It is one of the oldest human-made foods, having been of significance since the dawn of agriculture, and plays an essential role in both religious rituals and secular culture.

In many countries, commercial bread often contains additives to improve flavor, texture, color, shelf life, nutrition, and ease of production.

The Middle and Modern English word bread appears in other Germanic languages, such as West Frisian: brea, Dutch: brood, German: Brot, Swedish: bröd, and Norwegian and Danish: brød; it may be related to brew or perhaps to break, originally meaning "broken piece", "morsel".

[4][5] It is possible that during this time, starch extract from the roots of plants, such as cattails and ferns, was spread on a flat rock, placed over a fire and cooked into a primitive form of flatbread.

Yeast spores are ubiquitous, including on the surface of cereal grains, so any dough left to rest leavens naturally.

The most common source of leavening was to retain a piece of dough from the previous day to use as a form of sourdough starter, as Pliny also reported.

[9] The Chorleywood bread process was developed in 1961; it uses the intense mechanical working of dough to dramatically reduce the fermentation period and the time taken to produce a loaf.

The process, whose high-energy mixing allows for the use of grain with a lower protein content, is now widely used around the world in large factories.

Carbon dioxide and ethanol vapors produced during yeast fermentation result in bread's air pockets.

[18] Gluten-free breads are made using flours from a variety of ingredients such as almonds, rice, sorghum, corn, legumes such as beans, and tubers such as cassava.

Since these foods lack gluten, dough made from them may not hold its shape as the loaves rise, and their crumb may be dense with little aeration.

The gliadin protein contributes to its plastic nature, because it demonstrates non-reversible structural change after a certain amount of applied force.

Because air pockets within this gluten network result from carbon dioxide production during leavening, bread can be defined as a foam, or a gas-in-solid solution.

[28] A study by the University of Hohenheim found that industrially produced bread typically has a high proportion of FODMAP carbohydrates due to a short rising time (often only one hour).

Some flours (for example, spelt, emmer and einkorn) contain fewer FODMAPs, but the difference between grain types is relatively small (between 1 and 2 percent by weight).

In the study, whole-grain yeast doughs were examined after different rising times; the highest level of FODMAPs was present after one hour in each case and decreased thereafter.

The study also showed that a long rising time also breaks down undesirable phytates more effectively, flavors develop better, and the finished bread contains more biologically accessible trace elements.

It is hardened and browned through the Maillard reaction using the sugars and amino acids due to the intense heat at the bread surface.

Dough recipes commonly call for 500 grams (about 1.1 pounds) of flour, which yields a single loaf of bread or two baguettes.

If one uses a flour with a lower protein content (9–11%) to produce bread, a shorter mixing time is required to develop gluten strength properly.

An extended mixing time leads to oxidization of the dough, which gives the finished product a whiter crumb, instead of the cream color preferred by most artisan bakers.

When flour is mixed with water, the water-soluble proteins dissolve, leaving the glutenin and gliadin to form the structure of the resulting bread.

When relatively dry dough is worked by kneading, or wet dough is allowed to rise for a long time (see no-knead bread), the glutenin forms strands of long, thin, chainlike molecules, while the shorter gliadin forms bridges between the strands of glutenin.

[42] The unregulated term "wheatmeal" is used to describe flour containing some but not all of the outer covering and central part of the wheat grain.

Instead of water, recipes may use liquids such as milk or other dairy products (including buttermilk or yogurt), fruit juice, or eggs.

[45] Fats, such as butter, vegetable oils, lard, or that contained in eggs, affect the development of gluten in breads by coating and lubricating the individual strands of protein.

Leavening is the process of adding gas to a dough before or during baking to produce a lighter, more easily chewed bread.

Most yeasted pre-ferments fall into one of three categories: "poolish" or "pouliche", a loose-textured mixture composed of roughly equal amounts of flour and water (by weight); "biga", a stiff mixture with a higher proportion of flour; and "pâte fermentée", which is a portion of dough reserved from a previous batch.

The Roman poet Juvenal satirized superficial politicians and the public as caring only for "panem et circenses" (bread and circuses).

[68] In India, life's basic necessities are often referred to as "roti, kapra aur makan" (bread, clothes, and house).