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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?

#61

Post by justin66 »

logfromblammo wrote: post #29
maxxxxx wrote: post #2

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?

Some of it, because they are required to, by law. Some of it, because they are allowed to, by law. Usually, whenever you see sugar added where it is not necessary, it's because fat or salt was removed from the recipe, to "improve" the numbers on the nutrition panel. And then you have to add the fat and salt back in yourself later, with butter or mayo or something. You can't reliably and conveniently get "good" bread…

> You can't reliably and conveniently get "good" bread in the US unless you own a bread machine, and even then you have to pick out your flour carefully.

Or live near a Trader Joe's or Whole Foods. They're not that unusual.

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

#62

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.

This Guardian article quotes the "food babe". Food babe also had this to say about flying on airplanes "The air that is pumped in isn’t pure oxygen either, it’s mixed with nitrogen, sometimes almost at 50%. To pump a greater amount of oxygen in costs money in terms of fuel and the airlines know this!" (actual nitrogen percentage in air: 78%)

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

#63

Post by sureaboutthis »

thatfrenchguy wrote: post #47
sureaboutthis wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Factory" bread can be "disgusting" because it's made to feed the masses and gain market share, not taste good. For the same reason hamburgers at McDonald's are not as good as those made at a quality restaurant or at home. Good bread, as with any good food, typically takes time and quality ingredients. You won't find that in mass produced food. That costs too much.

I don't know, bread is literally cheaper and better-tasting in France (and many other countries).

And it's also available on every street corner (an exaggeration I know) managed by shopkeepers who stayed up all night but they aren't feeding millions of people.

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

#64

Post by kcorbitt »

sureaboutthis wrote: post #20
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 ?

"Factory" bread can be "disgusting" because it's made to feed the masses and gain market share, not taste good. For the same reason hamburgers at McDonald's are not as good as those made at a quality restaurant or at home. Good bread, as with any good food, typically takes time and quality ingredients. You won't find that in mass produced food. That costs too much.

Good, fresh bread can be produced cheaply. When I lived in Spain I could buy a large, fresh, delicious baguette on almost any street corner for about $0.55.

The problem is that after about 24 hours it gets hard and after 48 it's basically inedible. So your diet needs to include a lot of bread or else you end up wasting a fair portion of every purchase.

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

#65

Post by chungleong »

weberc2 wrote: post #10

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...

That'd probably run afoul of NLEA rules on health claims. You can't imply that your product is somehow healthier than others without actual proof.

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

#66

Post by thatfrenchguy »

justin66 wrote: post #61
logfromblammo wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of it, because they are required to, by law. Some of it, because they are allowed to, by law. Usually, whenever you see sugar added where it is not necessary, it's because fat or salt was removed from the recipe, to "improve" the numbers on the nutrition panel. And then you have to add the fat and salt back in yourself later, with butter or mayo or something. You can't reliably and conveniently get "good" bread…

> You can't reliably and conveniently get "good" bread in the US unless you own a bread machine, and even then you have to pick out your flour carefully. Or live near a Trader Joe's or Whole Foods. They're not that unusual.

It's not "good" bread though.

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

#67

Post by unclenoriega »

ineedasername wrote: post #58
Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

"Caramel" in this case likely refers to caramel color. While it is still made from sugar, I doubt there's a significant enough amount to consider it "added sugar". If you look at the other colors of Listerine, there is no caramel listed.

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

#68

Post by thatfrenchguy »

sureaboutthis wrote: post #63
thatfrenchguy wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, bread is literally cheaper and better-tasting in France (and many other countries).

And it's also available on every street corner (an exaggeration I know) managed by shopkeepers who stayed up all night but they aren't feeding millions of people.

> they aren't feeding millions of people

Collectively they are :-)

> who stayed up all night

Technically they wake up at 2-4am

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

#69

Post by SerLava »

nickik wrote: post #51
kevin_b_er wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Long distances and shipping times, the lack of a coherent food culture, the demand for cheap food, the destruction of culinary standards between 1930 and 1960.

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

#70

Post by tim333 »

vpribish wrote: post #55

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.

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