Wheat Bread Bait: Because Fish Need to Watch Their Carbs, Too

Remember when you were little and took a few slices of white bread down to the pond and went to town on panfish? Fun, right? Well, the British have just banned the use of white bread as bait at certain fishing locations because "experts have revealed it makes fish fat, bloated and lethargic." The solution, according to this story on the website of Britain-based STV, is using "brown bread" (which I assume is wheat bread) because "the salt and sugar levels in white and brown loaves are similar, but in a typical white sliced loaf there is 3.5 grams of protein per slice compared to the 5.6 grams in brown bread." Let's talk about this.

Can't you just see this leading to the eventual inclusion of nutrition facts on a jar of PowerBait or container of worms? Nightcrawlers don't live in the water, hence they are no more natural forage than white bread. How do we know one big nightcrawler doesn't have the caloric equivalent of a whole banana cream pie?

Now the way I see it, if white bread is making the fish fatter, what's the problem? I would rather catch the hog largemouth that stuffs itself with shad than the one that only eats half a shad for portion control and swims extra laps to burn it off. I don't know about you, but I'd feel pretty hypocritical if I coaxed a fish into striking a bait that helps it not be the fat kid in school only to jam a sharp hook through its face when it eats my sugar-free dough bait.