Tastemakers: Nature's Pride Bread

Part of being a member of Foodbuzz means having the opportunity to participate in different programs. The latest offer from the Tastemaker Program is to sample bread from Nature's Pride, a 100% whole wheat loaf and the 12-grain loaf (contains white flour), both of which fall under the "hearty breads" category.

Nature's Pride gives you loaves of bread that are 100% natural, contain no artificial ingredients, high fructose corn syrup, or trans fat. I'm guessing there must be natural preservatives since the ingredient list is still rather long, though.

Sunflower seeds

For the taste test, I cut a slice of each in half and toasted two halves. The texture of the untoasted pieces were spongy and springy, but I didn't feel that carried over to the taste of the bread, being on the verge of dryness more than moistness. I tasted the molasses in the whole wheat bread, though it wasn't strong, and the 12-grain slice had a rather raw taste to it.

The reason I opted to toast two pieces is because toasting sometimes brings out the flavor of the bread more (kind of odd considering how the bread is already cooked, yet it actually does taste different). I preferred the 12-grain bread toasted since it seems that the sunflower seeds were untoasted, and it kind of brought the flavors together and got rid of whatever raw taste I was tasting. On the other hand, there wasn't much of a taste difference with the toasted piece of whole wheat, really just a deepened toastiness.

Looking at the bags of store bought bread at home, Nature's Pride is one of the brands I get, but the soft loaves instead of the hearty loaves (the soft loaf is shaped more like a traditional slice of bread, i.e., not as wide, the size of the loaf is smaller, and it's not double wrapped), and I prefer that more since it is moister. Not a bad bread at all, though I'd most likely only buy it on sale when I don't make bread.