The first loaf I ever bought crumbled when I tried to spread butter on it. Not crumbled slightly. Disintegrated. I watched the whole thing fall apart in my hands over the kitchen sink, and I genuinely considered just eating regular bread and dealing with the consequences.
That was three years ago. I know things now that I didn't know then.
Why gluten-free bread is so hard to get right
Gluten isn't just an ingredient. It's a structural system. When you mix flour with water and knead it, the gluten proteins form a stretchy network that traps the gas bubbles from yeast, giving bread its rise, its chew, its ability to hold together when you slice it.
Take away gluten and you have to rebuild that entire structure from scratch. Bakers use combinations of xanthan gum, psyllium husk, eggs, and various starches to approximate what gluten does naturally. Getting it right takes years of iteration. Most brands haven't got there yet.
The thing everyone gets wrong
Most people buy GF bread and eat it the same way they'd eat regular bread. That's a mistake.
GF bread almost always needs to be toasted. Not because it's bad, but because toasting transforms the texture in a way that eating it fresh doesn't. The moisture redistributes, the crumb firms up, and whatever was gummy or dense becomes something you actually want to eat. Even mediocre GF bread becomes decent when toasted properly.
The other thing: freeze it. GF bread stales and moulds much faster than wheat