Introduction:
I stumbled across this bread when I was doing an online shop. I've liked the idea of trying this type of bread, due to all the reports of wheat causing bloating and such, from wheat (found in ordinary bread)...problem being, I LOVE bread...so this seemed like the perfect option...I can eat bread and not feel the guilt or that my work down the gym is in vane (yeah right). I've never seen this bread in the supermarket, as bizarrely it isn't kept in the bread section (well, not in my local Tesco anyway), it's found in the 'speciality diets' section...and not having any speciality diet, I've never spent long browsing those shelves. So...that's where to get it...on with the tasting:

Taste and Smell:
This bread and the ingredients, are supposedly from Italy - which to me, evokes feelings of 'ooo well it must be nice, because Italy is famous for it's ciabattas and all other culinary lovliness'. How wrong could I be? This bread is FOUL! It is branded as 'Welcome back to real food...real taste.' If this is real taste, well, you can lump it! The first thing that hit me was waft of strange smell once the packet was opened. This stuff is pungent. I'm not sure how to describe it, it's not a bad smell as such, but it doesn't have the smell of deliciously baked fresh bread. It's more like the musty smell of old health and nutrition shops (on a not particularly nice day)...kind of yeasty with a hint of old socks? I didn't let the smell put me off trying it, so made myself a sandwich. One thing I noticed, was that it was very dry to touch. Well, all bread is dry, but it is general soft to touch, this bread was hard and almost brittle. Again, ignoring the signs of this-stuff-hasn't-impressed-yet...I carried on. So, came the moment when I put it in my mouth...my suspicions confirmed...this stuff was very dry and the taste was far from anything like 'normal' bread. It tasted old and musty (and no, it hadn't passed it's sell by date), and quite frankly, even if I had licked the floor of old factory, I'm not sure there would have been much difference. I had trouble swallowing the stuff and almost choked a few times. This can't be right, I thought, I must have just had a bad slice, so I kept going, but no they were all like it. I felt a sudden sense of sympathy for the poor gluten and wheat intolerant people that actually eat this stuff (although, I have to say, I know a few gluten/wheat intolerant people, who just don't touch gluten/wheat free stuff due to it's rank flavour and reputation). Not wanting to feel that I had wasted my money...I tried another way to have the vile stuff...toasted. BINGO! Now, toasted, it isn't all that bad (...provided you have butter/jam/marmite on it), as the odd flavour is considerably less apparent once heated. The pack gives instructions on how to 'refresh' the bread...but assumedly, you would only need to do this if the pack has been open for a week or so??? The instructions read as follows:

Conventional Oven: Wrap two slices of bread in foil and place in a pre-heated oven at 200ºC, 400ºF, Gas Mark 6 for 4-5 minutes. (For fan assisted ovens, reduce baking time to 3-4 minutes.)

I would advise everyone to do this, instead of eating it straight out of the pack. Even though this is doesn't explicitly recommend that...I would, so there :)

Per 250g: Energy: 2368kJ, Protein: 8.5g, Carbohydrate: 102.5g, Of which sugars: 7.75g, Fat: 13g, Of which saturates:6.2g, Fibre: 23.5g, Sodium: 1g