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1/9 Today on @bittmanproject, some thoughts (from my new book, Animal, Vegetable, Junk) about how we got bread so wrong. For instance... (thread) https://bit.ly/3u9Wh68
2/9 In the early twentieth century, "vitamania" changed no traditional food more radically than bread. Until then, white flour had been difficult to produce. It was associated with wealth and believed to be more pure than ACTUALLY pure ground whole wheat. https://bit.ly/3u9Wh68
3/9 In America, this association took on racial overtones: white loaves were “chaste,” and dark ones “defiled.” But without added nutrients, white flour offers little besides calories. https://bit.ly/3u9Wh68
4/9 In addition to nutrients, the bran and germ [of whole wheat] contain oil, and that oil can go rancid with time, ruining the flour. Get rid of those pesky elements and the resulting white flour keeps more or less forever. https://bit.ly/3u9Wh68
5/9 So wheat producers were faced w a choice: local production, which required quick sale & consumption of a higher-quality ingredient, or mass production, w a long shelf life & a nutritionally inferior product. For large producers, the choice was easy https://bit.ly/3u9Wh68
6/9 In the United States especially, the sheer amount of flour produced, along with the great distances it traveled to market, meant that never-spoiling white flour quickly became the norm. Industrially produced white bread followed soon thereafter. https://bit.ly/3u9Wh68
7/9 Then white flour became even whiter, thru bleaching with chlorine, benzoyl peroxide (now an ingredient in acne medication), calcium peroxide, & chlorine dioxide. All of these are still allowed in US food processing, though none are allowed in the EU. https://bit.ly/3u9Wh68
8/9 With new machinery, super-duper yeast, and a host of accelerants, a loaf of bread could be produced way faster than ever before. Check out the rest of this (sad) story, along with two of my favorite no-white-flour bread recipes here: https://bit.ly/3u9Wh68
9/9 (And if you want more stories and recipes like these delivered straight to your inbox, subscribe to @bittmanproject: https://bit.ly/3u05huR ) Thanks for reading!
