Happy New Year. We hope 2015 finds you well, happy and raring to go. If you’re an optimist, point yourself south, breathe deeply and you can just about feel spring in the air. Roll on the warm weather!

For our first news item of the year, here are a bunch of fascinating facts about bread.

24 fascinating facts about bread

1. 99% of UK households buy bread. We are curious about why the remaining 1% don’t!
2. Bread is low in calories
3. British women eat around 76g of bread every day while men consume approximately 113g a day
4. The NHS says starchy foods like bread should make up a third of our diet but most of us only just manage 20%
5. Bread provides over 10% of the average grown-up’s iron, zinc, magnesium, protein and B vitamins as well as a small amount of essential potassium
6. Bread provides more than 10% of the calcium in UK diets
7. A study by the Applied Physiology, Nutrition and Metabolism journal revealed that bread is not a culprit in obesity.  Quite the opposite. Apparently those who are obese eat less bread than those who aren’t
8. White bread accounts for 76% of the bread Brits buy
9. Bread is the food we waste most. In this country we throw away 32% of it. Which means one in three slices goes straight in the bin.  This happens even though we’re pretty good at checking to see whether we need more. It’s a weird one… what’s going on?
10. 85% of the flour used to make British bread is grown at home
11. Sliced bread was introduced to Britain in the 1930s…
12. …but it was invented in the USA by Otto Frederick Rohwedder, who created a special machine for slicing loaves and coined the phrase “The best thing since sliced bread”
13. People in the north east of England tend to waste the least bread while those in the south east of England are the worst offenders
14. Bread is low in fats, sugars and salt
15. According to the eggheads at the British Nutrition Foundation bread does NOT cause bloating, contrary to received wisdom
16. Since 2007 bread prices have gone up 34% against an average food and drink price rise of 33% during the same period
17. Most sliced bread in this country only contains 2-4% of sugar, most of which occurs naturally
18. In this country we make more than 200 types of bread, from traditional British recipes to exotic types from abroad
19. The people who built the Egyptian pyramids were paid in bread
20. 50% of bread consumption is accounted for by the not-so-humble sandwich, something the Brits have a long-standing love affair with. We adore our butties!
21. A breathtaking 80% of the bread we eat in Britain comes from mega-bakeries, sliced and wrapped. Perhaps this figure goes some way towards explaining why we tend to throw so much of it away?
22. Despite the recent price rises, bread costs 15% less here than it does in France
23. A 2010 survey revealed toast as Britain’s favourite feel-good food
24. The same survey pinpointed the lovely aroma of fresh toast as our favourite food smell