SLICED bread is now the best thing since … well … sliced bread.

As the cost of living crisis bites, consumers are going back to basics.

While the appeal of home-baking sourdough loaves during the long hours of lockdown has waned, sliced white bread is making a comeback.

According to Waitrose – admittedly not your common-or-garden supermarket to the masses – sales soared by 17% over the past year.

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Experts said that the rise was part of a wider resurgence in no-frills cooking at a time when rising costs are putting pressures on household budgets. According to the annual John Lewis How We Shop, Live And Look report, sales of toastie makers and deep-fat fryers rose over the year by 63% and 36% respectively.

The report also found that consumers are putting the pandemic behind them, with lockdown-related purchases all falling in popularity. Sales of jigsaw puzzles were down 68% while non-wired comfort bras fell by 33%.

Sales of loungewear velour tracksuits dropped by half, while sales of boyfriend jeans jumped by 85% – but they’re not going to fit for long if we keep munching on deep-fried pan bread.

The report also noted that wall-mounted desks were removed from sale altogether as “we reclaimed our homes and left the office at the office”.

Bread bin sales also fell by 42% as Britons put their baking skills on pause, returned to the office and started taking pieces for their lunch.

But Chris Young, of the Real Bread Campaign, said: “We encourage everyone who still has a degree of choice in how they spend their money to choose real bread from a local bakery or, if they have an oven and have the time and money to use it, to make their own bread. In the current crisis we know that far too many people actually need to find ways to save money. This might include buying loaves that are cheaper at the till than real bread from a local baker.

“Unfortunately, there might be hidden, longer-term costs of this shorter-term saving, whether that’s loss to a local economy and skilled jobs market, or possibly even in terms of dietary ill health.”

Scots, however, can stick to a native staple that has been nourishing us for millennia.

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It turns out we’ve been eating porridge for 5500 years, according to new findings which traced the national dish back to Stone Age settlers in the Outer Hebrides.

Although oats were not introduced to Scotland until 600AD and barley porridge was previously discovered 2500 years ago, the new find on a number of Hebridean islets traces a wheat-based alternative back further – by about 3000 years.

Chemist Dr Simon Hammann of Bristol University said: “Our results represent the first direct evidence for the cooking of cereals. They indicate Neolithic communities in the region may have been consuming wheat between 3600 and 3300 BCE. Wheat may have been cooked with dairy products to produce a milk-based gruel or porridge.”

The original health food, then, and the ultimate in oat cuisine.