What’s your favorite kind of bread? Mine is a hot dog bun, with a nice hot dog just off the grill! 

I have been hearing a lot about bread these last few weeks since Lent started and we have been learning about the Bread of Life. We know that Jesus is the bread of life and we need him every day to make our hearts strong, just like we need food to make our bodies strong. 

All over the world, in every place, no matter what language they speak or how fancy their houses are, whether they cook it in an electric stove or a stone oven or a bakery kitchen, somebody makes bread. 

I think that means there is an awful lot of bread getting made and eaten every day. Not all of it comes with hot dogs though! 

I asked Miss Julie how many different kinds of bread there are and she was not sure, so we Googled it! I thought you might like to know about what we found too, so I asked if I could write this story. 

Below under "Fun Bread Facts" is a little bit of what we found. 

It was not a surprise to read that bread of some kind is a staple food in most cultures. It has always been one of the most widely consumed foods in the world. And there are at least more than 100 different types of bread from all over the world. Some kidws of bread have been around a long time! 

The first baker could have lived around 100,000 years ago. Untilrecently, people thought that the first bread was made when man started growing grains on a big scale about 10,000 years ago. But somebody  found a cave in Mozambique ( I think that’s in Africa. I haven’t learned about geography yet.) where there were pounding stones that had wild pounded into them, from  100,000 years ago. I wonder what that is in dog years? 

Also there were actual whole loaves of preserved bread found at Pompeii, where Miss Julie told me a huge volcano, Mt. Vesuvius,  erupted a long time ago. You could even see the maker’s stamp on one of the loaves, from the 1st century AD. 

In ancient Rome, bread was so important that the government  made sure the people had bread.  Roman bakers probably added things like fruit and  spices,  their bread to make it taste better.  They sifted the bread to get a whiter flour. But experts say that most Roman bread was made of pretty poor grain and pretty dense. 

Bread is really important to us! I didn’t know how important until we started looking. I just thought it was a place to put my hot dogs or maybe some peanut butter! I like both! 

A lot of people don’t have food every day. Except bread. In some places, it’s about the only food the people have to rely on. Like in the Bible when God gave the Israelites manna.  I don’t know what manna was, but I would have been grateful for it. t was probably not what they wanted… but God provided it for them. 

We could try all different kinds of bread from all over the globe, but the real bread of life is Jesus. He feeds us and gives us life every day. 

It really doesn’t matter what kind of bread you like to eat. If you know Jesus, you’ll be filled.

• There were bread riots in London in 1795 and 1796. People got mad because food was hard to get and the prices were  high, especially for bread. 

• The ancient Egyptians were good at making bread. Pictures and loaves of bread have been found in tombs. It was also used as currency. 

• In the Middle Ages bread was used as an absorbent plate called a trencher. After the meal, trenchers could be eaten, given to people experiencing poverty, or fed to dogs. There is a theory that a pizza comes from a trencher. 

• In the Renaissance there were advancements in baking. People tried new ingredients and techniques. 

•  Bread is so important to people that laws about bread appeared even in the Magna Carta in the 13th century.

•  The sandwich is named after John Montagu (1718-1792), the 4th Earl of Sandwich, who started eating beef between two pieces of bread.

• Every year in the UK, around 12 billion sandwiches are eaten. That means 380 every second.

• Each American consumes, on average, 53 pounds of bread a year. But US bread sales have decreased by 11.3% in the past five years.

• Germans eat the most bread every year, followed by Chile. 

• Old wives' tales tell that eating the bread crust makes a person's hair curlier.

• Scandinavian traditions saythat if a boy and girl eat from the same loaf, they are bound to fall in love.

• Superstition says it is bad luck to turn a loaf of bread upside down or cut an unbaked loaf.

• The Great Fire of London started at the bakery.

• The ancient Greeks were already producing more than 80 types of bread in 2500 B.C.

• Bakers used to be fined if their loaves were underweight, so they added an extra loaf to every dozen, That’s were we get the term “bakers dozen.”

• The word companion comes from the Latin com - meaning "with" and panis - meaning "bread." The one you share your bread with.

So how many different kinds of bread exist in the world? To name a few… 

• Babka

• Bagel

• Baguette

• Bazlama

• Beer bread

• Bhakri

• Bialy

• Brioche

• Challah

• Ciabatta

• Focaccia

• Irish soda bread

• Naan

• Pita

• Potato bread

• Rye bread

• Sourdough

• White bread

• Whole wheat bread