My personal bread scandal

I eat whole wheat bread. Why? certainly not because I think it tastes better than smooth, chewy, sweet, soft white bread. No, I eat whole wheat bread because I know it's full of fiber, and complex carbohydrates, and reasonably devoid of excess sugar and fiber-less starch.

Bread, as we all know, is not cheap these days (well, it isn't where we're at anyway) Generally I go to our local "bakery outlet" and pick up 6-8 loaves of nothing-special whole wheat each month but alas, and to my chagrin, when I went to purchase it on Saturday I found that our outlet location had closed. To give you a rough idea of the savings we get here I can tell you that the cheapest loaf of whole wheat at our local wholesale grocer is about $3.25. That's your standard, small, square loaf. At the outlet the same loaf would cost about a dollar. That's right, one dollar. So, it's well worth the trip to the North side of town.

So, without an outlet to go to, what did I do? I was coerced, nay, forced to purchase a loaf from our local grocer to get by. Wanting to make the best choice for our health and our budget, I looked for a happy medium. I was delighted to find the loaf pictured below.

It was on sale none-the-less for a measly $2.56, a steal! The first words I noticed on the package (looking, of course, for what I wanted to see) were those famed two: "whole grain". Below that was honey something (which I wrongly assumed said wheat). As I grabbed a loaf to put it in my basket I realized my error. Not only was it "Honey White", but just above the words whole grain, in what I'll deem to be ultra-fine print, were the words "made with".

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? This is bona fide WHITE bread. I felt a little guilty as I dropped it into my cart, unable to sacrifice another dollar for the good stuff... well, the good-for-us stuff. But can you believe the audacity of manufacturers these days? The average consumer (one with relatively little experience reading and evaluating nutritional claims) likely wouldn't have noticed their blunder until they were half way through the loaf, if that!

Needless to say, I'm peeved. Not only at the fact that bread (and every other grocery item for that matter) has to be so dog gone expensive, but also that there are loose regulations for consumer labeling. So off I go tonight, to find another outlet, which I'm told is on the far East side of town, to find reasonably priced whole wheat bread. Let's hope for my sake I can find it, because I shop for bargains and, man, that white bread tastes good!