the cooking show Iâm watching is rated PG-13 for language and nudity
no itâs not cutthroat kitchen or gordon ramsey itâs a documentary exploring the anthropological & historical significance of cooking, and the dangers of the mass industrialization of food.
and i misspoke itâs rated TV-14 (for language and nudity)
this guy is so fucking angry about sliced bread (justifiably) that he really came out on camera with this absolute banger of a quote:
âAnd this is really how capitalism usually works. It creates a problem, and rather than fix the problem, it creates a new business to solve the problem.â
utterly scathing and yes this is from a 60 minute documentary episode dedicated entirely to the subject of Bread
You canât just not tell us why sliced bread is terrible D8
right ok so technically itâs not sliced bread but industrial, mass-manufactured bread that isâŠcausing problems. Hereâs the theory as the show presents it:
For about ~10,000 years bread was a fucking staple of the human diet. we evolved to eat this food, our bodies, our societies were built on this food, but all of a sudden weâre seeing a rise in gluten sensitivity* (distinct from celiac disease). Aka our bodies are rejecting this food weâve spent 100 centuries eating. Where is this coming from?
Well, a big part of it is probably that less than 100 years ago corporations changed the definition of bread. (Like, figuratively and literally, they petitioned the FDA to change the legal definition of bread so they could put in additives.) In fact, industrialization has changed the process and the ingredients used to make bread, to the point manufactured bread is a profoundly different product from what our ancestors knew as bread. Letâs start with:
1) The Process: For thousands of years, humans relied on naturally occurring wild yeast and bacteria found in the air to make (leavened) bread and bread starters (fermented dough used to âstartâ new loaves. hence the term âsourdoughâ). you can still do this at homeâall it involves is leaving a mixture of water and flour lying around for a few days. notice something missing? thatâs right, YEAST. this process of making bread involves yeastâyeast from the air around youâbut it doesnât involve concentrated bakerâs yeast. Bakerâs yeast refers to various strains of yeast that are added directly to flour & water mixtures as a leavening agent. This allows the bread to rise more quickly and cuts down on the overall production time. Convenient, right?
Now, adding yeast is not automatically a bad thing, and bakers have been doing it for a damn long time in interesting ways (such as using yeast from beer brewing). But lately weâve taken it to extremesâweâve gotten too good at creating more and more efficient forms of commercial Bakerâs yeast, specifically for industrial use on a mass scale. Manufacturers want bread to rise as fast as possible, because that is how you get more product on the shelves. Making bread in factories now takes a small fraction of the time it used to.
And why is this a problem? Because it turns out a more traditional âlong fermentation process allows bacteria to fully break down the carbohydrates and gluten in bread, making it easier to digest and releasing the nutrients within it, allowing our bodies to more easily absorb them.â [1] This (added to the fact that some commercial breads contain extra added gluten) has the unfortunate result that the product you buy from the grocery store is less digestible and nutritious than the bread human societies traditionally relied upon. Hence the rise of gluten intoleranceâthe gluten we are eating is simply more difficult to tolerate than gluten in properly fermented bread. (This is the reason many people with gluten sensitivity donât experience symptoms when eating more traditionally made, longer-fermented sourdough.)
Thatâs not the only issue though. Thereâs also:
2) The Ingredients. not just the countless additives, but specifically: the flour. See, a grain of wheat isâŠincredibly nutritious, honestly. It has almost everything we need to sustain life and health. Civilizations didâand doârely on bread as a fundamental dietary staple, to the point that you can track political instability with rising wheat prices. Itâs essential. Look at this:
In a single grain, the essence of life.
So yeah, wheat is nutritional. We can build bodies and civilizations out of wheat. But itâs also, likeâŠsuper difficult to access that nutrition. Well, more so than with most foods. If you eat a handful of wheat grains, a spoonful of flourâyour body canât digest that, you get basically nothing out of that (also raw flour isnât safe to consume, donât do that). Unlike many crops, wheat relies on being carefully and correctly processed in order for the final product to be as nutritional as possible. As stated above, part of that process is about fermentation. Another part is the quality of the flour, what it contains and how it has been milled and treated.
And that quality has changed a lot in just a century or two. Take white flour, for instance. White flour has been around for a long fucking time actually, but until the late 19th century it was considered a luxury item, a treat for the very wealthy. White flour was never considered a staple foodâuntil industrialists learned how to manufacture it cheaply. [2] And then it was everywhere. And suddenly, surprise surprise, we started to see a rise in nutrition related illnesses. Because the bran and germ have been stripped away, white flour has only a fraction of the nutritional value of whole grain. But because this gives it a higher shelf life, it was more convenient (and profitable) for manufacturers. So when they learned about the health issues, what did they do? Go back to making healthier flour?
Pshaw. Of course not. No, instead they kept removing nutrients, then artificially adding them back in. And that is how we got enriched flourâflour which is still significantly less nutritious than whole wheat flour. [3] And this is what the previous quote about capitalism was referencing. The food industry created a problem, and rather than undoing the problem, they created a whole new business to âfixâ it:
And thus came the mass rise of âenrichedâ foods.
Eat Wonder Bread! It has as much protein as roast beef! As much calcium as cottage cheese! As much iron as lamb chops! No need to eat real foods, when you can eat highly processed foods instead! Donât cook your own meals, let trustworthy corporations feed you! Mass-produced factory foods are easy, are healthy! There will be literally no downsides or long-term repercussions to public health & wellness!
So yeah. Much of what we think of as âbreadâ is chemically and molecularly distinct from traditional bread, and is very different (and less nutritional) than what our ancestors were eating even just a century ago. (On an individual level, Iâm not sure how to mitigate this, other than by purchasing the healthiest options available (e.g. whole wheat, sourdough), buying from small bakeries/farmerâs markets, or baking bread at home. Lately there has been a rise of small health-concious brands focusing on traditional fermentation and whole ingredients; some may be available in your area. But ultimately, itâs the entire wider system that needs to change.)
And there you have it! I have never been so incandescently furious about wonder bread. This documentary will do that to youâand will change your whole understanding of modern food. Itâs a 4-part netflix series called Cooked (2016), based on Michael Pollanâs book of the same name. Most of the info above comes from the third episode, and is accurate to the best of my knowledge (but let me know if I got anything wrong).
*I want to be perfectly clear though, gluten itself is not inherently bad. Itâs being demonized in the press on no scientific basis, just to push yet another diet fad. Unless your body has actual issues with gluten (e.g. celiac disease, gluten sensitivity) there are no proven benefits to eating gluten-free. There are, however, benefits to eating less processed, more nutritional (delicious delicious) bread.
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