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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   2143 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for August 9, 2023

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

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Why do Americans put sugar in their bread, anyway? Even this Sarah Lee's wheat bread contains added sugar.

Because Americans go to the grocery store once a week. They need it to stay soft and tasty for 1 full week. Thus the sugar and the whole lot of other stuff in it.

suburbia wins.

As a preservative, and possibly for cultural reasons. The regular white bread Americans like is kind of just a variant on brioche, it’s a descendant of Anglo-Dutch bread rather than the crustier French or Italian equivalents. In big cities, upper middle class people differentiate themselves by being bread snobs and lamenting sugary bread, this has led to New York restaurants importing French Poilâne bread at $25 a loaf, but it’s mostly a cultural thing.

In America, breakfast is mostly sweet or, if it’s savory, doesn’t usually include a strong bread component (replaced by biscuits/scones, hash browns, grits etc). In Europe, breakfast is often a savory meal served with bread (eg in Germany, bread with cold sausages/meats). Maybe this affected bread preferences.

Aren't French and Italian breakfasts essentially dessert as well? In France the standard is to serve a 2 ounce coffee which comes with not one, but two, gigantic sugar packets enough to supersaturate the coffee. Paired, of course, with a pastry.

The distinguishing characteristic of the American and English breakfasts would seem to be their gigantic size, not their sugar level.

Italian breakfasts are definitely sweet. Cappuccino, cornetto, bread with jam or Nutella. It might look insubstantial, but you can easily pack 400-500 calories into a quick breakfast. They still eat proper bread with their sweet spreads, which makes sense: why add even more sugar?

In big cities, upper middle class people differentiate themselves by being bread snobs and lamenting sugary bread, this has led to New York restaurants importing French Poilâne bread at $25 a loaf, but it’s mostly a cultural thing.

I thought they all switched to handmade bread during the pandemic.

There's no way a few grams of sugar per slice has any preservative effect. Probably the opposite.

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