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Banned bread: why does the US allow additives that Europe says are unsafe?

theguardian.com

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Re: Banned bread: why does the US allow additives that Europe says are unsafe?

#51

Post by nickik »

kevin_b_er wrote: post #36
thatfrenchguy wrote: post #12

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

Greed. There's no simpler explanation. It starts with trying to find bread-like material that tastes even better. You can do so by adding sugar. You want it to last even longer on the shelves so you make it non-perishable with chemicals that weren't previously used in food that are just grandfathered as "safe" to appease industry. Thus you get US Bread.

That assumes that people in the US are greedy and not in other places. I think one can are that every other place had some sort of efficient mechanism to stop that greed.

If the US is the outlier the question should be what condition that are US specific made it happen, not a general concept like greed.

Re: Banned bread: why does the US allow additives that Europe says are unsafe?

#52

Post by rasz »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #43
rasz wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Screw bread, they put sugar into mouthwash...

Go any evidence of that? A quick Google search doesn't show me any results indicating mouthwash containing sugar.

look at the label?

Re: Banned bread: why does the US allow additives that Europe says are unsafe?

#53

Post by [deleted] »

goostavos wrote: post #38
cknoxrun wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was surprised to see how much sugar is in bread in the US compared to the bread I buy in Canada (specifically grocery store "bagged bread"). The sweetness makes it taste awful, and hides the taste of the wheat and different grains.

It's also crazy hard to find bread _without_ sugar. I get that some will be in there for color / browning during cooking, but the amounts that are present in the average loaf are insane. I've had loafs that were like 5% sugar by weight (as measured from my kitchen scale + food label).

[deleted]

Re: Banned bread: why does the US allow additives that Europe says are unsafe?

#54

Post by lorcan »

lorcan wrote: post #42

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.

for the downvoters ... https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/02/good-bad-and-ugly-an...

Re: Banned bread: why does the US allow additives that Europe says are unsafe?

#57

Post by golover721 »

thatfrenchguy wrote: post #12

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

Bread in the US, and to be fair a lot of of supermarket bread in a lot of countries (UK, Australia, I'm sure tons of others) has a variety of ingredients added to help keep the bread "fresh". It used to be common to buy fresh baked bread on a daily basis and only use it during that day, or perhaps a day or two afterwards. There are still some places in the Western world where this is common, for instance in Munich, Germany you can't walk more than a couple of blocks without finding a bakery with fresh bread for relatively cheap prices. In the US and UK fresh bread is now a luxury item and can be quite expensive compared to the bread laced with preservatives to keep the bread "fresh" for a couple of weeks.

Re: Banned bread: why does the US allow additives that Europe says are unsafe?

#58

Post by ineedasername »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #43
rasz wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Screw bread, they put sugar into mouthwash...

Go any evidence of that? A quick Google search doesn't show me any results indicating mouthwash containing sugar.

What terms did your google search use? A quick google for "listerine ingredients" brought up a label [0] that shows caramel (sugar) as an inactive ingredient. Only one I could find though. Most others however do seem to use artificial sweeteners

[0] https://www.drugs.com/otc/113880/listerine-01.jpg

Re: Banned bread: why does the US allow additives that Europe says are unsafe?

#59

Post by lorcan »

lorcan wrote: post #42

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.

and ... http://www.euro.who.int/en/media-centre/sections/press-relea...

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

Re: Banned bread: why does the US allow additives that Europe says are unsafe?

#60

Post by lorcan »

lorcan wrote: post #59
lorcan wrote: post #42

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.

and ... http://www.euro.who.int/en/media-centre/sections/press-relea... "Over 41 000 children and adults in the WHO European Region have been infected with measles in the first 6 months of 2018"

versus ~ 400 in the US.
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