This Beloved Snack Brand Makes Consumer Reports' Lowest-Rated Bread

Oprah Winfrey once famously declared her love for bread in a Weight Watchers commercial, and it's hard not to share her enthusiasm. You can make all sorts of delicious sandwiches with it, you can pop it in a toaster — why, you could even say it's the best thing since sliced bread (which actually came after the toaster). But not all bread is created equal, as Consumer Reports will tell you. Using its 100-point scale to evaluate 56 different kinds of bread, it determined that one of the worst ones on the market is Pepperidge Farm's Farmhouse Homestyle Oat.

Unlike some other Consumer Reports rankings, such as for pasta sauce, where Hunt's Traditional took the bottom spot, there aren't any point ratings for bread. There are only the specs and nutritional information along with a numerical score — but we can probably hazard a guess as to what Consumer Reports didn't like. The bread's nutritional facts are lackluster, with 25 grams of carbohydrates per serving and 4 grams of added sugar. (For comparison, Nature's Own 100% Whole Wheat, which got an 84, has 11 grams of carbs per serving, and less than one gram of added sugar.) It is, however, reasonably priced: Consumer Reports lists it at $3.00, which is slightly higher than some brands, like Sunbeam Whole Grain White, which also resides at the bottom of the CR but costs just $2.00 per loaf. But the Pepperidge Farm bread is also less than several brands at the top of the list, which cost $5.99 and up.

You may find yourself surprised, or even disappointed, by this score. Pepperidge Farm is a pretty reliable brand, after all. It makes Goldfish, the snack that smiles back, as well as a litany of cookies you'll find in those cute little paper packages. How could it make such a mediocre loaf of bread? Well, if it makes you feel any better, Consumer Reports liked some of Pepperidge Farm's other breads a good deal more. It gave its Whole Grain 15 Grain loaf a solid 64, appearing to appreciate its relatively higher protein levels. And three other kinds of Pepperidge Farm Whole Grain loaves each got a 61.

So what is the No. 1 loaf of bread, according to good ol' CR? Two Food For Life loaves take the top spot, with 7 Sprouted Grains and Ezekiel 4:9 each getting a 93. It's a brand that specializes in flourless organic bread, making use of grains like barley, millet, and spelt, so don't buy it expecting Wonder Bread. If you'd like a more standard bread experience, you can try Great Value's Organic Multi-Grain with Seeds (which got an 83) or Trader Joe's Organic Sprouted Wheat Multigrain (which got an 81). And if you're interested in our input, we ranked 14 whole wheat breads from worst to best. We don't have a fancy-pants 100-point scale, but we think we did a pretty good job.