One big reason Americans are broke and overweight

I don’t either. But people seems to love it, expecially if it’s extra fluffy and soft.

It’s addictive. That fluffy soft stuff is basically cake without the frosting.

2 Likes

That’s why bakeries selling ‘western’ crispy crust, chewy bread, are a hit and miss in Taiwan, it works for a while but than they start making more ‘soft’ crap. Localized sweeter bread and weird fillings.

1 Like

Yup! High quality bread is rare in Taiwan.

Only educated and well traveled people buy good bread.

1 Like

But it doesn’t taste like cake. It doesn’t really taste like anything.

It’s done with enzymes and has taken gluten development to its extreme, dough softeners, dough improvers, conditioners, bad fats.

It’s actually strange that they call them improving agents!

" Flour treatment agents (also called improving agents , bread improvers , dough conditioners and dough improvers ) are food additives combined with flour to improve baking functionality. Flour treatment agents are used to increase the speed of dough rising and to improve the strength and workability of the dough. While they are an important component of modern factory baking, some small-scale bakers reject them in favour of longer fermentation periods that produce greater depth of flavour. There are wide ranges of these conditioners used in factory baking, which fall into four main categories: bleaching agents, oxidizing and reducing agents, enzymes, and emulsifiers. These agents are often sold as mixtures in a soy flour base, as only small amounts are required.

Flour bleaching agents are added to flour to make it appear whiter (freshly milled flour is yellowish), to oxidize the surfaces of the flour grains, and help with developing of gluten.

Oxidizing agents are added to flour to help with gluten development. They may or may not also act as bleaching agents. Originally flour was naturally aged through exposure to the atmosphere. Oxidizing agents primarily affect sulfur-containing amino acids, ultimately helping to form disulfide bridges between the gluten molecules. The addition of these agents to flour will create a stronger dough.[1]

Common oxidizing agents are:

3 Likes

Lots of educated and well travelled people eat shit bread. Eat shit everything .

4 Likes

Yup. I’ve seen the same thing with white rice. How can anybody want to eat a plateful of white rice?

Some.

Lots. Possibly most. Bad food is addictive. I just ate a tasty burger for instance although I know my cholesterol is too high.

1 Like

If people buy the better bread, they have been abroad or have been educated abroad or know something about good bread.

Most white rice for sure, but I don’t mind a good Basmati or Jasmine.

Not necessarily. Some people can figure it out if they are into healthy eating.

The reason why some folks don’t like Western bread is the texture it hurts their gums. My kids don’t like high gluten bread it’s hard to chew.
Anyway Westerners often est white bread and toast…We invented and popularised the stuff (believe it was some British scientists in the 50s and 60s).

Even now in Europe big bakeries put ‘good’ looking and tasting but full of crap bread on the shelf of stores. Most bakeries that make western bread use the imported mixes. Only a handful try to make it the ‘real’ way.

1 Like

They use the frozen dough right…

Independent bakeries are almost always better.

That too. And because it’s frozen it needs ingredients that keep it better conditioned until defrosted, it has more yeast (and freeze resistant) and other stuff.

But lots of them still use the mixes. The last couple of years labor plays a big role in this, less people want to work the hours, so one person can do more.

Pre mixed. It makes sense in a way but hard to control the quality of ingredients.

You don’t need to be a baker, it’s all on the label. Water volume, (addition, amount of enzymes -improvers), mixing time, fermentation time, secondary fermentation, baking time.