
How Do We Solve America’s Oversupply of Bread? - prostoalex
https://www.eater.com/2017/9/1/16239964/bread-excess-waste-production-problem-solution
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nxc18
Its a 3-step plan:

1\. stop subsidizing it. 2. stop buying it. 3. deal with the monumental
consequences of step 1.

An optional 4th step might be taking some time to understand basic economics.

A 5th step would be to address the underlying causes of poverty in our
communities, rather than complain that we have too much food to give away.
(Note that taking step 1 will probably change the economics of food such that
there is much, much less free food floating around)

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ianai
Wrong question. Right question: how can we get people to make quality bread
instead of the trans fatty/overly salty stuff flooding the shelves?

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fenwick67
Salt is not bad for you

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uoaei
Too much of anything can be bad for you.

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votepaunchy
Too little of anything can be bad for you. By definition.

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tnorthcutt
Arsenic? Cyanide? Mercury?

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Retra
They're being pedantic (probably to highlight the complete lack of useful
information provided by the post they responded to.) "Too little" means "not
enough" and "not enough" is not enough by definition. There's no such thing as
"not enough" of those things because none is enough.

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fnovd
Is this a problem that needs solving?

>What if independent bakeries baked only what they thought they could sell and
no more?

Then they would lose money, period.

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analog31
_There’s also the fact that, except in the most exclusive bakeries, a bare
shelf is a no-no._

Amusingly, I was in a mountain village in Switzerland for several days. If you
got to the bakery too late, you were SOL. You could still go down to the Co-Op
and get bread, but it was noticeably inferior.

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klondike_
Why is this a problem?

The author points out that excess bread is given away to those in need or used
as animal feed.

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coldtea
Oversupply? America has almost no real bread.

Maybe instead solve the overabundance of sugar, mass-produced, full of BS
preservatives and artificial flavors BS that passes for bread in the US?

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Noumenon72
One nice thing about the oversupply is that if there ever is some kind of
shock to the food supply like Krakatoa or a blight, we have a buffer available
by just not wasting as much. Probably more sustainable as backup capacity than
some kind of government-funded granaries.

Also, I believe white, refined flour is so dangerous to your insulin
resistance that it's usually better to throw it away than to eat it.

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EternalData
Is it just confined to bread? I feel like subsidies/industrial farming have
led to a homogenized diet overall -- to the point where it can be hard I think
to confine the definition of oversupply to only one foodstuff.

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pasbesoin
Just read the other day about how this year's U.S. wheat harvest will be the
lowest since some year in the teens of the prioir century.

Wheat prices are down significantly. And vegetarian protein demand is up.
Farmers have been switching to garbanzo beans (chickpeas) and lentils.

Sorry, I don't have the link right at hand.

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somecontext
For some context if anyone in interested, it appears that before WWII, the
peak production of wheat in the United States was in 1915 with ~1 billion
bushels/year. The expected production for 2017 is over ~1.7 billion
bushels/year. The last time production was even close to the peak pre-WWII
level was in 1962.

Sources: the absolutely amazing "Crop production historical track records"
from the USDA available at
[http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/usda/current/htrcp/htrcp-04-...](http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/usda/current/htrcp/htrcp-04-13-2017.pdf)
for historical numbers and
[https://www.usda.gov/oce/commodity/wasde/latest.pdf](https://www.usda.gov/oce/commodity/wasde/latest.pdf)
for 2017 estimates.

It may be interesting to note that the area harvested has gone down by ~40%,
but of course the yields have increased -- by a factor of ~2.7.

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mattnewport
How do we solve America's oversupply of people writing articles without a
basic understanding of economics?

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yequalsx
Some things have negative externalities that ought to dealt with. Market
forces are such that these negative externalities sometimes exist and so just
resorting to, "This is what the market demands" is not sufficient and is bad
policy.

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repsilat
Being able to give free bread to hungry people at the end of the day is a
_positive_ externality. I'm sure there are negative ones too (wasted water
from farming excess wheat being one) but bakers pay for that, and if they're
not cutting down it's because maintaining a sufficient inventory is worth
more.

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randomdata
_> wasted water from farming excess wheat being one_

As a wheat farmer, I am curious to know what water you think is wasted? Wheat
is normally harvested at 14% moisture, so what water content the crop has
taken on by harvest is minimal. Otherwise it seems like the rain is going to
do what the rain does. What am I missing?

Do you mean that the rainwater could have been used to grow some other crop?
The primary reason I grow wheat is for plant and soil health reasons in order
to sustainably grow the pulses and other legumes that the consumer demands.
There is not much money in wheat, but it is hard to argue with the ecosystem
benefits that it provides. Crop rotation is a necessity for good farm
management.

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repsilat
I know nothing about wheat farming or it's environmental impacts, obviously my
guesses were off the mark. Thanks for the correction on matters of fact,
though it looks like our conclusions weren't really at odds -- mine being that
the wastage that is paid for is manageable, and the externalities not
outrageous.

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spoonie
How about supply management of wheat like Canada's dairy board?

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DoctorNick
The Conquest of Bread

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iUsedToCode
Sorry, but American bread (at least on West Coast) is really bad. Maybe you
can find something edible somewhere, but most of the shops carry only the
worst of worst IMO. In Europe (not including UK) the quality is like night and
day. I've noticed bread getting worse as it's produced in bigger batches since
couple of years, but american stuff is in its own category of bad.

I hear that East coast has more european style (of cities, buildings and
cuisine), so maybe it's better there. OTH, perhaps just missed all the good
bakeries.

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jasonjei
Have you tried Tartine, Josey Baker, ACME, Craftsman and Wolves, or Arsicault
for bread in San Francisco when you were in the west coast? San Francisco is
considered one of the best bread cities in the world, especially when it comes
to natural starters and sourdough...

Bi-Rite Market's bread section has a really nice selection. I'm assuming none
of those were to your satisfaction? Some French people have told me that
Tartine's baguette is better if not equal to French baguettes, so I'm curious
to know why it is so distant to European quality in your perspective.

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noja
> San Francisco is considered one of the best bread cities in the world...

I've never heard this before. By who?

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Mz
They are actually famous for good sourdough bread.

 _French bakers brought sourdough techniques to Northern California during the
California Gold Rush, and it remains a part of the culture of San Francisco
today. The nickname remains in "Sourdough Sam", the mascot of the San
Francisco 49ers. Sourdough has long been associated with the 1849 gold
prospectors, though they were more likely to make bread with commercial yeast
or baking soda.[7] The "celebrated"[1] San Francisco sourdough is a white
bread characterized by a pronounced sourness, and indeed the strain of
lactobacillus in sourdough starters is named Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis,
alongside the sourdough yeast Candida milleri found in the same cultures._

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sourdough](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sourdough)

