Wonder Bread To Offer Whole Wheat

Iconic White Bread Brand To Offer More Nutritional Options

(AP) 
Others aren't so sure it's a good move.

"Healthy Wonder Bread? That's an oxymoron," said Darra Goldstein, editor-in-chief of Gastronomica, a journal of food and culture. She said it sounds more like a marketing ploy than a good bread.

"Whole grain is just such a buzz word that even a bread like Wonder Bread, the antithesis of everything that is natural" is going in that direction, she said. "They just want to make sure that people still continue to buy their bread."

And going good-for-you might be overreaching for this brand, said Laura Shapiro, a food historian. Wonder Bread is what it is, a white bread destined for peanut butter and jelly and never to be mistaken for health food.

"It kind of encapsulates every single movement in this country," she said. "The yen for health with the yen for junk. The desire to eat bread, with the desire not to eat bread. They're trying to get everything."

But American Dietetic Association spokesman David Grotto welcomes the new breads. After too many years of trying to get consumers to adapt their tastes to whole wheat, he says it's about time the product adapted to the consumer.

"For the general public this is a nice, kind of covert way of introducing whole grains and not beating them over the head," he said.

But will kids eat it? Deborah Venator, a Concord, N.H., mother of four volunteered her children to taste test the new whole grain breads up against the original. They normally eat another brand's half whole wheat, half white loaf.

The original was an instant hit — "It tastes kind of fluffy," declared 6-year-old Grace. But interest waned as the other two breads were introduced. "I don't want to eat the rest," she said after taking a bite of the half whole wheat version of Wonder.

And 4-year-old David? "I want more of the first bread."

But more important to some kids than eating the bread, can they still ball it up?

"I would stand in the door and not let this go out if we were going to take away that joy from people," Interstate Bakeries' Osman said. "I have been known to throw my own at somebody. Yes, they will still be able to do that. You can count on that."