Bread – finding milk and soya-free bread

Bread can be surprisingly problematic for milk and soya allergy sufferers. When DS1 was first diagnosed with milk and soya allergies, most bread in the shops seemed to have milk in it. Slowly, it began to be replaced with soya flour, which didn’t help!

Now it seems that the more expensive, “nicer” breads still contain milk, while pretty much all the rest contain soya.

Supermarket bakeries can be a nightmare: full of golden, tempting loaves but it’s often very difficult to get any nutritional information on them. On the one occasion that I’ve managed to corner a member of the bakery department at Tesco I was told that the bread in the bakery did indeed contain milk. A Sainsbury’s bakery employee told me essentially that it probably did, but he couldn’t be bothered to check. M&S has the ingredients listed on the shelf labels, which is really useful!

Obviously you can ensure that bread doesn’t contain any of the allergens you have to avoid by making it yourself. Homebaking advocates will tell you that it’s quick, cheap and easy, and that’s true, but sometimes I just want a convenient, sliced loaf that I can use for sandwiches or put in the freezer for emergencies. The best solution I’ve found to this is Polish bread. It seems not to contain any milk or soya and can be bought sliced both in Tesco and in Polish food shops, where there is more variety.

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