How many calories in your sliced bread?

If you eat bread on a daily basis, changing your loaf size could an easy way of cutting calories and losing weight without doing much else. From a survey I did of a range of popular sliced loaves, the highest number of calories per slice was 156 and the lowest just 45.

These days we're spoilt for choice when it comes to choosing our bread, but it wasn't that long ago the only offerings were white or brown, sliced or unsliced.  

Now we have white, brown, wholemeal, seeded, high protein, low carb, high fibre, as well as varied thickness and loaf size. But with all this variety comes a wide difference in calories per slice.

If you're partial to some types of bread, you could be eating more calories than you realise. For example, a slice of Hovis Tasty Wholemeal from a 400g loaf has 64 calories, compared with 88 calories for a medium slice from an 800g loaf or 104 calories from a thick sliced loaf. 

Generally the 400g loaves have the least number of calories per slice with those from a thick sliced loaf having the most. But some 800g loaves also have slices at over 100 calories each. Seeded varieties are usually higher in calories because of the seed content which increases the fat calories.

Suppose you have one or two slices of toast or a couple of slices of bread for a sandwich. If you decide to make your sandwich from two slices of Warburton's medium Soft White from an 800g loaf, you're starting off with 196 calories (98 calories per slice) before you add the other ingredients such as butter and any fillings. But if you switched to the 400g loaf, 2 slices of soft white sliced bread is only 116 calories (58 calories per slice), a saving of 80 calories. 

This may not sound like a huge amount, but if you do this every day over a year, that's a calorie saving of around 29,200 or 8lbs of weight loss. And this is for only 2 slices of bread per day

Making little changes like this with different types of food can have a long term effect on your weight. Usually it's working the opposite way around. We overeat in small amounts on a daily basis without noticing, and over the years the weight creeps up. It can work the other way around too. 

Below is a table showing the calorie comparison of popular bread varieties available from major UK bread manufacturers including: Hovis, Warburton's, Kingsmill, Vogel's and Burgen. 

They're listed in calorie order from lowest to highest, per slice.

Bread slice calorie comparison guide

Brand	Pack Size	Slice size	Name of bread	Calories per slice
Kingsmill	400g	Medium	No crusts Tasty Wholemeal	45
Warburton's	400g	Medium	Milk Roll White	46
Kingsmill	400g	Medium	No crusts 50/50	47
Kingsmill	400g	Medium	No crusts Soft White	49
Hovis	400g	Medium	Nimble Wholemeal	50
Warburton's	400g	Medium	Danish Malted Weight Watchers	51
Warburton's	400g	Medium	Wholemeal	55
Warburton's	400g	Medium	Soft White	58
Warburton's	400g	Medium	Premium Brown	60
Warburton's	400g	Medium	Lighter Danish White	63
Hovis	400g	Medium	Tasty Wholemeal	64
Warburton's	400g	Thick	Wholemeal Weight Watchers	64
Hovis	400g	Medium	Wheatgerm	65
Warburton's	400g	Medium	Soft Farmhouse	66
Kingsmill	400g	Medium	50/50	68
Warburton's	400g	Thick	Toastie	70
Warburton's	400g	Medium	Gluten Free Toastie Loaf	75
Warburton's	300g	Medium	Gluten Free Multiseed Loaf	78
Warburton's	400g	Thick	Wholemeal	79
Warburton's	400g	Medium	Multigrain & Seeds	83
Hovis	400g	Thick	Granary	84
Warburtons'	400g	Thick	Seeded	85
Hovis	750g	Medium	Best of Both	86
Hovis	800g	Medium	Tasty Wholemeal	88
Kingsmill	850g	Medium	50/50 Vitamin Boost	88
Hovis	400g	Medium	Seed Sensations	92
Hovis	800g	Medium	Soft White	93
Kingsmill	800g	Medium	Tasty Wholemeal	93
Kingsmill	800g	Medium	50/50	94
Warburton's	600g	Extra Thick	Tiger Bloomer White	94
Kingsmill	800g	Medium	Soft White	95
Hovis	800g	Medium	Granary	97
Hovis	400g	Medium	Lower Carb Deliciously Seeded	98
Warburton's	800g	Medium	Soft White	98
Warburton's	400g	Medium	Wholegrain & Oats	98
Hovis	400g	Medium	Seed Sensations Sunflower & Pumpkin	99
Warburton's	400g	Medium	Old English White	99
Vogel's	800g	Medium	Seeded Wholemeal	100
Hovis	600g	Medium	Glorious Grains	101
Vogel's	800g	Medium	Soya & Linseed	101
Kingsmill	800g	Thick	Tasty Wholemeal	102
Kingsmill	800g	Thick	50/50	103
Warburton's	800g	Medium	Wholemeal	103
Hovis	800g	Thick	Tasty Wholemeal	104
Warburton's	800g	Medium	Soft Farmhouse	104
Kingsmill	800g	Thick	Soft White	105
Hovis	600g	Medium	Fabulour Fibre	106
Hovis	750g	Thick	Best of Both	108
Warburton's	400g	Medium	Malted Grain & Seeds	110
Hovis	800g	Thick	Granary Wholemeal	111
Hovis	800g	Thick	Granary	112
Warburton's	800g	Thick	Toastie	116
Hovis	800g	Thick	Soft White	117
Warburton's	800g	Medium	Bloomer White Lancashire's Thorough	120
Burgen	800g	Medium	Soya & Linseed	126
Hovis	800g	Medium	Seed Sensations	131
Warburton's	800g	Thick	Seeded	134
Warburton's	800g	Extra Thick	Super Toastie Soft White	140
Hovis	800g	Extra Thick	Soft White	156

Rough and ready photos of various sliced bread loaves below.

 

 

© Diets and Calories