4 ms·

> You can't reliably and conveniently get "good" bread in the US unless you own a bread machine, and even then you have to pick out your flour carefully. Or li

> You can't reliably and conveniently get "good" bread in the US unless you own a bread machine, and even then you have to pick out your flour carefully. Or live near a Trader Joe's or Whole Foods. They're not that unusual.

thatfrenchguy 7y ago
It's not "good" bread though.
- logfromblammo 7y ago
  At some point "good" bread goes to "no true Scotsman" bread. The point is that for loaf bread, a staple food for much of civilization, you have to go out of your way and make a special effort in the US to find something of similar quality to that which is the default at food merchants in other parts of the world. As I don't have a Trader Joe's or Whole Foods anywhere near me, I can't speak to the quality of their bread offerings. At Kroger or Publix or Piggly Wiggly or Target or Wal-mart, the bagged & sliced bread quality is so far below the basic-recipe bread machine loaf that the only reasonable use case for it is to make sandwiches, where the purpose of the bread is to have a neutral flavor, and keep the other ingredients together and off your hands--a task which might still be better suited to a tortilla or cabbage leaves. Ezekiel bread suffers from the "lifestyle aisle" problem at most grocery stores. To the store management, it isn't a "bread" as much as it is "alt-healthy lifestyle food". You don't even know it's there, unless you happen to notice it in the fridges next to the kombucha, kefir, cage-free barn-free pastured free-range eggs, and organic juice brands. If you were shopping for "bread", you would probably miss it, because it's nowhere near the bakery or the other breads. So "normal" people don't buy it, and then the store drops it from lack of sales.
maxxxxx 7y ago
Their bread is crap mostly too though.
- justin66 7y ago
  Trader Joe's sells Ezekiel 4:9, which is one of the very few foods I buy with an easily comprehensible list of ingredients. Homemade bread is always going to taste better, of course.
armitron 7y ago
Ezekiel bread (toasted) is the best one can do at US supermarkets. It doesn’t compare to whole grain sourdough breads one can easily get in parts of Europe but it is ultra healthy and quite good tasting if you toast it.

thatfrenchguy 7y ago

It's not "good" bread though.

logfromblammo 7y ago
At some point "good" bread goes to "no true Scotsman" bread. The point is that for loaf bread, a staple food for much of civilization, you have to go out of your way and make a special effort in the US to find something of similar quality to that which is the default at food merchants in other parts of the world. As I don't have a Trader Joe's or Whole Foods anywhere near me, I can't speak to the quality of their bread offerings. At Kroger or Publix or Piggly Wiggly or Target or Wal-mart, the bagged & sliced bread quality is so far below the basic-recipe bread machine loaf that the only reasonable use case for it is to make sandwiches, where the purpose of the bread is to have a neutral flavor, and keep the other ingredients together and off your hands--a task which might still be better suited to a tortilla or cabbage leaves. Ezekiel bread suffers from the "lifestyle aisle" problem at most grocery stores. To the store management, it isn't a "bread" as much as it is "alt-healthy lifestyle food". You don't even know it's there, unless you happen to notice it in the fridges next to the kombucha, kefir, cage-free barn-free pastured free-range eggs, and organic juice brands. If you were shopping for "bread", you would probably miss it, because it's nowhere near the bakery or the other breads. So "normal" people don't buy it, and then the store drops it from lack of sales.

maxxxxx 7y ago

Their bread is crap mostly too though.

justin66 7y ago
Trader Joe's sells Ezekiel 4:9, which is one of the very few foods I buy with an easily comprehensible list of ingredients. Homemade bread is always going to taste better, of course.

armitron 7y ago

Ezekiel bread (toasted) is the best one can do at US supermarkets. It doesn’t compare to whole grain sourdough breads one can easily get in parts of Europe but it is ultra healthy and quite good tasting if you toast it.