How Do We Solve America’s Oversupply of Bread?
eater.com
eater.com
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)
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/...
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".
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.
>What if independent bakeries baked only what they thought they could sell and no more?
Then they would lose money, period.
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.
The author points out that excess bread is given away to those in need or used as animal feed.
Maybe instead solve the overabundance of sugar, mass-produced, full of BS preservatives and artificial flavors BS that passes for bread in the US?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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 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've never heard this before. By who?
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.
[0] http://www.seriouseats.com/2013/08/taste-test-the-best-sourd...
[1] http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20131121-flour-power-in-san-...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Are you lumping all of those together?