White Sliced Bread and the Baggage That Comes With…

What do you think of white sliced bread? I asked several friends. The majority are happy. I expected criticism.

First of all white flour and white bread aren't technological innovations. We may be led to believe that. Bakers and mills have sifted parts away for thousands of years.

White bread for me has been a symbol for many things over my years. We layer on so many impressions. I feel white bread has taken the biggest fall during our modern times, yet many of us still enjoy it and buy it regularly.

Bread accounted for 80% of our daily calories during the middle ages. Now it is at 30%. Bread has a past that’s for sure. The modern reasoning for white bread was to create the image of purity. The bread looked clean. For a time society thought bread was spreading disease. It wasn’t the bread. It was the handling of the bread.

It is our human condition to improve things. Enter Industrial white bread.  White sliced bread made sense. One good example is during the war effort, bakers added vitamins. Since the 20’s and 30's bakers have really worked at their white sliced breads. I see it as mankind making it more uniform, good and safe. It’s part of the history during the industrial revolution.

Bakers loved this product because of this added value and convenience. The result was we ate more bread.  This innovation fueled more demand for all kind of products.

Many of today’s opinions do not agree. White versus wheat….

There is a war going on about bread. I am not going to step into that. I say make Peace and have a piece of each.