This is the first keto bread product we’ve reviewed, and to be honest, there aren’t actually that many on the market, so choice is a little scarce.
Heylo appears to be the main player when it comes to keto bakery items, and obviously, the first place we wanted to start was bread, as this is the thing that most of us miss the most when we start to adopt a ketogenic lifestyle. I opted for the £30 starter pack, which included bread, flatbreads, bagels, and some crackers, but I’ll be honest—bread was the thing I was really most looking forward to trying. There’s nothing like a lovely piece of toast with some butter on it.
The first thing that struck me about this loaf of bread was just how small it was—physically, it’s easily the smallest loaf of bread I’ve ever seen.
The packaging, though, is very professional, and the size is probably a good thing as it allows for good portion control and ensures you’re not going to creep over your carbohydrate and sugar macros. I set my toaster to its usual setting, popped in a single slice, and had my Benecol spread ready.
To my surprise, the bread actually browned very well. It had a crispy outside, and you could tell that the inside was still fluffy. In fact, it was pretty similar to any other seeded granary loaf I’ve had in the past.
The bread absorbed the Benecol spread perfectly, just like a normal slice of bread, and physically it looks just like a piece of toast—which is great for the mind, especially if you miss butter on toast.
The initial texture and sensation of biting into the toast is exactly that—biting into toast—and I have to say, it is glorious. The initial flavour comes from the seeds that the bread is absolutely packed with. This isn’t an issue for me; I’ve really been increasing the amount of seeds I’ve been eating recently—lots of flaxseed, lots of chia seed—so the addition of sunflower seeds, etc., in this bread was actually quite pleasant and again just tasted like heavily seeded granary bread.
The crunch is there, the soft middle’s there, and despite the lack of normal flour, this, to all intents and purposes, tastes and behaves just like bread. I can see myself making sandwiches with this or using it in dips, but I must admit I’m very much looking forward to some cheese on toast later.
Overall, this is obviously a very expensive bread substitute, and you wouldn’t want to be consuming this unless you are on a carb-restricted diet. However, for somebody on keto, bread is the forbidden fruit (other than, obviously, forbidden fruit), and so you don’t tend to care too much about the price to be able to scratch that itch.
I’ll be freezing this loaf and looking at consuming one slice a day in addition to my other keto snacks, but the welcome addition of some extra fibre and the mouthfeel of bread is going to make life a lot easier for me. I can see myself purchasing multiple loaves of this in the future.
In fact, its small size just makes putting it in the freezer that much easier, and if you’re a fan of crusts, of course, you get a better crust-to-bread ratio. Winner, winner.
At £4.79 this is an expensive bread but it’s still within the budget of most people and if it helps you stay on this kind of diet then it’s absolutely good value for money.
Update
Unfortunately a bit of a negative update after just one day I went to take a slice for a piece of toast and the entire loaf was mouldy Obviously at this price point that’s not acceptable and also from a freshness point of view you should be able to store a loaf of bread for more than a single day before having to put it in the freezer.
I will update here on how Heylo handle this I’ve sent them photos and an email I imagine they’ll simply replace the loaf I certainly hope so.
