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.
And furthermore, the vast majority of people in the USA are not having too little salt.
The vast majority of them have way way too much salt in their diet, therefore it is perfectly honest to say that high sodium content in food in the USA is "bad for you", because we live in a context where too much salt is the problem, and not too little.
Not only is it not bad for you, it's essential for a healthy diet.
It appears to me that refined-corn and sugar are the two worst culprits for poor nutrition.
Edit: Eater always cracks me up with their alarmist headlines and fascination with shoe-horning identity politics into articles. Not to be taken seriously IMO.
Subsidize correctly. I'd suggest first and foremost subsidizing healthier flours and seeds/nuts destined for breadmaking. We'll probably need some tax breaks or other sorts of incentives so that mills can scale the product correctly. One of the advantages of using the more refined flours (the all-purpose flour you can buy anywhere) is large-scale production.
And then add a tax to either the more refined flours (which is likely to make sweet baked goods go up in price as well) or simply tax the more unhealthy white bread and buns so they aren't nearly as affordable.
Edit: I'll mention that some salt is actually good for bread making, as it balances out the yeast. I'm not sure if this is such a problem on an industrial scale since they can control variables much better than the home cook. In addition, it tastes weird without salt. but it doesn't take all that much to satisfy the physical and taste requirements.
Furthermore, I'll advocate for a bit of fat in the bread, though it should come from healthy sources. This helps bread not go stale so quickly, and I'm actually more concerned about unnecessary preservatives.
Finally, an afterthought: We should make sure to make the healthy bread convenient and available, even in a food desert.
I have mixed feelings on this - mostly, if we do such a thing, we'll need to replace it with something. I think corn farmers really wouldn't have an issue planting sugar beets instead, so long as the various corn sugars (Including but not limited to HFCS) aren't a byproduct of another process. Without some sort of safety net for farmers, it could really hurt some folks, mostly because I'm assuming different harvesting attachments are used for the two crops and what side industries might be hurt (whatever we use corn cobs for, for example). But I simply don't know the answer to this.
> I'd suggest first and foremost subsidizing healthier flours and seeds/nuts
Huge Pandora's box right there with California nut farmers. Basically, way back a bunch of people bought cheap land and then bought politicians to build the water infrastructure to make that privately owned land commercially viable. Now that water supply is unreliable, there's a movement to force the California taxpayers to boost the nut producers' profits, which some people disagree with.
I figure that is a different problem. If folks have some foresight on such things, we could make appropriate requirements. Almonds, for example, might be too cost prohibitive to subsidize and they shouldn't be in areas where they are contributing to depleting the water supply.
Quinoa, sunflower seeds, peanuts, poppy seeds, and so on could easily be done.
Atleast in the US I'd just like it to be not so hard to find bread without sugar added it. Why do I have to resort to eating sour dough all the time just to do that?
At the major grocer in our area, there's only 1 brand that isn't sweetened. It's a traditional pita bread. If I had to guess, this represents .5% of the bread sold there.
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.
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.
Sure but the person I responded to made was making a point about basic economics and, at least to my reading of the comment, seemed to be of the opinion of let the market decide. Sometimes the market decision is not a good one.
> 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.
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.
>Being able to give free bread to hungry people at the end of the day is a positive externality.
Not if the money of the BS subsidies and such could have gone to infrastructure works, education, and welfare programs, to stop them from being "hungry people" in a positive and enabling way instead of the "free bread" charity.
What did they get wrong then? Your comment delivers zero utility at a cost of 16 words and externalizes the costs of you being angry, hence the demand for it and the market price are both negative.
PS: What they get right in basic economics is that subsidies lead to a surplus, and/or to optimizing for other variables, such as full shelves.
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)
The real question is why can't we make bread anymore. To much of this crap called "bread" and none of what used to be known as bread. Something is really wrong with the system when competecies that were for eons the norm really can't be done anymore at a cultural scale. Something is wrong in Denmark people, and by Denmark I of course mean America.
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.
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.
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.
By Serious Eats[0], founded by former New York Times food editor Ed Levine. Also by the BBC[1]. Arsicault Bakery in SF was named the best bakery in America by Bon Appetit. Tartine Bakery is a James Beard winner.
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.
I get that those places you've mentioned have really great bread but outside of the US you don't have to go out of your way to a specialist bakery just to get a reasonable loaf of bread. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the bar for a standard, everyday loaf of bread in the US is really, really low compared to other countries.
You don't have to go really far for good bread in San Francisco or any of the coastal areas of California. Most restaurants in SF, even dingy hole in the walls, serve ACME bread of Berkeley. Whole Foods here carries ACME.
I think the US is large, and to generalize and pigeonhole the US as a whole is unfair to cities like LA, SF, and NYC, because there really is a rich baking scene. I mean, do we expect Oklahoma to have great artisanal breads when the state is suffering on several levels of Maslow's hierarchy of needs?
I moved to NYC five years ago from London. The bread in most bodegas or smaller stores is usually very bad (tastes like cake, or tastes of nothing). Thankfully there are many dedicated bakeries or farmers markets etc. where you can get bread that has an interesting flavour.
In the UK, most stores have a range of breads from flavourless (plain white, for example) to more expensive but at least flavourful.
Furthermore the pre-packaged bread in the USA has an eerily long life.
Most Eurobread is suitable only for toasting by the second day, and inedible by the third, whereas the loaves we bought in Jewel's and Dominicks were still soft after a week. Bizarre.
We're talking about volume here, so your exception to the rule only proves the rule.
What do you find in Albertsons, Krogers, Safeway, Raleys, etc etc. You find a lot of bad-tasting bread. You can't even find fresh organic bread in my local chain supermarkets (Whole foods/TJs are notable exceptions).
Dutch Bread: not as bad as US bread but still horrible compared to French or German.
My baker backs once a week on Friday, transports it Saturday mornings and sells it in himself. On Saturday I cut the loafs, pack the loafs in a ziplock and freeze them at -35C. The whole week we enjoy delicious bread and never waste a slice. Sandwiches brought to work that are leftover, we eat the next day and taste good.
Your conclusion is at odds with the conclusion of the linked article:
FTA:
So here's my practical advice. In lieu of acts of god and any other kind of divine intervention, the best way to store bread is well wrapped in plastic and/or foil in the freezer, whether sliced or not, then reheated in the oven.
Hey, please don't judge American bread based on the cheap stuff in our stores (some of which have improved greatly on their own). Of course its not as good as it could be.
Maybe this is just a Rocky mountain, western thing, but when to you live out in the boonies, you make your own. Sometimes with a machine. Sometimes with just the oven. Sometimes just with camp coals in the ground. Even as a youngster I had sourdough cultures I kept alive for years.
The point is there is some bread in parts of America, not made at the store, that I would put up against anything but German or French. I do admit some of the recipes are learned from the better bread places. EG I have a handful of recipes I learned from the Mennonites (German Americans), Mormons, had a family friend from Ireland who finally shared the best potato bread recipe.
The US used to be known for terrible beer (and there is plenty of that still) but there are now thousands of microbreweries producing great stuff. I hope there could be a similar awakening for bread. And cheese.
The thing is I can go to Prague and drink great beer for cheap (seriously, it's usually around $2) at restaurants, while the cheap beer you drink in America is just god awful.
My point about the US is that at least the option of good beer is available pretty much everywhere, which is a big improvement over the last few decades.
I left the US for the UK and the beer scene here leaves much to be desired. While better on average, the range of beer is limited.
I think you missed all the good bakeries. America is a big place. Even the West Coast is big enough that I'm gonna come right out and assert that you probably haven't seen it all.
It's best to appreciate a thing for what it is, rather than what it's not. America sucks at being Europe just like an apple is a terrible pen.
But if we talk about the actual article which is what I came to do and got distracted, then I would absolutely expect that government subsidies for wheat, plus economic constraints since 2008, would tend to combine to produce large quantities of shitty bread. I've all but stopped eating it so I don't really know first-hand, but that's how I would theorize.
So most US grocery stores have huge volume commercial bakery bread in the bread aisle that is squishy, sweet and otherwise flavorless, and then also a selection of other breads in the deli/bakery section of the store, where there are often some decent selections.
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.
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.
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.
73 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 28.5 ms ] thread>What if independent bakeries baked only what they thought they could sell and no more?
Then they would lose money, period.
The vast majority of them have way way too much salt in their diet, therefore it is perfectly honest to say that high sodium content in food in the USA is "bad for you", because we live in a context where too much salt is the problem, and not too little.
It appears to me that refined-corn and sugar are the two worst culprits for poor nutrition.
Edit: Eater always cracks me up with their alarmist headlines and fascination with shoe-horning identity politics into articles. Not to be taken seriously IMO.
Most people's diet contains way too much salt, and therefore it is completely honest to say that salt is "bad for you".
And then add a tax to either the more refined flours (which is likely to make sweet baked goods go up in price as well) or simply tax the more unhealthy white bread and buns so they aren't nearly as affordable.
Edit: I'll mention that some salt is actually good for bread making, as it balances out the yeast. I'm not sure if this is such a problem on an industrial scale since they can control variables much better than the home cook. In addition, it tastes weird without salt. but it doesn't take all that much to satisfy the physical and taste requirements.
Furthermore, I'll advocate for a bit of fat in the bread, though it should come from healthy sources. This helps bread not go stale so quickly, and I'm actually more concerned about unnecessary preservatives.
Finally, an afterthought: We should make sure to make the healthy bread convenient and available, even in a food desert.
Huge Pandora's box right there with California nut farmers. Basically, way back a bunch of people bought cheap land and then bought politicians to build the water infrastructure to make that privately owned land commercially viable. Now that water supply is unreliable, there's a movement to force the California taxpayers to boost the nut producers' profits, which some people disagree with.
Quinoa, sunflower seeds, peanuts, poppy seeds, and so on could easily be done.
Food deserts may not actually be the problem.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/18/health/research/pairing-of...
http://www.motherearthnews.com/-/media/Images/MEN/Editorial/...
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.
Not if the money of the BS subsidies and such could have gone to infrastructure works, education, and welfare programs, to stop them from being "hungry people" in a positive and enabling way instead of the "free bread" charity.
PS: What they get right in basic economics is that subsidies lead to a surplus, and/or to optimizing for other variables, such as full shelves.
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)
The author points out that excess bread is given away to those in need or used as animal feed.
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.
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.
I've never heard this before. By who?
[0] http://www.seriouseats.com/2013/08/taste-test-the-best-sourd...
[1] http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20131121-flour-power-in-san-...
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
I think the US is large, and to generalize and pigeonhole the US as a whole is unfair to cities like LA, SF, and NYC, because there really is a rich baking scene. I mean, do we expect Oklahoma to have great artisanal breads when the state is suffering on several levels of Maslow's hierarchy of needs?
In the UK, most stores have a range of breads from flavourless (plain white, for example) to more expensive but at least flavourful.
Most Eurobread is suitable only for toasting by the second day, and inedible by the third, whereas the loaves we bought in Jewel's and Dominicks were still soft after a week. Bizarre.
You do realize there are bakeries in the US where you can find handmade bread, right? You don't have to buy mass produced bread.
What do you find in Albertsons, Krogers, Safeway, Raleys, etc etc. You find a lot of bad-tasting bread. You can't even find fresh organic bread in my local chain supermarkets (Whole foods/TJs are notable exceptions).
My baker backs once a week on Friday, transports it Saturday mornings and sells it in himself. On Saturday I cut the loafs, pack the loafs in a ziplock and freeze them at -35C. The whole week we enjoy delicious bread and never waste a slice. Sandwiches brought to work that are leftover, we eat the next day and taste good.
[1] http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/06/does-refrigeration-really...
FTA: So here's my practical advice. In lieu of acts of god and any other kind of divine intervention, the best way to store bread is well wrapped in plastic and/or foil in the freezer, whether sliced or not, then reheated in the oven.
Maybe this is just a Rocky mountain, western thing, but when to you live out in the boonies, you make your own. Sometimes with a machine. Sometimes with just the oven. Sometimes just with camp coals in the ground. Even as a youngster I had sourdough cultures I kept alive for years.
The point is there is some bread in parts of America, not made at the store, that I would put up against anything but German or French. I do admit some of the recipes are learned from the better bread places. EG I have a handful of recipes I learned from the Mennonites (German Americans), Mormons, had a family friend from Ireland who finally shared the best potato bread recipe.
I left the US for the UK and the beer scene here leaves much to be desired. While better on average, the range of beer is limited.
It's best to appreciate a thing for what it is, rather than what it's not. America sucks at being Europe just like an apple is a terrible pen.
But if we talk about the actual article which is what I came to do and got distracted, then I would absolutely expect that government subsidies for wheat, plus economic constraints since 2008, would tend to combine to produce large quantities of shitty bread. I've all but stopped eating it so I don't really know first-hand, but that's how I would theorize.
Are you lumping all of those together?
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.
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.
Maybe instead solve the overabundance of sugar, mass-produced, full of BS preservatives and artificial flavors BS that passes for bread in the US?
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.
Sources: the absolutely amazing "Crop production historical track records" from the USDA available at http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/usda/current/htrcp/htrcp-04-... for historical numbers and 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.