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Bread is Broken

nytimes.com

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Re: Bread is Broken

#61

Post by cardamomo »

GFischer wrote: post #24
angdis wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand most cities have at least some "real" bakeries where you can get a nice loaf of bread with proper crumb and flavor. Most supermarket bread is virtually inedible to folks that have a taste for good bread. Aside from the insane ingredient list, the sickly softness of it and the lack of any decent crust and crumb makes me wonder what market forces influenced industrial bread makers. How can anyone that…

Time(convenience) and money? I love freshly baked bread, but I can't buy a loaf on a regular basis due to the strict schedule at work, and even if I do, I won't eat it all and it'll go stale very quickly.

Check out this cookbook from 2011: "Make the Bread, Buy the Butter."

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11510733-make-the-bread-b...

Baking good bread should be both easy and cheap, as long as you have an oven! That's not to say it wouldn't be better with more practice, experience, specialization, and, of course, better grains. But it might just beat "sliced bread!"

Re: Bread is Broken

#62

Post by buu700 »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #38
bad_user wrote: post #9

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 preservat…

> 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.

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...

(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".

Re: Bread is Broken

#63

Post by bad_user »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #55
bad_user wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is because you're thinking of actual bread and not substances that are engineered to resemble bread. Usually this is done by replacing grains in part or in whole with something else. Much like low-fat milk. Of course, a bread made of whole-wheat flour would be healthier because it contains fiber, besides some minerals that are good for us. But because we are obsessed with numbers related to specific ingredients,…

> Usually this is done by replacing grains in part or in whole with something else. Much like low-fat milk. Low fat milk is made by just removing fat from whole milk; the milk changes consistency and possibly color because of this. Fat is not a huge component of milk. There are milk products that replace the fat with some fat-like substitute; for example, a store near me sells something called "fat-free half and half…

You don't just remove fat from milk. For one because it loses taste and texture, they have to compensate by adding things like powder milk, sucrose or high-fructose corn syrup and colorants amongst others. Of course the list of ingredients vary, depending on the country and on what's being banned or not.

But the more interesting fact is that when stripping the fat from milk you can't just strip out 1.5% or 2%. Oh no, that's inefficient, the milk produced by cows is not that uniform and the tools we have aren't that precise.

So to obtain milk with 1.5% of fat (you know, the middle one, that's usually colored with blue, sitting between the green that's 0.5% and the red that's 3.5%) ... well, for 1.5% fat they have to strip whatever they can, then re-add that fat until they get the desired percentage. And what they add back is not the same fat that they stripped. No, what they add back is vegetable fat, usually from soy and animal fat of all sorts. Like for example there could be pork fat in the cow milk that you're drinking.

Disclaimer: my father is a veterinarian that has been the director of the center for food safety in my city and I live in Europe. Boy, he can tell me stories.

Re: Bread is Broken

#64

Post by matthewaveryusa »

GFischer wrote: post #24
angdis wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand most cities have at least some "real" bakeries where you can get a nice loaf of bread with proper crumb and flavor. Most supermarket bread is virtually inedible to folks that have a taste for good bread. Aside from the insane ingredient list, the sickly softness of it and the lack of any decent crust and crumb makes me wonder what market forces influenced industrial bread makers. How can anyone that…

Time(convenience) and money? I love freshly baked bread, but I can't buy a loaf on a regular basis due to the strict schedule at work, and even if I do, I won't eat it all and it'll go stale very quickly.

I freeze my tasty fresh bread and then double-toast it -- it'll lose some of its flavor but it's still >> wonder-bread

Re: Bread is Broken

#65

Post by maxerickson »

bad_user wrote: post #63
thaumasiotes wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Usually this is done by replacing grains in part or in whole with something else. Much like low-fat milk. Low fat milk is made by just removing fat from whole milk; the milk changes consistency and possibly color because of this. Fat is not a huge component of milk. There are milk products that replace the fat with some fat-like substitute; for example, a store near me sells something called "fat-free half and half…

You don't just remove fat from milk. For one because it loses taste and texture, they have to compensate by adding things like powder milk, sucrose or high-fructose corn syrup and colorants amongst others. Of course the list of ingredients vary, depending on the country and on what's being banned or not. But the more interesting fact is that when stripping the fat from milk you can't just strip out 1.5% or 2%. Oh no,…

In the US, it would be illegal to sell milk with added vegetable oils without including the vegetable oil on the label.

I can buy that someone does it somewhere, I don't for a second buy that the entire dairy industry is in on it.

It's also the case that the fat in store milk has been mixed into the milk, it naturally tends to separate:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homogenization_%28chemistry%29

Re: Bread is Broken

#66

Post by stevesearer »

hugh4 wrote: post #37
jandrese wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 lik…

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.

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

Re: Bread is Broken

#67

Post by 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...

Re: Bread is Broken

#69

Post by mrfusion »

sampo wrote: post #59
fweespeech wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recipe? :D

No knead bread 3 cups of flour, 2 teaspoons of salt, 1/4 teaspoon of instant yeast. Mix in a bowl. Add 1.5 cups water, mix in. A wooden spoon, especially bamboo, is nice for mixing, but you can use anything, even your hand. Cover (lid, or plastic wrap), let sit for 12 to 20 hours. Afterwards, you should see bubbles or "craters" of bubbles on top. If after 12 hours not yet much bubbles, let sit longer. If change of pl…

Wow this is great! Any thoughts if I could substitute something lower carb for the flour? Flax meal, or almond or coconut flour?

Re: Bread is Broken

#70

Post by 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.
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