Why American Bread Tastes So Weird
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- Опубліковано 15 чер 2024
- Did you know that American bread isn't real bread? I was so surprised! Join me while I dive into the madness that is British bread vs American bread and how it can be so different.
0:00 why are we talking about bread lol
1:28 I was today-years-old when I learned...
3:14 breaking news
4:24 american vs british sweet spreads
6:58 let's read the fine print
10:48 what about british bread?
15:26 totally unrelated
15:38 accessibility?
16:47 what's the point of this video
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Hey! I'm Alanna - a thirty-something documenting my life as a Canadian living in England.
I share the ups and downs of an expat living abroad and what it's really like living in the UK. It's not always easy, but there's been so many wonderful experiences, too. I post a UA-cam video every Tuesday plus an additional video every Saturday on my Patreon account. I also livestream every Wednesday and Sunday at 5:30pm GMT/BST on Twitch.
Alanna x
When we moved to the US from the UK 37 years ago one of the first things we noticed was the bread and other baked products just how sweet there were. So we worked our way through the bakeries, supermarkets, and never found and what we would call, "decent bread". So the only thing to do was "MAKE YOUR OWN", and that is what we have been doing for the last 35 years.
Yes, we were in America for a month, and bread was definitely something we could not eat. I bought a loaf and thought I had accidentally bought a Madeira cake, but I had put ham in it. 🤮. We still laugh about it now.
I remember when I was in the US about 40 years ago searching for bread that did not have significant added sugar. I eventually found one supermarket that sold some which wasn't sweet and it was far better than anything else I could buy.
US bread tastes like cake.
US bread tastes more like polystyrene ceiling tiles. @@superspecky4eyes
I heard you need a lot of dough to make your own 😂😂😂
Where's the butter? As a Brit I am shocked to the core that there was no butter on your toast! That's almost as shocking a crime as queue jumping. 😂
I was shocked when I learned that it's more common for American's to make sandwiches without butter, than it is to make them with butter. It just seems so wrong to not but butter on the bread!
They tend to use mayonnaise, it’s horrible with a lot of sandwiches such as chicken or beef.
😮 What was she thinking about? 😮 Dundee marmalade is the best. 😎
@@wilmaknickersfit very true, i always have a jar in the fridge
@@MsMaryPatricia I stopped buttering sandwiches years ago, I find it's not needed.
I was a baker for Sainsburys for a few years and can attest that the loaves and rolls are baked fresh everyday, if you get there about 9am you can pick up a warm loaf straight out of the oven, nothing better with Butter and Cheese and the smell is magnificent....
@jezlanejl
All that's been cut back in all supermarkets now since lockdown. Its very sad. My local Sainsburys has lost its meat counter, fish counter and deli counter now.
We get our bread from Sainsbury's bakers
It was always torture working nightshift and smelling the bread for half the shift!
@benjaminsmith3625
I used to work in Cooksons bakery back in the 80's. It was hot, hard work. 12 hour shifts
@@tiggerwood8899 , There were a couple of Sainsburys bakers that used to work at David Powells, they made industrial amounts of baked goods for convenience stores, they said it was hell on earth. We started at 3am and finished by 11.30, also Sainsburys were a great employer, basically you could help yourself.
When I was a small boy my mother made cakes fairly regularly. I got to be quite good at it myself. One thing we noticed was that when we used an American recipe, it was wise to halve the quantity of sugar. That was a good rule of thumb.
Americans love their corn sugar, which has two sugar groups compared to normal sugar. That is everything sweet in the US is twice as sweet (and twice as bad on the body) as any equivalent in Europe,
@@andyonions7864 Love is probably overstating it.
American industries love corn sugar, the Americans I've heard speak on the topic don't appear to be as much of a fan. To put it mildly.
VAT on bread in Ireland is 0%. For cakes it’s 13.3%. Not surprised subway was arguing about it!
A lot of EU countries have price limits on, "normal" bread and, "normal" milk and likely some other staples too.
The old Jaffa "cake" argument!!
@@jamesbeeching6138 No, that was whether a Jaffa Cake was a biscuit or a cake. It's clearly a small sponge cake as thename states, amd it's only similarity to a biscuit is that it's a similar size and is often served among biscuits.
@@crowbar9566it's the same argument cake in uk has no vat but biscuits do, jaffa won by making a big one so it proved it was a cake thus tax free
@@toker6664actually their main argument was cakes go hard when stale and biscuits soft and a jaffa cake went hard when left to go stale
I noticed the same thing then I visited the US but my biggest shock was when my friend gave me a glass of orange juice, it was so sweet, but my friend couldn’t understand why I was shocked. You’re basically adding sugar to natural liquid sugar!
I nearly bought some orange juice yesterday, but I noticed it said no added sugar on the packet. That's odd, I thought, why would you want to add sugar to orange juice? It's already made of fructose. Then I noticed it also said orange juice drink instead of just orange juice. So I looked at the ingredients. They have and all. They've only gone and added a ton of sweeteners to orange juice instead of sugar. Ugh. I couldn't leave it on the shelf fast enough.
I recently spent some time in US from Australia. Not only was the bread sweet but it ripped apart when spreading butter. I found 'Ezekial' bread in a health food store. That tasted and felt as it should. I searched it out for the rest of my stay.
Btw, potassium bromide is the preservative added to most North American bread. It is an additive banned across Europe, in China, India, and elsewhere as being carconogenic.
So I came to the USA in 1994 along 22 other engineers from the UK. When we tasted the bread most of us spat it out thinking we were eating cake. The following morning I called my wife back in England and had her give me the recipe for bread and I started making my own bread from then onwards, so many years later my wife and still make our own bread! We do eat American bread now but not that often.
When on holidays in Hawaii several years ago, we bought bread and other groceries at the supermarket as we were staying in a serviced apartment. We couldn’t find any bread that didn’t contain corn syrup as an ingredient. We ended up choosing wholemeal bread with the lowest percentage of corn syrup listed as an ingredient. Toasting it had the aroma of someone making pancakes. Tasted weird with Vegemite on it.
Everything taste weird with vegimite on it 😅😅🤣
I worked for a few years on UK flagged ships carrying grain from Lake Superior (Wolf River, Thunder Bay, Superior, Duluth etc.) to the UK and Europe where it was milled and distributed as "strong Canadian bread flour". The port of Millom near Carlisle was home of Carr's flour milling company. Still going strong and, for me, the best on the market. Use it regularly.
Many happy memories of Canada and the Lakes, especially beating the ice when winter freeze came to the lakes. Château Frontenac for last beers before crossing the Atlantic back to UK in winter.
😀Happy days (I think).
I remember i n the UK, in geography lessons back in the 50s, learning how wheat from the Prairies was a hard wheat better for making bread. British wheat was a soft wheat, more used to make biscuits and pastry.
Okay, I have since investigated our Aussie bread, or at least the loaf we currently have in this house. I can now definitely say that our bread loaf has no added sugar, which is like the UK bread.
Ahhh, you're a woman after my own heart. Frank Coopers Marmalade is the best Marmalade, no contest.
Great observations, Alanna. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
America doesn't just have sugar in their bread... They seem to have it in EVERYTHING. Even when it's in the things you'd expect it to be, the quantities are just so much more than anywhere else. When I recently went to New York, I too found the bread to be really sweet. But more worryingly, I kept getting really bad headaches and feeling a bit off, and I couldn't figure out why... Then I realised, it would happened everytime I had a fizzy drink... Not multiple, just the ONE. After realising this I decided to read the ingredients etc on the label of one of the bottles. It turns out that there was pretty much DOUBLE the amount of sugar, when compared to the UK equivalent.
Generally most American recipe books will say "adjust sugar content to UK taste"
But more importantly, what happened to the butter on your toast before the marmalade ?
I'm American. I don't buy mass market bread. I buy from the local bakeries that supply the grocery stores. My PB &. J sandwichs taste so much better.
If you buy bread from the people that supply the grocery shop ,you still buying the same bread 😂.
@@danjames5552 Not necessarily, their local bakery may only supply a couple of local mom 'n' pop shops, whereas mass market supplies your krogers, walmart etc, so would taste different.
Good quality bread can be found anywhere in America. The cheap mass produced stuff is to provide for the lowest income families.
@@ImOk... Bet it still has added sugar.
@@johnashtone7167 not at all ,in his comment he did not say what or how big the stores was that the bakery supplied.
Sweetened bread is an abomination.
Subway should be ashamed of themselves for defending their so called bread.
Sure it is popular, but call it what it is, cake.
I used to live above a branch of Subway, it smelled like when I used to live near a Mr Kipling factory, only with more than a hint of vegetable oil.
Nicely thought through vid Alanna, thank you.
Subway to me smells of microwaved bread. I could never bring myself to actually try it
@@rubysoffner4557 It smells undercooked, cheap, oily, and for some reason, full of sugar.
Like a crap doughnut.
It took me a year to get used to it, and more years to forget.
It still haunts me when I walk by the oddly popular outlets on the high street.
More outlets than McDonalds these days, apparently.
Odd that.
This "sweet bread" might explain why I don't like the taste of Subway sandwiches! 😜
If it was bread it would not be subject to tax, but cake would be taxed, so the motivation was financial.
@@gerardacronin334 Biscuits are taxed as a luxury.
Bread and cakes are not.
Cakes fell into the same bracket as bread, hence the "jaffa cake" arguement.
The law can be an ass.
Arguements below 👇
Sugar isn't actually an ingredient in bread if you look at most european dough recipes, so American breads are actually cake as far as I'm concerned.
Don’t you need half to one teaspoonful to activate the yeast?
Cake would have a couple of *cups* of sugar in it, not a teaspoon. That would be like an American saying that the British don't drink tea, they drink cheese, because of the small amount of milk they put in their tea (the way Americans put milk in coffee).
Honestly, the pickles and ketchup on a typical American sandwich have more sugar in them than the bread. Yes, the bread does have some sugar in it, but it's not a large amount.
@Canalcoholic At least in the UK, you usually use instant yeast which just gets mixed in with the dry ingredients and doesn't need anything additional to activate it. You just have to be careful not to add salt right on top of it.
Wrong. Cake is nice.
@@Canalcoholic sugar is an accelerator, but the natural sugars in the flour alone is more than enough to activate the yeast. So added sugar in the recipe is unnecessary unless you need to make bread in a rush.
All recipes I have used for making bread have a small amount of sugar in them, but that's primarily to feed the yeast, not to make the bread sweet (fast acting yeast has some added already). There are types of bread which are made sweet deliberately (think brioche). Some bagels seem to be made a little sweet too (my LIDL "New York Style" bagels are 5% sugars - plus a rather concerning 9% salt). Ordinary loaves ought not to be sweet at all in my view. My LIDL soft wholemeal loaf is 3% sugar, which strikes me as a bit high, although it doesn't taste sweet.
I'm not sure I believe the story about the sugar in bread being a preservative. Yes, sugar is used for preservation purposes, but at very high concentrations (think jam and preserves) as it kills bacteria and moulds by effectively dehydrating them. The sugar has more affinity for the water, but that requires a high concentration.
To me a lot of American food is rather too sweet in general. Maybe I've just used to less sweet food as the government have been putting pressure on
nb. on the subject of sweetness, I do find the American love of cinnamon rather over the top.
I believe the salt is to stop the yeast fermenting too much, so presumably if you use more sugar you also need more yeast.
@@caw25sha that may have a role, but salt also acts to tighten the gluten, and that helps the dough retain its structure. Without it, the dough will tend to collapse as he CO2 filled cells burst. It does also affect the flavour as well. Apparently bread without salt tastes rather bland.
@@TheEulerID That's very scientific. You'll be telling us about e to the power of i times pi next!
@@TheEulerID My basic bread recipe uses a tablespoon of sugar in 500g of flour, mostly to get the yeast going. Teaspoon of salt is a must. Oil optional, although I usually add it.
@@caw25sha Well spotted...
One of the reasons sugar is added to processed foods is that it is a very useful bulking agent and is a relatively cheap ingredient. Many decades ago, I worked in a factory where we produced various products from milk. One was rice pudding. We made different varieties, from the more expensive to the 'budget' version. The main difference was the ratio of rice to sugar. The ratio of rice to sugar diminished the cheaper the end product. Again, sugar was much cheaper than rice and bulked the puddings out.
As for sugar and other added ingredients in bread, the only way to control what goes in the oven and ends up on your plate is to make it yourself. I use the Bertinet technique which requires only four ingredients - flour, yeast, water and salt. With practice, it doesn't take long and is absolutely delicious.
Great video, as ever.
I have one question, though . . . Did you actually eat a slice of toast with marmalade and no butter? Strange behaviour 🤔😁
When I make rice pudding, I never add any sugar to it. You get plenty of sugar from the milk when you boil it, and that is sufficient for me.
Alanna is dead right about tastes being (far) more sweet across the pond. And I think it has become much more so in recent years. In NYC last October, we found nearly every breakfast unpleasant or inedible, because everything was so sweet. Even things that would be staples of a traditional British breakfast like toast (uugh!) sausages (SWEET sausages?) and even bacon. I don't recall it being like that when we went to the US a lot in the early nineties - indeed, I recall we had some lovely breakfasts then especially out in the boonies.
Another interesting and informative video.
My sister lives in Canada. I will be informing her of this information. She moved to Canada almost 3 years ago and she loves bread 😊
Which bread???
English or Canadian bread???
You should try Irish soda bread if you never had it before, most uk supermarkets sell it. Irish flour has far less gluten in it than typical bread flour, it like an all purpose flour. Soda bread doesn't use yeast to rise it, it uses baking soda instead, it's pretty nice and a bit different.
An interesting video Alanna, I had no idea that bread in the states had added sugar but from the times that I worked there I did notice a difference in taste. I guess to check the sugar content you just have to use your loaf, I'll get my coat.
Another great video, Alanna, many thanks!
Here's a small test for your anxiety!
Did you also know, most UK supermarkets that sell open packs of freshly baked will (during mid-day hours) also cut the loaves to the size that you want for free if you ask the bakery.
sugar is the big killer and its being added to more food types than you might realise.
Absolutely wonderful video. You get better and better. Thanks for this one. Made me smile.
It really annoys me that a regular slice of bread doesn't fit in a regular toaster.
DONT GET ME STARTED ON TOASTERS!! They have , like , 5 working parts and still fail to work properly...A jumbo jet has millions and yet works properly 99.99999% of the time!! 😞
Technology connections has a great video on what he called an "ancient" toaster that, iirc, was from the 40s and was perfect. We definitely went backwards in the toast making department
@@jamesbeeching6138 My toaster toasts perfectly evenly and most bread fits but do have to use the frozen setting with fresh bread even with timer set to max, like mine well toasted. Bought from Lidl, German engineering.
In the UK Salt is used as a preservative (instead of sugar) and especially in bread. It was actually brought up in the news recently that the majority of supermarket Bread has as much or even more salt in 1 slice compared to a whole packet of Ready Salted Crisps.
The role of salt in bread is not primarily as a preservative. What it does is tighten up the gluten and helps prevent the CO2 filled cells from bursting and collapsing the structure. It also controls the rate at which the yeast ferments, without which it would run completely amok and ruin the texture. Also, it has an effect on the taste. Leavened bread without salt will tend to collapse, have a poor texture and be rather bland.
Pretty well every leavened bread recipe will have salt as an ingredient. It is possible to use lo-sodium salt, and that has about half the sodium chloride (the other half is potassium chloride). It's really difficult to get rid of salt from ordinary bread as it performs so many roles.
Supermarket bread is normally about 1/3rd gramme of salt per 44gm slice, roughly the same as a (small) 25gm packet of Walkers crisps. The crisps taste much saltier as it's sprayed onto the surface, whilst in bread it's embedded.
Dude! Thank you so much for talking about this! About 10 years ago my Mom and i noticed a radical change in mass market bread. I remember hearing that all of these companies were adding more preservatives, but the rest of the family didn't taste a difference. That was shocking. My mom and i had never been fond of store bread, but now its inedible. And it's not just that it's too sweet - there's an overripe banana smell and taste. My friend can smell it, too. Nothing beats homemade bread! We all need to be more vigilant in holding these companies accountable.
Alanna, an important element which makes your videos so uniquely engaging, is your natural, down-to-earth, typically Canadian mode of presentation. You bring smiles to my face each time I watch. Thanks, Merci, or, as my Métis daughter-in-law would say, Miigwetch. ❤
Really excellent and informative video! This is even for me who used to read food labels for a living.
France has bread purity laws that restrict the allowable ingredients (or it isnt allowed to be called bread on the label). Germany has similar laws for beer. Cheers!
Sounds like the krauts have their priorities straight
@@crowbar9566Shame you YANKS haven’t.. …🙄
@@Ionabrodie69 I'm not American
I remember buying some American style burger buns in the American section of Asda, and couldn't finish 1. It was like cake.
I find the same with "brioche rolls"
Nice to have you back on this side of the pond!!
The nutritional value on the side of UK food is usually referred to as the Traffic Light System.
Marmite have a peanut butter variety and it's amazing. I love both but would never have put them together.
Yeah tried that,
First scoop was off putting,
By the end of the jar I was hooked.
It tasted more like salted roasted pistachio.
Beefy & Nutty, highly recommended
I wonder if you would think of this, laughing cow cheese, marmite, banana and peanut butter sandwiches. They are delicious.
I too have noticed that some supermarket sliced breads taste sweeter than others these days and it's not for me. I much prefer my bread to have a slightly saltier taste to it and you and you just cant beat a freshly baked crusty loaf. High time Adventures & Naps started it's own bakery I think. You could get a bread delivery van to go along with the Butlers Pizza truck. 👩🚚🍞🍞🍞😊
I've only ever eaten one subway sandwich and the texture of the bread was more cakey than bready,
I bake my own bread and the only time I add sugar is either when I've using dried yeast that needs activated and its no more than a quarter of a teaspoon which you can smell has been converted by the bubbly yeast 20mins later. Or when I'm after some flavour and add a teaspoon of honey to the liquid, top of that loaf also gets top brushed with mix of honey and milk and sprinkled with oats. Only really tricky thing about baking at home is if you want to freeze it, make sure its cooled and bag it sliced as portions.
I used to love walking home late night (early morning in edinburgh) as a student when the bakeries were starting up and the first wafts of bread didn't have to fight for attention under exhaust fumes. You'll never get that same smell around a subway store.
When we moved to Ontario we noticed the sweetness of the bread straight away and it took a while to find a couple of products that didn't taste like cake. Country Harvest sell a no-added sugar loaf which is pretty good, but we also go for Rudolph's Bavarian Market (which still has 2g of sugar but isn't too sweet). We bake a lot at home too, so we know that the other reason that the Canadian loaves contain so much sugar is to super-charge the yeast and bulk the bread up with gas. A large loaf in the UK weighs about 800g, but a huge loaf here in Canada can weigh as little as 600g because it's all puffed up. Also, bread is crazy expensive here. But, nice analysis. Enjoyed the vid. 👍
I've never been to north America but I did know this about bread. I now live in Croatia and only ever buy bakery bread made in the next village. They do sell sliced but I buy it unsliced as it is fresher. When I was a child and heard about peanut butter I assumed it would be savoury. I liked salted peanuts and I liked butter so I thought I would like peanut butter. My brother and myself nagged my mum until she bought a jar but none of us could eat it and it ended up in the bin!
There is a British brand of peanut butter that has zero sugar in it. It tastes quite pleasant and it is not obvious that sugar is missing.
This is a great video and important topic, sugar has no place in bread as an additive, but then it also doesn’t in my main course at dinner and unfortunately there are so many pre-prepared meals on sale that have added sugar as part of the recipe. It’s really worrying to see so much that’s not good for you hidden where you wouldn’t expect it.
What a goldmine your channel is - a Canadian living in the UK, constantly ragging on the US. I guess that's one way to fit in.
Very good vlog - thanks. One of the joys of holidaying in France is walking to the boulangerie in the morning for baguettes, croissants etc, all fresh and marvellous. UK has far more proper fresh bread than 50 years ago when it was mainly mass-produced white stuff, but at least is wasn't sweetened. Also I agree with another poster, when I was in USA on business the breakfasts were all wierdly sweet.
Oh my god she hasn't put butter on her toast before the marmalade 😲🤔😩 cheers Alana great video 😊
A lot of Americans do that, but these days, butter isn't as popular in America as it once was.
I've seen that done with Marmite too. Shocking 👎
Canada doesn't seem to have good local butter, especially in the west coast. Butter from every brand look pale and have really bland taste, their texture is weirdly hard. And they don't encourage to import butter from abroad! I guess people like me who used to love butter can actually fall out of love with butter when you have to live there.
Alanna's next challenge: bread making! I've been doing it for years. When it comes to supermarket bread, I'd be less concerned about added sugar than about the emulsifiers and the overly refined flour. There is little to no fibre in a lot of supermarket bread, and recent research indicates that added emulsifiers may harm your gut microbiome.
I am watching so much of your content, its adorable and funny. Love them xx
I know my flour is fresh because I watch the Spelt growing in the nearby field, and watch it being ground in the water mill I buy it from in Dunster.
I am so allergic to peanuts that just a sniff of peanut butter I feel my throat starting to constrict. So, it’s not that I am anti-peanut butter, it am just anti-dying.
I am shocked that 40% of British households consume peanut butter. I have never known anyone have it, or eat it. Maybe that's just my circle?
Children love it, lots of households have children.
Probably just your circle or maybe they are too embarrassed. I like it, I am not saying I eat it every day, but it’s good to spread on toast.
In Australia a lot of pre schools and some primary schools ban peanut butter and peanuts as there are children who are allergic to peanuts . All teachers in NSW school have to do anaphylaxis training and know how to use an epipen.
Peanut butter in the usa has sugar in it. In australia it tends to be a tad salty
You will have to get Proof Bread to setup a bakery in Canada. I started watching his videos (Proof Bread) during the lock downs when I was looking how to make sourdough bread. they started in a garage and have just started their second bakery in West Main Street, Mesa, AZ, USA.
I just checked my bread bin here in the US and I had three different brands, three different products - rolls, English muffins and sliced white bread and none of them have any added sugar. Two were popular brands and one was a store brand.
Great video Alanna! I used to have crab paste sandwiches in primary school 🤢. My school friends must have hated me 😂
Mine was (and occasionally still is) anchovy paste. My friends just thought I was weird. (The animus was for liver and bacon paste, which was also a favourite of mine!)
I like peanut butter and banana sandwiches using wholemeal bread ,maybe this could be a tasting item for you Alana. Excellent video which I enjoyed watching.
That’s my favourite ..but the banana has to be mashed ..but no sugar 😊🇬🇧
My husband bakes our bread. I hate the commercial stuff.
Just bread flour, yeast, a little olive oil,a touch of salt and a teaspoon of sugar. Always wholemeal.
A lot of bread will have a bit of sugar in to help feed the yeast, but not enough to give the bread a sweet taste.
I love seeded brown bread,the more seeds the better,I’ve never checked the sugar content,but I will do before I buy some next time,I’m not a lover of the white loaf,I prefer flat & pitta bread.
A bad thing in the US is how many food products and sodas have corn syrup in place of sugarcane/beet. They've got a big subsidised farming industry that has a lot of corn to sell.
The corn syrup has apparently had a seriously negative effect on people's health. Things like diabetes have got worse since corn syrup started being used instead of sugar.
I put sugar in my bread mix when I bake my own bread because the yeast gets to work faster if there's a little bit of sugar in it. Only 2 teaspoons for a 500g of flour though.
The vitamin C in the ingredients list is there to make the bread rise better.
😂 I've never heard you say bagel before... I can't cope 😂
A long time ago 1993 I visited the U S made the mistake of trying their chocolate. .. it honestly tasted like sick , some chemical they add I found out later .As too peanut butter it's a treat for dogs isn't it?
I think Alanna made a video about that.
Honestly, who thought it was a good idea to make toasters with small slots. Is there a decent size toaster out there in the UK? This hunt deserves the Adventures and Naps video treatment.
By the way, a very informative video. Liked it a lot.
With you there, mate. I recently bought a long slot toaster so that I wouldn't have to trim the top off my slices, but even on their sides one edge sticks out. Next stop Nisbets catering supplies, to see if there's a commercial one that fits the bill.
@@nigelcuthbertson701 The Breville Edge Deep Chassis 2-Slice Toaster [VTT981] is supposed to be ok but I'm still deliberating 😊
@@norabradley9108 Thanks for that. I'll look it up!
You add sugar to the bread dough to feed the yeast to make a lighter fluffier loaf, if you add more than the yeast will consume prior to cooking you will get sweet bread.
Our local baker opens 6am morning, fresh loaves Cobs, Wholemeal, Brown loaves, Soda bread, White bloomers and seedy bloomers assorted bread rolls, brown and white. Lovely makes mouth water
,
Good to see that Alanna used her loaf in this one 😂 🍞
You could earn a lot of dough with jokes like that 😂
A different issue here in the UK (and you could see it on the ingredients list you showed) is vinegar used as a preservative. If you grow up eating this bread you don't notice it, but my (Hungarian) wife almost pukes when she opens the bag and is hit by the aroma of vinegar. (Sometimes it isn't vinegar, it's something like ascorbic acid, but she says she can smell that too.)
Also vinegar is used to make Brown bread "brown"...
That’s just started to become common in my country and I can’t stomach it!! Although I could really try to get those best before dates longer than a week!!
The bit about subway bread being more like cake made me chuckle, here in South Yorkshire we actually call bread rolls, Breadcakes 😂
"Why is the bread need to be sweet" this was an unintentionally hilarious and sweet sentence. Thanks LanDawg.
Thanks Alanna! Never heard of Hawaiian bread, UK has fruit loaves for sweeter taste (currents/sultanas added). Sunflower & pumpkin seed bread is mighty! Co-Op brand is good as it doesn't use artificial ingredients in it's foods. Think you nailed why North American bread is sweeter, just the sheer logistics of everything!
Enjoy all the marmalades! 🙏🙏
Can't beat a good fruit loaf with good quality butter, yum
Thanks so much for watching!
Good video, entertaining and informative.
My Panasonic breadmaker came with an excellent instruction and recipe booklet which explains that sugar is added to make the bread softer and improve browning of the crust. Typical bread recipes specify 5g of sugar (and 5g of salt) for a loaf made with 400g of flour.
I've got the Panasonic bread machine too. I don't add any sugar and the loaves have turned out fine. I've also managed to drop the amount of salt to 4g, any lower and I can taste the difference. Weird.
@@alysoncocking1236yes i have one and have cut out all the sugar in ordinary bread, might try reducing the salt as well, good idea.
If you need sugar for browning, you aren't baking at a high enough temperature.
I think it's just called the Traffic Light System.
I'm not even a fan of the shelved brioche breads sold in the UK. Too sweet.
For me as a German ... its a no-go to make sweet bread. I mean regular bread. There may be a little bit of sugar added as some kind of kickstart for the yeast. But not to make it sweet. And for sure we eat our non sweet bread with marmalade, Nutella, honey and others - besides cheese, meet, sauasage....
And yes we have ginger bread and some kind of fruity bread.
But in the nutrition facts you may see sugar - while there is no sugar added. Sugar is also generated by a chemical process in the dough.
Hi Alanna, the US grows a lot of corn, corn doesn't keep long enough for the amount grown to be used before it has to be destroyed, so much of it is made into corn syrup which will keep for a lot longer, but there is so much corn grown even this is a big ask for corn syrup to be used up, so it gets put into things which really wouldn't have syrup, it's one of the reasons why in North America you can easily get shopping for two weeks or more and it will keep, try getting bread to keep for a week in the UK, it won't because of the amount of sugar by comparison. Unfortunately the corn subsidy is used to fuel the for profit health care system in the US, over feed the population with sugar and diabetes is common, the treatment needs to be treated obviously, it's a nasty cycle that is self perpetuating.
And high fructose corn syrup has replaced sugar as a sweetener in many mass processed food products. Corn is also a source of the ethanol added to motor fuel, and is also used for animal feed.
The amount of sugar even in US bread is insufficient to preserve it. Preservation is achieved by adding a variety of man made chemicals to the product (not just bread).
Great video, Alanna. When I was a kid, we used to have sugar butties as a snack - just a slice of buttered bread with as much sugar as you could make stick to the butter. Perfect when you'd been out playing footie in the rain. Can't even begin to imagine eating one now!
Sugar butties were about the only thing my Dad could make when Mum wasn't around to make us food! 😂
Oh yes!!! that brought back memories. Banana & chocolate spread or how about ready salted crisps and salad cream. Childhood sandwiches!!!
Ahh I had a sugar buttie on Patreon! 😂 the texture was like sand
You MUST be from the north,I'm from county Durham and I grew up on sugar and bread along with brown sauce and bread,those were the days👌
@@AdventuresAndNaps yeah, you have to sort of let it melt in your mouth - you don't want to do too much chewing!
Weirdly in every supermarkets of Vancouver, there're lines of skimmed milk and very few choice of butter and cream. Yet they put sugar in almost everything... Thank you for pointing this out!
Hi Alanna, I've watched the video now 😄 - very good. I was on a train when I tweeted you earlier, never miss your videos.
When we were visiting our daughter back in May she steered us in Loblaws to a brand as she's found it less sweet - I'll ask her which it was.
We do have that Hawaiian bread here in the UK but we call it Victoria Sponge 😂
Interesting video Alanna, reinforcing the view that US consumers are generally offered less healthy food choices than in the UK/Europe.
If you like wholemeal bread you MUST check the ingredients as many wholemeal "looking" breads are actually white bread that is coloured brown. For example nearly all brown seeded breads (which look so healthy) are made from white flour and coloured brown.
I have now moved to home made bread (using a breadmaking machine) as it cuts out all but what you would expect in bread (just flour, yeast, sugar, salt, butter). 1.5 teaspoons of sugar in a loaf.
Very informative video.
Bread is incredibly simple. After flour' water and yeast anything else added or removed is probably going to be for preservative or cost cutting purposes. I'll imagine sugar is for the purposes of preservation. There's nothing particularly wrong with an excess of sugar in a bread mix. But that doesn't make it a sweet rather than a savoury, we have tea cakes and hot cross buns that are pretty much considered a sweet food but are bread based and very nice they are too. I can't imagine I would want a sweet bread with ham or cheese though
Sugar is often added to help yeast doing its job, of making the dough raise. this means that there is no sugar left when you put the bread into the oven. But since there is a limit to how much sugar the yeast can "eat"
Also Alanna... You have to remember just how small North American slices of bread are as well... Some of these Loaves are only about three inches tall... But an 800g Warburtons Toastie Thick Sliced Loaf here in the UK... Is about five inches tall and has 17 slices... Which works out at just over 47g per slice... So i looked at the largest Wonder Bread Giant Loaf i could find... It has 24 slices in each loaf... And it weighs in at 24oz... Or just 680g or 28.3g per slice... So comparing Sugar content per slice... Actually makes the difference even worse here.
Yes, you have to take notice of the percentage of sugar, not just grams per slice.
Well yes and no. We have the Country Harvest bread that Alanna was comparing and they're not small slices - they're about the same size at 45 g each.
Also I suspect Alanna hadn't fully explored some of the grocery stores growing up because Loblaws/Superstore (which is where the Country Harvest was likely bought) does indeed have in-store baked bread and the sugar content is down at about 1g per slice for most of the white breads and even 0g on some of the Italian whole wheat loaves.
The g/slice numbers are quite differents to Central European values where nearly everything is related to 100g. Per slice might be OK, if you count calories for one sandwich, but not to compare different products.
And bread should be eatable with sweet or sour/salty additions. So it needs to be neutral in taste between these extremes. There are some bakery products here which can be used like bread which are sweet, but you would never call them bread.
I actually got up from my seat and went to check out my own supermarket bought sliced bread (It's a Warburton product) and it was 0.9g of sugar per slice.
A fascinating piece today.....
I have peanut butter on toast for breakfast about 4 days a week, by the way.
An interesting theory about North Americans favouring sweet filling for sandwiches, whereas we Brits like a savoury filling, and so a sweeter bread is more fitting.
When my kids were tiny, advice to new mothers was to avoid giving added sugar to babies' and toddlers' foods- both because obviously it's healthier not to, but also they are born able to taste any natural sweetness in foods, which you don't want to swamp, and you don't want to habituate them to expect extra sweetness. Maybe this is what has happened to Americans.
You also have to factor in the milk they serve in US schools. It's, apparently, SO SO sweet; Jamie Oliver campaigned in the noughties to have it banned from US schools because of the sugar content.
Some people say 'buy-gul'. I often say it myself randomly, on buses and trains, or out in the open.
I remember the first time I had McDonalds as a child (in the 1980s) I asked "Mum why does the bread taste like cake?"
Important topic as it certainly plays a role in obesity levels. I noticed when I moved to Spain that bread was much sweeter than the UK. I found a loaf I liked in the local supermarket, but after a few years they changed the recipe and added more sugar. Forget bagels here, they taste like cakes!
Even marmalade, which is sweet, still has the slightly bitter astringency to it.
That was a smooth intro! Hardly noticed the thrown loaf at all.
I believe it's added to feed the yeast that's added for it to rise.
There are bread-like products in the UK that have added sugar, but they tend not to use the word "bread". Examples include brioche buns (added caster sugar), sandwich thins and, yes, the bagels you mentioned. I just avoid those because of their pointlessly high sugar content.
As for peanut butter, it should be smooth and also paired with crushed salt'n'vinegar crisps (Golden Wonder if you can find them)....definitely not with jam (aka jelly). You want a sweet and sour combo, not a ludicrous sweet and sweet combo (diabetic coma with US bread here we come...).
Oh yes I remember the bread in the USA being dreadful. It's not just the sweetness, it has an awful texture too. British bread certainly goes better with lovely delicious Marmite. Thanks for lifting the lid on this Alanna 😀👍
Sugar feeds the yeast as well. When I make it at home I put a teaspoon in but not as much as in the states
Thats the thing over here we have a thing called afternoon tea, in which alongside the pot of tea(with a teaspoon of sugar), there a selection of sandwiches(no sugars) and a selection of cakes(with sugars) and/or scones with jam and cream. Doing that in North America you would be overloaded with sugars!
Paddington bear isn't British, he's Peruvian...
But the Queen adopted him.
@@alangknowlesWell actually the Browns adopted him 😂 Mr Gruber actually addresses him as Mr Brown.
I watched a programme on TV about the amount of sugar in American food. It said that, on average, American bread contains 6 teaspoons of sugar per slice.
IGNORE THAT, I'M WRONG
I remember during lockdown, the government sent food parcels to vulnerable people. They contained essential items including bread. The bread was American and very sweet. As I am diabetic I couldn't eat it as it put my readings through the roof.
They must have tons of the stuff in frozen storage at depots around the country.
Thanks for the video Alana. More please 😅
I don't think that can be right. 6 teaspoons of sugar is about 36g. The average slice of American white bread contains around 1.5g.
@eadweard.
I'm just repeating what was said in the tv documentary. Always open to being corrected
@eadweard.
It possibly may have been something else then.
I've just had a look, and an American loaf has nearly 4 ounces of added sugar in an 800g loaf. A British loaf doesn't have any added sugar
Those sliced loafs like Kingsmill are made using the speedy industrialised Chorleywood bread process and aren't a patch on bread made the real way.
Morrison's and other supermarkets in the UK sell eg Wright's bread flour mix which is a step up. Just add 300 ml water, knead for 2 mins, leave to rise for 40 mins then bake for 30 mins @ gas 8 for a great loaf.
Hi Alanna, love the flying bread there!!! I have never thought about sugar being added to bread for preservative. We may have similar here, due to the size of Australia. actually, I have just looked it up on the Internet and we seem to have a mixture. Some of our bread has added sugar and some doesn't. It all depends on the brand. No, I am not keen on Peanut Butter, Vegemite or Marmite. I find Marmalade to be okay. We actually pronounce bagel as (bay-gel) here in Australia. I just checked our bread here at home. We have wholemeal bread and I can't find any mention of sugar on that. I am definitely going to check further with this. You have now got me curious. Anyway, take care. Rob in Melbourne Australia.
Hi Again have you ever been to a “Janes Pantry” which is a Bread, Pastry and Cake shop. Not only do they make the bread in various recipes fresh every day they also have a sandwich counter where they will make you a fresh stuffed sandwich of your choice. Their breads are really tasty the pastries are large and the sandwiches are brilliant. (Info just for you) if there is one local go and try it.
As to the extra sugar in the bread, don’t forget sugar is addictive. Years ago almost everyone had tea with sugar in it, the saying milk and two sugars was known as NATO Standard for tea, now people have tried to drink tea without sugar I certainly changed to sugarless tea.
So out of this you can see since sugar is addictive that surely is a reason to put it in when loads of people like the bread to have extra sugar in it, seams reasonable to me! Or is that thinking the worst. Bit like washed and scrubbed eggs in the US they actually cost more to produce for the shops, more machines to cleans them more power to refrigerate them, more money to buy them (probably). I must admit to becoming more cynical about all things USA the more I hear and learn.
Just checked our bread in the kitchen. For reference we live in Illinois. For a simple load or white bread (Target store brand) it contains 1g of sugar per slice and sugar was quite a ways down on the ingredient list.
We visited Wisconsin 20 years ago and the bread tasted sweet, but more bizarrely so did the butter! High fructose corn syrup is I think the the issue. I have been making our bread for well over 6 years, and was actually shocked by how white a Warburtons slice of bread was! I needed sunglasses. Bread should be flour, water, yeast fat of some source (oil or butter) and a nearly teaspoon of salt and sugar. I suspect sugar is actually optional if you are not in a hurry for the yeast to do it’s thing!
Interesting video. Yeah I first learned this when I started visiting the U.K. It is one of those thing you can’t un-taste once you’ve you’ve tasted it!
Very true!