Bread shouldn’t be controversial. It is the safety net when dinner escapes you. It is toast when you are hungover, and what you feed a child when every other request is met with a scream. It’s one of the most universal foods in Britain. And it’s also one of the most ultra-processed items in our weekly shop.
“Bread should just be four ingredients or less, but typically, supermarket breads have about 19 ingredients,” says GP and TV doctor, Rupy Aujla, better known as Dr Rupy from The Doctor’s Kitchen. “A lot of people don’t realise how processed breads are.”
Instead of artisanal flour, water and a pinch of salt, a quick look at the label on the back of a supermarket loaf, and you get gums and stabilisers and emulsifiers, all working hard to make something last for a fortnight.
Whether or not that matters for health, says registered nutritionist Rob Hobson, author of The Low Appetite Cookbook, comes down to overall diet quality. “Bread itself isn’t the issue; it’s a staple for many people, but loaves that are low in fibre and made mainly from refined flour offer fewer nutritional benefits.”
Dr Federica Amati, head of nutrition at Zoe, says: “Many [breads] are made with refined flour, added sugars, emulsifiers and preservatives, which do have implications for our health.” But she stresses that bread “can absolutely be part of a healthy, balanced diet”, and that the smarter move is “opting for genuinely wholegrain loaves with short, recognisable ingredient lists” rather than swearing off sandwiches forever.
Aujla, a big believer in rye bread, recently launched “Rye January”, a new campaign with organic brand Biona that asks Brits to swap their usual bread for traditional rye. Unlike the abstinence movements that have made January miserable for the past decade, this isn’t about restriction. Rye January “is all about a simple swap that’s more about addition,” he says. “Most people associate January with Dry Jan, which I think is the worst time to try and restrict something that you know will give some people joy or peace of mind and stuff.”
The problem with bread isn’t just the additives themselves but our complete lack of awareness about them, despite the deluge of daily headlines. “I think it will be surprising to a lot of people that food manufacturers are putting these ingredients into their products because it makes it cheaper and a lot more shelf-stable,” says Aujla. “Commercially, it’s the right decision, but from a health point of view, it’s the worst thing we could be doing.”
The bread aisle, it seems, has become a stealth UPF zone and most of us have either not noticed or assumed it was fine because it said “brown” on the packet.
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GP and TV doctor Rupy Aujla, who says tiny dietary swaps can meaningfully improve health (Faith Mason)
Anjula refers to it as healthwashing. Words like “malted” or “multiseed” conjure images of fibre-rich, wholesome loaves that are “healthy, high in fibre and good for your gut”. The labels rarely stand up to scrutiny. “What I really want people to be aware of is the fibre per 100 grams.”
Some rye bread offers 10 grams of fibre, which means that a couple of slices provide a third of your daily fibre requirements. Typical supermarket bread is far less than that.
“Fibre is one of the most underconsumed nutrients in the UK,” says Hobson, adding that 96 per cent of us don’t meet the daily 30g target. “Fibre supports fullness, steadier blood glucose responses and cholesterol regulation, as well as reducing the risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes and colorectal cancer.”
The best rule of thumb when shopping for bread is to ignore everything on the front and turn the packet around. “It’s not infallible, but looking for minimal ingredients that you actually recognise and that you might find in a home store cupboard is a really good strategy for deprocessing your diet,” says Anjula.
Here’s where it gets suddenly very 2026. We’ve all spent the last year hearing about GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy, which suppress appetite. And the other interesting thing about rye is what it does to GLP-1.
“Because it’s higher in fibre, it’s going to be better at releasing GLP-1 naturally from your digestive tract,” Aujla explains. “That GLP-1, which is a peptide that’s getting a lot of attention right now, suppresses your appetite so it can reduce hunger and improve weight control more naturally, just by adding more fibre into your diet.”
For many on-the-fence consumers, that line alone may be more motivating than any lecture about additives. No injections necessary.
“Rye is particularly interesting because it contains a unique mix of fibres that our gut microbes love to ferment,” says Amati, which may help with appetite regulation and steadier glucose responses.
It can also reduce cholesterol. “It’s been shown to improve markers of cardiovascular health, in that it can reduce certain markers of cholesterol, one of which is LDL [more commonly known as the “bad” one].”
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Rye shines in open sandwiches, where its texture and tang hold their own (Biona)
One obstacle for some is that rye bread is not as cheap as a supermarket white loaf. But Aujla suggests we rethink the concept of value.
“When I have a white load of bread, which I haven’t had for a number of years now, I could have four or five slices and still not feel satisfied afterwards,” he says adding that satiety is the missing part of the value conversation: what’s the point of cheap food if you have to eat twice as much and then raid the biscuit tin anyway?
“Try having two or three slices of rye bread; even though it’s a lot smaller in terms of quantity, you’ll feel full, and that’s because of the fibre.”
January should be about what you could add to your diet that perhaps you haven’t enjoyed or experienced before, that’s actually going to give you tangible benefits. And rye bread is one of those really simple swaps that you can make that actually has a tangible impact
Dr Rupy Aujla
By that metric, expensive bread may actually be cheaper in the long run: less volume, more nutrition, fewer crashes, fewer snacks. For those priced out entirely, he insists it’s accessible to make at home. “There are loads of recipes that you can make that will be far better for you than buying supermarket ones.”
Aujla’s interest in UPFs began during his early medical career, after experiencing a heart condition that improved with dietary changes.
He made small changes – fewer processed staples, better ingredients, asking questions about what went into things. “That’s when I began to see changes in my own health condition, which I ultimately reversed using a diet and lifestyle approach.”
Now, he sees the tipping point arriving younger and younger. “The likelihood of someone having type two diabetes, obesity alongside other health issues, hormonal disruption, increased incidence of things like endometriosis, PCOS, metabolic syndrome… can be put down in large part to our diets and the addition of ultra-processed foods into the typical supermarket shop,” he says.
“If we can radically shift how we consume food and how we shop for food, we can have a huge impact on the health of the nation.”
For more information about Rye January visit biona.co.uk