
Banned bread: why does the US allow additives that Europe says are unsafe? - LinuxBender
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/28/bread-additives-chemicals-us-toxic-america
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maxxxxx
I always look at the ingredients list of bread in the US and I am always
surprised how long the list is. Why do they put so much stuff (and always
sugar or syrup) into any bread?

~~~
zrobotics
While I would agree that store-bought bread in the US contains far, far too
much sugar (which is why I started baking bread myself in the first place),
some amount of sugar is almost always required for leavened bread. The added
sugar is what the yeast feeds on initially, since most flour won't provide
enough easily-digestible sugars for the yeast. However, the amount of sugar
required isn't much; my go-to recipie calls for 1 tablespoon of molasses for a
1.5lb loaf of rye/buckwheat loaf.

As to the length, for example the ingredient list of wonderbread from [0]:

    
    
      unbleached enriched flour (wheat flour, malted barley flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin,
      folic acid), water, high fructose corn syrup, yeast, contains 2% or less of each of the following: calcium carbonate,
      soybean oil, wheat gluten, salt, dough conditioners (contains one or more of the following:
      sodium stearoyl lactylate, calcium stearoyl lactylate, monoglycerides, mono- and diglycerides, azodicarbonamide, 
      enzymes, ascorbic acid), vinegar, monocalcium phosphate, yeast extract, modified corn starch, sucrose, sugar, soy lecithin, 
      cholecalciferol (vitamin d3), soy flour, ammonium sulfate, calcium sulfate, calcium propionate (to retard spoilage).
    

In order, the oil is for crumb texture and added fat, the salt is to regulate
yeast growth, the gluten is to allow the crumb to hold together better
(especially as most of the naturally-occuring gluten is removed from white
flour). The dough conditioners are used to get the horrible texture that
people expect from wonder-bread, as well as making it easy (read: extremely
consistent) to bake at massive scale. The rest are preservatives & nutrient
enricheners. The preservatives allow the bread to last long enough to make it
to a supermarket; fresh-baked bread spoils extremely quickly.

As far as what is actually needed to make the white bread, for the white bread
I bake on occasion all that is used is flour, sugar, gluten, oil, yeast and
salt in order of volume. Note however that this bread will only last a few
days; and ideally will be consumed the same day as baking.

[0]
[https://www.fooducate.com/product/Wonder%20Classic%20White%2...](https://www.fooducate.com/product/Wonder%20Classic%20White%20Bread/556190A2-32C7-11E3-A74D-1E047F0525AB)

~~~
icebraining
> some amount of sugar is almost always required for leavened bread

You don't need added sugar. Flour contains amylases which break down some of
the starch in the dough to maltose and glucose, which is more than enough for
the yeast.

The bread we eat only contains flour, yeast, salt and water. It's delicious in
the first day and still nice on the second; after that, we toast it.

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saalweachter
I do not know anything about these chemicals in particular, but this framing:

> It may sound odd, but in America, your loaf of bread can contain ingredients
> with industrial applications – additives that also appear in things like
> yoga mats, pesticides, hair straighteners, explosives and petroleum
> products.

always bugs the hell out of me.

 _Water_ has numerous industrial applications. Linseed oil and NaCl have
numerous industrial applications. Acting like any chemical which can be used
in an industrial context is automatically poison is just straight-up fear-
mongering.

~~~
Scaevolus
A particularly egregious case[1] is a lawsuit against LaCroix complaining that
their product contains chemicals also used in cockroach insecticide. The
chemical in common was linalool, which is just a floral scent!

[https://www.snopes.com/news/2018/10/08/lacroix-sparkling-
wat...](https://www.snopes.com/news/2018/10/08/lacroix-sparkling-water-full-
dangerous-synthetic-chemicals/)

~~~
beenBoutIT
Toll House Cookies contain 2 out of the 3 chemicals used in the clandestine
manufacturer of crack cocaine, namely NaHCO3 and H2O.

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thatfrenchguy
I've always been fascinated by how disgusting the bread is in the US. Do we
know what lead to this ?

~~~
gerbilly
The US has no food culture, come on they sell cheese in spray cans.¹

Generally food in the US is sold for size, not flavour or nutritional content.

For example US roaster chickens are huge but basically live short sick lives
and taste bland.²

Chickens sold in France are smaller but have more flavour.

1:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easy_Cheese](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easy_Cheese)

2:
[https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1541-4337.1...](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1541-4337.12431)

~~~
wguaa
I've heard of many shitty foods like that spray can cheese that Americans eat,
and cringed hard at them, but I've always assumed they can also get good stuff
if they want to. If they can't, though, that's honestly very grave.

~~~
petschge
A lot of American can neither afford the good (usually imported) stuff, nor
have never learned to appreciate it either.

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topkai22
Pretty sure the two chemicals they are talking about in the article are in a
lower WHO risk category in then bacon, salted fish, and alcoholic beverages.

The FDA may be underfunded and overwhelmed but I'm not yet feeling terrible
about buying bread in the grocery store.

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NeedMoreTea
Doesn't it simply come down to the EU applying the precautionary principle for
all safety regulation, including food additives, whilst the US does not?

~~~
robert_foss
I think that is one part, and the other part is that companies opinions about
what is safe or not, holds no weight.

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weberc2
If the FDA is broken, I wonder if some private entity couldn't audit brands
and/or grocery chains and publicize a consumer health rating.

"But private auditing can't work because for-profit incentives!"

Well, there are plenty of cases in which for-profit auditing works just fine
and TFA is dunking on the FDA for being a broken public regulator, so...

~~~
geggam
Perhaps Monsanto ?

The US needs a hard reset, there wont be a simple method to fix what is broken
here.

~~~
weberc2
I was hoping for a more substantial reply than "America sucks; it won't work".

~~~
geggam
America doesn't suck, I spent the last 6 months in the EU and I miss what we
have here. That said, the issue you are talking about is directly related to
large corporate profits.

A hard reset is what it will take to change that.

I do not refer to socialism either. Taking the power back from the govt and
the corporations they empower is the key.

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liothen
If only we had some field of science that studies toxins, We could call it
Toxicology.... All joking aside Alcohol is classified as a group 1 carcinogen
and the Europe has yet to ban it

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vpribish
garbage website, I flag anything from the guardian and suggest that everyone
who wants HR to remain valuable do the same. This goes for and any non-
specialized, non-hacker, commercial media, and politics-first sites.

~~~
tim333
It's won quite a lot of awards and stuff.

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lorcan
Europeans are much more susceptible to green activist pseudoscience. For
example the ban on GMO's which was driven by ideology not science; or
vaccination rates etc.

~~~
lorcan
and ... [http://www.euro.who.int/en/media-centre/sections/press-
relea...](http://www.euro.who.int/en/media-centre/sections/press-
releases/2018/measles-cases-hit-record-high-in-the-european-region)

"Over 41 000 children and adults in the WHO European Region have been infected
with measles in the first 6 months of 2018"

~~~
lorcan
versus ~ 400 in the US.

