[note - Not all the breads in this test were carb-controlled. - gotbeer]

Feb. 27, 2004. 01:00 AM

Dry cotton, sweet crunch

Testers rank Dempster's tops; "Chewy" and "bland" are complaints

http://thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Conten...ol=969048872038

No matter what the carb or calorie count, what really matters is taste.

So the Star enlisted five testers to rank some of the new diet-conscious breads against a regular brand.

We conducted a blind taste test of the just released low-carb Atkins brand Bakery Multigrain Loaf, the Atkins-endorsed Oroweat Carb Counting Multigrain bread, Weight Watchers 60 per cent Whole Wheat loaf and Dempster's Whole Grains 12 Grain Bread.

Our panel consisted of physiotherapist Pam Honeyman, food writer Jennifer Bain, health editor Judy Gerstel, writer Nicholas Keung and this reporter.

We ranked the bread for taste, texture and visual presentation. The overall result found Dempster's ranked first, Weight Watchers second, Oroweat third and Atkins fourth.

Here are some of the comments.


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Dempster's

"I like it the best. A good honey taste, sweet, soft and fresh. Visually the seeds made it appear pleasant." — Pam Honeyman

"Most appealing. I get to see the grains inside the bread. It tells me it's healthy. It feels rough when you touch it but it's quite soft when you taste it." —Nicolas Keung

"This has a nice crunch and mouth feel, but the aftertaste is pure mass-produced, chemical garbage." — Jennifer Bain

"Initial sweet taste, crunchy stuff helps in middle of wad-of-cotton texture." — Judy Gerstel

"Softer, more taste and a chewy, better texture." — Robin Harvey


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Weight Watchers

"Bland texture, light and boring look but tasted fresh." — Honeyman

"Looks very bland not particularly appealing. Rougher taste." — Keung

"It's flimsy, fluffy bread, completely innocuous." — Bain

"Tasteless, your basic baked Styrofoam." — Gerstel

"Stronger taste and sweeter but texture is a bit bland." — Harvey


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Oroweat

"Tasted chewy, bland as well the texture was rubbery but it had a fresh, light, classy, square look." — Honeyman

"It's chewy and more dense than I'd like for breakfast. But for a lunch sandwich would be okay." — Keung

"A nice compromise bread with a nice mid-range colour. Best texture of the bunch." — Bain

"Not bad flavour, slightly more moist." — Gerstel

"Bland uniform texture, no bite at all." — Harvey


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Atkins

"Dry and chewy with a blander taste and texture." — Honeyman

"It is so dense that I feel I am chewing on dough." — Keung

"A strange-looking bread. Very strange taste that I can't place. A bit like health food." — Bain

"Moist almost to the point of being damp, heartier but slightly sour taste." — Gerstel

"Dry, dry and bland — tastes like cardboard." — Harvey

Forget that junk, make your own bread like I do. I use 1/3 gluten flour, 1/3 ground almond, 1/3 fiber plus a small amount of flour.