> For contemporary Westerners who prize whole grain over processed flour, the horse bread of bran and rye, once debased as a bread of poverty, is usually the crowd favorite for its sweet, nuanced taste. “It’s fabulous,” he says. “It’s absolutely fabulous.”

Worth pointing out that both grain crops and the processing thereof have changed significantly in recent centuries, resulting in a tastier (and generally more nutritious, in the case of whole grains) product. Wholemeal flour used for horse bread would have probably been lower both in protein and digestible carbohydrates right from the start, and that's before accounting for indigestible grit and chaff left in it from the grinding process. Grinding was also less consistent, which further degraded the texture of the finished loaf. The exact same ingredients on paper are fundamentally different today than they were in the past -- sometimes for better, sometimes for worse.