
Bread is Broken - shalmanese
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/01/magazine/bread-is-broken.html
======
bad_user
Ironically, sliced bread is the worst.

Normal bread can get stale, dry and hard. But packaged sliced bread is much
less perishable. I've seen sliced bread having the same texture and taste
after a whole week of lying on a kitchen countertop. And when you read the
ingredients on its packaging, you begin to understand why, as sliced bread is
subject to the techniques of processed foods such as the addition of
preservatives, antioxidants, stabilizers, anti-caking agents, or packaging
gases, in addition to that bread being bleached, blanched, stripped of
nutrients and with added sugar to make it taste better and because high-
fructose corn syrup is so cheap, so why not. In addition sliced bread is
subject to every health-related fad in existence. Low carb bread? Sure. Bread
with Omega-3? Of course.

Basically the packaged substance in super-markets is anything but bread, then
we wonder why our meals don't satisfy us and why we get fat.

~~~
thaumasiotes
> In addition sliced bread is subject to every health-related fad in
> existence. Low carb bread? Sure.

How could you have "low carb bread"? Bread is a big bundle of carbohydrate.
It'd be like low sugar caramel.

~~~
buu700
This one is fantastic, and only 1g carbohydrate per serving because it's
primarily fiber and protein: [http://www.holdthecarbs.com/low-carb-fresh-
baked/low-carb-wh...](http://www.holdthecarbs.com/low-carb-fresh-baked/low-
carb-white-bread-fresh-baked)

(The company has some sort of patented flour substitute that they make by
stripping digestible starches from wheat flour and replacing them with flax
and resistant starch.)

But yeah, as bad_user points out this kind of thing raises questions about the
semantics of what should be correctly considered "bread".

~~~
semi-extrinsic
Fiber is still, by definition, carbohydrates. Not saying fiber is bad though.

~~~
buu700
Actually, that's an interesting challenge that the company that makes that
bread (LC Foods) has run into with their nutritional labelling. Because fiber
is technically carbohydrate (just not digestible by humans), there isn't
really a consensus among regulatory bodies on how to treat it — specifically,
Europe counts them as calorically empty while the US considers them equivalent
to any other carbohydrates.

Normally, with the amount of fiber stuff actually contains, this doesn't make
a practical difference, but in the case of LC Foods it means that their
products' calorie counts are basically completely wrong (at least in the US;
they may change them when they distribute internationally).

------
coldcode
I used to get bread from a old school French baker in downtown Dallas of all
places. I don't know where he gets his wheat (he mills it himself) but the
bread was like nothing I've ever eaten. One time I ate half a loaf for dinner
with nothing on it at all, it's so tasty.

~~~
stevesearer
Not to discount what you're saying as I'm sure the bread was very good, but
I've been thinking about whether knowing a bit more about the process and
story behind food products helps enhance the experience.

So in this case, knowing that he mills it himself and that he seems to use old
school methods, in addition to just baking great bread is a recipe for a
better bread experience than that of simply eating great bread without knowing
the story.

~~~
boxy310
I went to Germany this past summer and bought amazing gas-station sandwiches
for 4 euros apiece, with great quality meat, cheese, and bread. I came back to
America and bought a Starbucks sandwich for $12 and almost threw it out, it
was so bad in comparison.

Even if you have neutral perceptions of sandwiches you will definitely taste
the difference between American bread and European bread.

~~~
nether
Wow, that's 4x the price of Starbucks sandwiches where I live. Must be the
same ones serving the $6 coffees (mine are $1.30).

~~~
boxy310
It was in the airport, so I wouldn't be surprised. They looked about the same
price as coffeeshops in downtown Indy, so I think it's more reflective of the
cost per square footage than it is about the inputs to the sandwich. I
would've hoped given Starbucks' "artisanal" bent for most pastries that their
sandwiches would've been the best option given a layover, but it still didn't
compare very favorably to gas-station sandwiches in Europe.

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thrownaway2424
I appreciate all the do-it-yourself fervor on this thread but baking seems
like a decent application of the principle of economic specialization. I, for
one, enjoy visiting my local bakery every few days, and they do a better job
than I will ever do even if I quit my job and practice baking full-time, which
I'm not planning to do.

~~~
jandrese
The thing is, homemade bread ends up being a lot tastier than store bought if
your only store bought options are big mass produced soft breads. The crust
especially suffers on packaged breads.

You don't even need fancypants flour. Just an oven and a few minutes to
prepare it (plus rise time and bake time of course). I prefer to do a half and
half mix of wheat and bread flour, but everybody is free to do what they like.

You can get good bread at bakeries, but I find that they tend to way
overcharge for it.

~~~
hugh4
How much can they really charge that makes it worth spending ten minutes
kneading, ten minutes washing your hands and the next two days pulling out arm
hairs with caked on dough? That's my experience with bread making anyway.

No matter what bread I buy, bread isn't a major part of my weekly budget.

~~~
stevesearer
Here's a very simple, no-knead bread recipe that I've enjoyed baking several
times. Some people enjoy the kneading process, but if you just want some
bread, it is worth making: [http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/11376-no-knead-
bread](http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/11376-no-knead-bread)

------
pakled_engineer
I buy Khorasan whole kernels from a local farm and hand mill it as needed into
my own flour to make east african chapatis everyday, never will go back to
zero nutrient, flavorless bleached flour in supermarkets. Takes me about
30mins, I roll it in an omlette they call a 'rolex' in Africa for breakfast
and sometimes make more for dinner/curries. The rolex fills me all day no carb
sugar burnout like I used to get with store bought bread.

~~~
Turing_Machine
Less flavorful, perhaps. "Zero nutrient", no way.

A 125 gram serving of commercial enriched white flour contains about 95 grams
of carbohydrates, about 13 grams of protein, and about 1 gram of fat = 109
grams. All of those things are nutrients (about three grams of the carbs are
in the form of indigestible dietary fiber, which technically isn't a nutrient,
but is still good to have). In addition, it has 65% of the DV of thiamin, 57%
of the DV of folate, 36% of the DV of riboflavin, 32% of the DV of iron, and
several other good things.

~~~
blacksmith_tb
If only the Times had someone (like, say, an editor?) to make similar points.
Nearly all the criticisms of 'mainstream' wheat in their article amount to
subjective praise of the magical goodness of obscure local strains. I'm sure
they're delicious, but I would like to see some real research on just how
bowdlerized typical wheat has become. Not to mention that while I like to bake
my own bread, and I have the time to do so (occasionally), millions of people
will have to settle for buying their bread from a grocery store.

~~~
Chlorus
Ditto, people seem to say the same things about bread that people said about
wine & high-end audio equipment. Some actual empirical research would be
nice...

~~~
Animats
Right. A Trader Joe's outlet has 20 to 30 types of bread. It's not like
there's a lack of options.

------
lutorm
I've been making my own bread from [http://www.amazon.com/Artisan-Bread-Five-
Minutes-Revolutioni...](http://www.amazon.com/Artisan-Bread-Five-Minutes-
Revolutionizes/dp/1250018285/ref=sr_1_1) and it's better than any of the
breads I can buy around here. I'd be interested in seeing how much difference
non-industrial flour would make.

Contrary to what someone said, I think bread is _not_ a case where
specialization pays off. Bread needs to be fresh, and it will basically take
me longer to buy a loaf (if I could actually find a decent one) than to throw
together one in the kitchen while I'm working on something else.

Not to mention that my half-assed bread, fresh, is better than the most
awesome bread in existence if it's a day old. Hawaii is a terrible environment
for bread, the crust is gone after a few hours due to the humidity.

------
emptyflask
About a year ago I learned how to bake a good sourdough loaf, and have been
doing it about once every week.

It's not exactly dense, but it does seem to be much more substantial than
mass-produced squishy bread. A single buttered slice of sourdough toast is
incredibly delicious, and is often all I need for breakfast. Though it's
tempting to eat half a loaf right after baking...

Oh, and the same dough makes a damn good pizza.
([http://stellaculinary.com/recipes/70-hydration-sourdough-
bou...](http://stellaculinary.com/recipes/70-hydration-sourdough-boule))

------
sbierwagen
This article felt incredibly familiar, and it turns out I've read pretty much
the same article written about the same place, three months ago:
[http://www.seattlemet.com/articles/2015/7/1/stephen-jones-
an...](http://www.seattlemet.com/articles/2015/7/1/stephen-jones-and-wsu-s-
bread-lab-are-designing-a-whole-wheat-tortilla-for-chipotle)

------
bluedino
It's not just bread, it's other wheat products as well.

Take a tortilla, for example. Taco Bell and Walmart have the worst of the
worst. Chipotle's tortillas aren't much better, they still have that 'soapy'
taste. Visit a local Mexican bakery _(panadería)_ and buy a package of fresh-
made tortillas and you'll be amazed at the difference.

This expands to every other bread you think of. Pita, paratha, bagels...

------
nawitus
I feel pretty lucky to have access to whole-grain rye bread[1] here in
Finland.

1\.
[http://www.linkosuo.fi/uploads/images/tuotekuvat/240%20musta...](http://www.linkosuo.fi/uploads/images/tuotekuvat/240%20musta%20evas.png)

------
merpnderp
Interesting article that made me incredibly hungry for my grandmother's bread.

~~~
venomsnake
Check no knead bread. Absurdly easy to make, foolproof, tastes like heaven
(especially SeriousEats improved version)

------
multinglets
I've been tracking what I eat for a while, and one thing I've noticed is that
bread makes me hungrier and I feel worse. I've completely dropped bread, and
my life has improved dramatically.

------
trhway
supermarket white bread, beside all other strange ingredients, has key
technological difference from "normal" bread - the bottom-line industrial
optimization favors adding more yeast and sugar for faster rise instead of
longer rise with less yeast and sugar for "normal" bread, and as the result in
the "normal" bread this lesser amounts are processed more completely. The
longer process in the "normal" bread also allows for more carbohydrates
(starch) from the flour to be converted into sugars and be processed by the
yeast. (i did my one summer time at a completely manual bakery 25 year ago in
USSR - it was among the best bread i ever tasted, and we did have relative
shortage of yeast and sugar, so we used less of it with warmer water and let
it a bit more time to rise)

On practical note - here in SV the "German/Bavarian" or "Russian" breads or
the bread from Acme bakeries seem pretty ok.

------
iamsohungry
As an aside, consumption of bread is strongly correlated with tooth decay.
Whole wheat has only a slightly smaller correlation.

~~~
Dirlewanger
Eh, maybe modern processed bread that has sugar in it. Questionable otherwise,
unless you have a source.

~~~
gahahaha
Agriculture was terrible for our health - even before sugar became a part of
our diet.

[http://discovermagazine.com/1987/may/02-the-worst-mistake-
in...](http://discovermagazine.com/1987/may/02-the-worst-mistake-in-the-
history-of-the-human-race)

~~~
rtkwe
I'm happy for whatever health problems it incurred since it seems to have
allowed and fostered modern civilization. I think a very important line from
that article is this:

> The evidence suggests that the Indians at Dickson Mounds, like many other
> primitive peoples, took up farming not by choice but from necessity in order
> to feed their constantly growing numbers. "I don't think most hunger-
> gatherers farmed until they had to, and when they switched to farming they
> traded quality for quantity,"

Hunter-Gatherer works fine until you reach a certain population and it seems
that that population/lifestyle is below the point where you start to really
see civilization lifting up and starting to advance quickly.

~~~
iamsohungry
Yes, I agree, I'm glad that people of the past sacrificed their dental health
to build civilization to where it is now.

However, that's completely irrelevant to our food choices today. Modern
agriculture is quite capable of producing foods which are more similar to
foods we subsisted upon pre-agriculture. On an individual level, there's no
reason for us to choose to eat grains. I suppose if everyone in society
decided all at once to stop eating grains, it would cause problems, but that's
unlikely; I think if society slowly shifts toward eating fewer grains, modern
agriculture will be capable of adapting.

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acaloiar
This headline is broken. And so is every headline that depends upon the "X is
Broken" trope.

~~~
k__
Don't hate.

But I'm a bit disappointed that they didn't take the chance to make a "Bread
Considered Harmful" headline.

Also:
[https://i.4cdn.org/fit/1446067701357.png](https://i.4cdn.org/fit/1446067701357.png)

