bread

A mural in Pompeii, Italy, showing a baker's shop, with eager customers in front, and further supplies in the background. There is a good sense of three-dimensional realism about the scene, which suggests that it is meant more as a wall-picture than as a sales poster or advertisement.

Food baked from a kneaded dough or batter made with ground cereals, usually wheat, and water; many other ingredients may be added. The dough may be unleavened or raised (usually with yeast).

Bread has been a staple of human diet in many civilizations as long as agriculture has been practised, and some hunter-gatherer peoples made it from crushed acorns or beech nuts. Potato, banana, and cassava bread are among some local varieties, but most breads are made from fermented cereals which form glutens when mixed with water.

The earliest bread was unleavened and was made from a mixture of flour and water and dried in the sun on flat stones. Leavened bread was first made in the ancient Near East and Egypt in brick ovens similar to ceramic kilns. The yeast creates gas, making the dough rise. Traditionally bread has been made from whole grains: wheat, barley, rye, and oats, ground into a meal which varied in quality. Modern manufacturing processes have changed this to optimize the profit and shorten the manufacturing time. Fermentation is speeded up using ascorbic acid and potassium bromide with fast-acting flour improvers. White bread was developed by the end of the 19th century. Roller-milling, which removed wheat germ, satisfied consumer demand for finer flour, but it removed important fibre and nutrient content at the same time.

Today, some of the nutrients removed in the modern processing of bread, such as vitamins, are synthetically replaced.