> At the time, it was, it allowed the country to feed itself on (largely) its own wheat. They didn't know it could contribute to IBS, they did know there was national food security at stake. Beyond that it made cheaper, mass-produced bread more viable in a bunch of places. Historically, globally it's hard to see cheaper staple food as an entirely bad thing.

That's just not true. It allowed to industrials using british wheat to compete against industrials using canadian wheat. Another approach could have been to protect artisan baker instead of going all in with the industrialisation of food production.

> How do you think it has it caused real bread to become expensive? Is it not more likely that real bread is more expensive to produce and therefore people buy the cheap shit?

Because bakery are seen as a specialty, and do not sell high volumes. You just have to cross the channel to see that real bread doesn't need to be that expensive and small bakers can compete with industrials.