Honestly, I would never adulterate cookies with wheat flour. You’re already eating the sugar, you may as well enjoy your treat.

My mom used to make cookies with whole grain flour. Cookies have to be pretty bad for kids not to want to eat them….

Great question! This is probably worthy of its own post, but I will address it here for now.

You are absolutely right to question the health value of bread because, as I’m sure you can tell, even the “whole grain” stuff is pretty processed.

There are a few breads that are actually made from whole, intact grains, but most people would consider these unacceptable for most bread uses. These tend to be called “European style” breads (go figure) and are super dense, usually in small loaves. Trader Joe’s has a some that are pretty good.

Nature’s Path makes something called Manna bread that is a unleavened, pressed whole grain loaf. I have found it in the refrigerated section of Whole Foods. It is delicious, but the consistency is more like a bran muffin than bread. It doesn’t have preservatives, so you have to eat it relatively quickly.

So you can see that these “breads” are a good source of whole grains but not really “bread” in the traditional sense.

How do I deal with bread?

I don’t usually bother with the whole grain kind unless I’m craving it or have a specific use for it. I buy artisan style french bread from Acme. It is $2 for a baguette and it is divine. I cut it up and freeze what I can’t eat. It reheats well in the oven.

But as you might imagine, I do not eat bread very often. I love it with eggs, some soups, with avocado, etc. But I only eat small pieces (try the Pan Epi loaf for perfect serving sizes) and not more than 2-3 times per week.

My main sources of whole grains are breakfast cereals (hot and cold) and brown rice, barley, quinoa, etc. with dinner.

I consider bread a “special occasion” food.