A review of the book White Bread--Good Article

Date:   1/3/2013 11:57:58 PM ( 11 y ago)

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2012/04/a_review_of_white_brea...



look at this book in my book.


This book review revels in current and past food fads, scientism, dietary elitism, and food paranoia, entertainingly. But only a single statement that whole grains are probably better? Attacking whole wheat bread acolytes, their pity for white trash white bread eaters, and dubious scientism leaves out the real advances in nutrition and what the public has learned. Are the books reviewed as dismissive as the review? The past 100 years have NOT been limited to food faddists, paranoics, crusaders, and elitists. Grains that have been de-germed, bleached, bromated, pre-milled, and otherwise rendered slow to spoil, are more profitable than they are nutritional, but we know this because of science, not religulosity. The 60's and 70's did not merely dismiss white bread as bland, processed, and for the apathetic and poor. The science done since then has convinced plenty of poor people to try to eat whole foods (as opposed to the unbleached-but-still-refined sugary junk or empty carbohydrates, for the price insensive, in stores like Whole Foods).

Too few cookbooks tackle our biggest challenges, like how can avoid extra food prep time, without avoiding whole foods? But why say only elitism inspires people to avoid some foods? Sure there are lost souls who self diagnose non-existant allergies to lactose, gluten, or entire categories of foods, after reading some article on the web. But some people do try to eat not only for convenience, but also for good health. There will always be profit in pushing food fads, empty calories, foods as miracle cures, and fad diets. But every year, more people want to devote scarce money to healthy food, that's more expensive and more perishable, based on science, not status.

Bread with caramel coloring, a little whole wheat flour, a lot of unbleached, de-germed, refined flour, hydrogenated oil, sweetener and maybe a natural sounding preservative might finally be outselling Wonder Bread. But people are learning what''s just more marketing, versus more nutritional. And inexpensive bread machines developed since the 1980's have increased sales of home grain mills. We know how humans process hydrogenated oils, now, unlike Adele Davis, who could only make assumptions about processed foods causing social ills, or the trans fats she called mutant essential fatty acids. I don't think consumers' pressuring food processors to delete hydrogenated oils from recipes is due to paranoia or elitism.

We have really progressed from the early 1900's, when the dead white color of cheap margarine was the only reason my grandmother skipped rope in Ireland to a popular, all-purpose insult ditty, that ended, "It tisn't because you're dirty, it tisn't because you're clean. It's only because my mother says you eat margarine!" Elitists once made fun of margarine, at first, which was less expensive than butter, without its warm color. But now people avoid trans fats because of science, not because they're snobs.
8 Months Ago from slate.com · Reply


 

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