing for space; side-by-side the conventional white, soft, fluffy Wonder Bread of old.

That's a good thing, right?

While the new whole-grain white bread looks and tastes the same as Wonder Bread's regular stuff, it is claimed to have three times the fiber and is made with an albino wheat that is void of the harsh taste commonly found in whole red-wheat flour. Moreover, whole-wheat and whole-grain flours contain all three parts of the wheat kernel, including the bran, the germ and the Starchy endosperm.

According to the chief marketing officer for Wonder Bread maker Interstate Brands (www.interstatebakeriescorp.com), Wonder Bread's 100 percent whole-grain alternative is meant to "...distribute all the goodness and health benefits of whole grain, without giving up the benefits of white bread."

I've since learned that while some nutritionists praise this new, "healthy" alternative, others claim the long list of dough conditioners necessary to give the bread its distinctive soft, mushy texture indicates it's hardly bread at all. For example, Marion Nestle -- a nutritionist at New York University -- calls it "stealth health." Comments Nestle, "...Bread is flour, water, yeast, salt. Period. Wonder Bread WHEAT has something like 20 other ingredients..."

I'm thinking that's not a good thing.