!!! BREAD IS DANGEROUS !!!

[hydrology_joe]

Research on bread indicates that:

1. More than 98 percent of convicted felons are bread users.

2. Fully HALF of all children who grow up in bread-consuming households score below average on standardized tests.

3. In the 18th century, when virtually all bread was baked in the home, the average life expectancy was less than 50 years; infant mortality rates were unacceptably high; many women died in childbirth; and diseases such as typhoid, yellow fever, and influenza ravaged whole nations.

4. More than 90 percent of violent crimes are committed within 24 hours of eating bread.

5. Bread is made from a substance called "dough." It has been proven that as little as one pound of dough can be used to suffocate a mouse. The average American eats more bread than that in one month!

6. Primitive tribal societies that have no bread exhibit a low incidence of cancer, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease, and osteoporosis.

7. Bread has been proven to be addictive. Subjects deprived of bread and given only water to eat begged for bread after as little as two days.

8. Bread is often a "gateway" food item, leading the user to "harder" items such as butter, jelly, peanut butter, and even cold cuts.

9. Bread has been proven to absorb water. Since the human body is more than 90 percent water, it follows that eating bread could lead to your body being taken over by this absorptive food product, turning you into a soggy, gooey bread-pudding person.

10. Newborn babies can choke on bread.

11. Bread is baked at temperatures as high as 400 degrees Fahrenheit! That kind of heat can kill an adult in less than one minute.

12. Most American bread eaters are utterly unable to distinguish between significant scientific fact and meaningless statistical babbling.

[Scott McCrea]

That is scary stuff! But perhaps the most dangerous bread is pickle bread.

[bigalpha]

scott -- that's pretty gross.....


The only bread that's not bad for you is whole wheat/grain bread. White bread is all enriched. Lots of sugar and all that..

[Teresa]

big alpha--
Need to expand your bread eating repertoire... there is rye bread, pumpernickel bread, German black bread, potato bread, 7-grain bread, oat-bran bread (no wheat), most likely soy bread (they make soy into *everything*) corn bread... Also there are all sorts of white bread which are NOT bad for you -- sourdough bread, Italian bread, French bread--(most of which, if you get the fresh bakery kind from ethnic or specialty stores, do not have all the gunk they put into typical white American marshmallow sandwich bread), including being made out of a different sort of wheat flour, which is husked but not subjected to typical Wonder Bread flour torture.

If a bread has a hard crust, turns into a stale rock in a matter of days, and does not need to be refrigerated to keep from molding in 3-5 days (will mold if left uncovered eventually), it likely has a low sugar content, and few preservatives. BTW, this is what bread is *supposed* to be like.

[Steven Johnson]

That's nothing compared to the menace posed by Dihydrogen Monoxide:

http://www.dhmo.org/

[bigalpha]

teresa --

many of these breads still contain (as the #1 ingredient) enriched wheat. There are not many places that you can find 'homecooked' bread. yes, many of the breads you listed may be better than Wonder Kids, but still not the greatest, unless you can find the ethnic/specialty stores.

Plus, it's more expensive and doesn't last as long. I guess it depends on what you care about more: bread lasting a long time or bread that's "good" for you.

BTW: Sara Lee white bread does NOT get hard and moldy. Left half a loaf in the back of a car for about 2 months, and it was still 'good' enough to make a sandwhich out of. Scary.

[Tubo Longo]

Being Italian, I'm some used to real fresh daily baked bread in small shop, mostly family run. So, to the top of the experience of 40+ years of living in my home country, here's my nickel on bread.

Plus, it's more expensive and doesn't last as long. I guess it depends on what you care about more: bread lasting a long time or bread that's "good" for you.

Sorry, but kinda Correct question is (should be) if you care more on saving and eating some sort of plastic pretending to having being turned bread or spend some more and help take care of your health.

BTW: Sara Lee white bread does NOT get hard and moldy. Left half a loaf in the back of a car for about 2 months, and it was still 'good' enough to make a sandwich out of. Scary.

Ever read the ingredients label of some of those plastic bread? It looks like as if they are straight out on our table from a refinery or at least some sort of Dr. Frankenstein bread shop... Scary, at least...

Please, if you can don't give away some of your health (and pleasure of life) for a few pennies: heat good old style real bread and leave plaster to the kids to play with

[RescueMan]

But there's one thing that WonderBread is good for:

If you have to solder copper water pipes that are continually dripping water, and cooling the joint to prevent the solder melting, roll up a little ball of WonderBread and stuff it into the pipe a few inches from the joint.

This ball of glop will stop the water just long enough to solder the joint and then dissolve into nothingness (since nothing is what it's really made of).



- Robert

[RescueMan]

Research on bread indicates that:

12. Most American bread eaters are utterly unable to distinguish between significant scientific fact and meaningless statistical babbling.

I would go futher and suggest that most Americans, even those with a college education, are unable to distinguish between valid statistics and meaningless ones.

Statistics, which my father taught at the Master's level in a School of Social Work, is a tool vital to scientific research when properly used.

I believe it was Mark Twain who said, "there are lies, damn lies, and statistics." And the above list is an excellent example of the meaninglessness of improperly applied statistical analysis.

Another example, which my father often used to help his students understand the limitations of common statistical tools, is this:

A man is lying on a kitchen table with his feet in the oven and his head in the icebox. On average, he is very comfortable.

- Robert

[Teresa]

teresa --

many of these breads still contain (as the #1 ingredient) enriched wheat. There are not many places that you can find 'homecooked' bread. yes, many of the breads you listed may be better than Wonder Kids, but still not the greatest, unless you can find the ethnic/specialty stores.
Plus, it's more expensive and doesn't last as long.

It's not the fact that the flour is enriched (vitamins and iron added) that makes it bad for you. Its the other junk they put in to preserve freshness and texture and the excess sugar they add. Believe me, I've been on an enforced 100% whole wheat/stoneground wheat bread diet for some years now-- depending on the bread, all bigtime commercially produced 'soft' bread--including wheat bread--has the same chemicals in it. Also, 'real' 100% wheat is pretty dark--there is a lot of 'wheat' bread out there which is actually half and half or 3/4-1/4...just as many cornbread recipes are. The reason for this is the gluten from the white flour--without it, any bread tends to become as crumbly as a muffin.

You may have trouble finding 'homecooked bread'. Not so here--we've got oodles of (coincidentally Italian) sandwich shops and bakeries who make breads and sell daily. A number of them started as bakeries, then people 'wanted something on their bread'. It used to be a whale of work, but these 'breadmaker' gadgets make it pretty foolproof and simple to do at home. Sourdough, once you get the starter going, can take over your life.

Specialty bakery bread is only marginally more expensive here. A loaf of regular old grocery store sandwich white is $1.65-1.80-- bakery bread for the same size unsliced loaf is $2.

I find that the storebought wheat will mold within a few days on the countertop, and within a week in the fridge. Bakery bread, (usually Italian or sourdough) kept covered in its paper/cellophane wrapper and unrefrigerated dries out, but doesn't mold in the same week's time. Of course, it rarely lasts as long, either!

Keep looking, bigalpha. If you're really into bread, it's out there near you, and not all of it costs an arm and a leg.

[Wayne Harrison]

I make bread at home and have to add gluten because, at my altitude, the bread rises too fast and then collapses. I also add a tablespoon of ground flaxseed meal. Not only does it give the bread a nice flavor, it adds fiber, which... well, you know.

[hydrology_joe]

geezus... for a joke this took a wrong turn somewhere!

[RescueMan]

geezus... for a joke this took a wrong turn somewhere!

JOKE?!? I thought you were serious.

[Scott McCrea]

geezus... for a joke this took a wrong turn somewhere!

I liked your joke. Mine, however, appears to be too subtle.

JOKE?!? I thought you were serious.

[Wayne Harrison]

A duck walks into a bar and asks the barman “have you got any bread?â€