Hi Liz, the sugar in the gluten free roll is probably there to make it palatable. The Franken-gredients in a commercial gluten free roll are often gummy and nasty and sugar and additives like Xanthan gum make it more "bread-like." It's actually not extremely high - it's about a teaspoon and a half. Quite a few breakfast cereals are literally half sugar, and not just the children's ones (I wrote about this a couple of years ago). I have been making my own sourdough - there is NO sugar needed for any of the bread to rise. The simplest recipes are bread flour, sourdough starter, water, and salt. The one I make most often adds a little bit of olive oil. There's also no kneading required for sourdough. Commercial yeast is stripped of all of the complex microbes found in sourdough - I used to make a lot of bread using regular yeast. Sugar isn't required for that (French bread, Italian bread) but it is often added to things like the "hearty whole grain" breads ... again, to make them more palatable to US tastes. I have also been buying this extremely dense, hard, dark German rye bread which is 100% whole grain. It seems unleavened - and again, no sugar.