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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   1966 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for August 9, 2023

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

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  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

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As a preservative, and possibly for cultural reasons. The regular white bread Americans like is kind of just a variant on brioche, it’s a descendant of Anglo-Dutch bread rather than the crustier French or Italian equivalents. In big cities, upper middle class people differentiate themselves by being bread snobs and lamenting sugary bread, this has led to New York restaurants importing French Poilâne bread at $25 a loaf, but it’s mostly a cultural thing.

In America, breakfast is mostly sweet or, if it’s savory, doesn’t usually include a strong bread component (replaced by biscuits/scones, hash browns, grits etc). In Europe, breakfast is often a savory meal served with bread (eg in Germany, bread with cold sausages/meats). Maybe this affected bread preferences.

Aren't French and Italian breakfasts essentially dessert as well? In France the standard is to serve a 2 ounce coffee which comes with not one, but two, gigantic sugar packets enough to supersaturate the coffee. Paired, of course, with a pastry.

The distinguishing characteristic of the American and English breakfasts would seem to be their gigantic size, not their sugar level.

Italian breakfasts are definitely sweet. Cappuccino, cornetto, bread with jam or Nutella. It might look insubstantial, but you can easily pack 400-500 calories into a quick breakfast. They still eat proper bread with their sweet spreads, which makes sense: why add even more sugar?

In big cities, upper middle class people differentiate themselves by being bread snobs and lamenting sugary bread, this has led to New York restaurants importing French Poilâne bread at $25 a loaf, but it’s mostly a cultural thing.

I thought they all switched to handmade bread during the pandemic.

There's no way a few grams of sugar per slice has any preservative effect. Probably the opposite.

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