Hello,
I have noticed that the bread sold in chains contains vitamin C in its composition. I am curious about the reason for this and whether this, in my view, issue pertains to bread in general.
Thank you in advance for your response.

During industrial bread production, vitamin C (ascorbic acid) is indeed used for several reasons:

1. The first reason is its ability to accelerate the maturation process of flour.
After grinding grains into flour, enzymatic reactions that break down starches into sugars start, and this process takes some time. Thanks to vitamin C, the flour can be used for dough production sooner.

2. Vitamin C is a strong antioxidant, which helps extend the shelf life of stored flour.

3. Upon contact with oxygen (during dough kneading), vitamin C gets oxidized. The substances produced in this way have the ability to strengthen the dough's structure and prevent over-proofing - if the dough over-proofs, the structure of the wall weakens and gas bubbles produced during fermentation leak out during rising. As a result, the volume of the bread would significantly decrease (it would not be as fluffy, which is a factor for which most people buy bread).

It is a matter of debate whether this is a downside, because vitamin C decomposes during baking (its decomposition point is around 170°C), so in the consumed bread, essentially no ascorbic acid remains (for this reason, bread manufacturers do not even need to list the content of this substance on the product label).

Themes:  Vitamin C