I thought that I might vary the composition of my preferred type of bread (Bread 1 in the picture above) to check if it is optimally nutritive and see how it compares nutritionally with other varieties. The values are based on USDA estimated values for the constituent food types, and several of the calculations were made using CRON-o-Meter software. The amino acid score was based on the recommended protein balance for infants, and it does not account for absorbability as some of the more accurate but more labor intensive methods do.
I use bread 1 for flatbreads, dinner rolls, and pizza dough and it seems to have a good balance of nutrients. Bread 5 might be nutritionally superior because it has a more complete protein score and although it contains only minuscule amounts of beta-carotene, the eggs contain retinol which is what the human body makes from beta-carotene. Interestingly, the eggy breads beat out the yogurt breads, I was surprised by this because yogurt contains complete protein. The relatively poor showing for yogurt bread in comparison must be due to the amounts being mixed in which is heavily dependent upon the water content to ensure proper dough formation.
I will likely be sticking with Breads 1 for common use (or bread 2 if I run out of peanut butter) because although bread 5 has some superior qualities, they are not significant enough for me to make a change.
Writing this up and thinking about vitamin A has given me an idea, though. Perhaps braunschwieger (a type of pork liver pate) might make a good shortening. Of course, the bloody and metallic taste of liver won’t mix well with other flavors and the smell while baking might be unpleasant. Still, it might be worth a try.
