(fast-paced chimes) - I love bread.
- There is so much good bread in France.
- [Narrator] And although man does not live by bread alone,
without it, a meal seems incomplete.
- On every corner, there is a bakery that is pumping out
delicious, fresh, well made bread.
- [Announcer] It's so fresh.
- This is not easily available to me,
and I want to know why.
Why is it that the bread that I can get easily
looks very, very different?
Why is it that the US sucks at making bread?
In fact, let me just show you what that looks like.
(video rewinding)
Okay, wait, it's 12 hours earlier, still back in the US.
I'm actually at a grocery store right now.
(gentle music)
- This is how a lot of us Americans get our bread.
(indistinct voices) Sigh.
My favorite part is when they make this plastic
look like it's steaming, it's just like foggy plastic,
to be like, "this was just baked right now."
And it's like, "no, this was actually baked
"like three weeks ago in a factory in like Connecticut."
- [Speaker] It's even made with real butter. (laughing)
- [Announcer] Always buy Wonder Bread.
(cash register chiming) You'll be glad you did.
- The reason I'm purchasing this bread
is because I want to bring it with me to France,
just to like have an example lesson,
and I may use it as a pillow,
'cause it's literally as soft as a Novaform pillow.
(snoring)
Some of this bagged bread is made with ingredients
that are literally illegal in the EU.
(machine beeps) Back to France. Let's do it.
- There is nothing more American than Wonder Bread.
(upbeat music) (machines beeping)
- [Narrator] (speaking foreign language) France.
(light accordion music)
- In case you're wondering, yes.
Any video from Paris must include music like this.
Nice, gentle, cafe accordion music.
There's my composer, Tom, making it right now.
- It's pretty cool. - It's just so good.
Okay, so yeah, we know that France is good at bread
and the US sucks at it.
Is this just another video where I shit on the USA
for being terrible at certain things?
Yes, it is. (music winding down)
That's exactly what it is, but hear me out.
I actually have something to say here.
I believe that bread is a really important symbol
for a bigger cultural phenomenon in the US,
and that's what I want to talk about today,
where industrialized bread came from, why it exists,
and how some people are trying to change it.
(music continues)
I'll get to that explanation, but first,
I'm gonna go into that bakery over there and buy myself
a large ball of butter and flour stuffed with chocolate.
Oh, and Tom, can you throw in a beat
to this accordion music, please?
- Yeah!
- Thanks. (upbeat accordion music)
- [Speaker] Any questions?
- Yes. Are you going to finish that "quassoint"?
(music continues)
Oh, yeah.
(music fades out)
Pause.
My job is to make videos for you,
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Let's dive back into the video.
Okay, so why bread?
There's a million other things I could talk about
that are better in other parts of the world,
but it turns out that bread is the most important
prepared food that humans have ever made.
And therefore, it is worth talking about.
So let me explain, in under a minute,
the overview of the tens of thousands of years of history
of bread and its chemistry and why it's so important.
Don't think I can do it in under a minute?
Check this out.
12,000 years ago, humans realized
that they could plant this grass
instead of just foraging for it.
This grass was called wheat,
and when it was ground up with a stone,
it made this powder that, if you put water with it,
creates this stretchy, goopy thing that has a bunch
of sugar from the flour that's been released.
Oh, look. - Wow.
- [Johnny] All the bacteria in the air
loves this sugary goop.
- Nice.
- And they descend to feast on it,
burping out gas as they eat. (burping)
Whoa, the gas can't float up into the air,
because it's getting trapped in this stretchy ball of goop
like a balloon, like a pillow, like magic.
- Magic.
- All this feasting and burping is making it rise
and turn into a pillowy thing
that is way bigger than it was.
Put this blob next to some fire,
and all of the little bubbles
that were just created turn hard.
Wait, all of this can happen because of this one grass?
Yes.
"Cool, let's plant a lot more of this grass
"and build all of human civilization
"off of it," said humans. ♪ Society ♪
So that is bread, like the oldest and most important
prepared food item that humans have ever invented.
Eventually, humans got really good
at doing this bread, flour, water, yeast thing.
And especially here in France, they took it really seriously
and have created a whole culture
around making bread delicious and amazing.
And you can see that they've continued that culture today
just by the number of bakeries that exist in this city.
There are 30,000 independent bakeries in France.
Compare that to the 3000 that are in the United States.
And then remember that the US
has like a much larger population.
And if you do all the math,
you see that France has 50 times more bakeries per capita
than the United States. 50 times.
I mean, that is such a clear indication
of how much they value good bread
that is baked a certain way.
Here with Mr. Local over here.
- Yeah! - Local French food in France.
- Yes.
94% of regions live less than
five minutes away from a bakery.
(tone chiming)
And that shows you they care. They care.
It's like, you hear stuff like that, and you're like,
"aha, this is their priority."
And the culture of eating is just as much important here
as how like the ingredients
are sourced and prepared and whatnot.
People don't eat while rushing
towards their next meeting or whatever.
Like it's very much, no, you sit down, you make it a thing.
It's just a part of the way of life here.
People come into the boulangeries almost on a daily basis,
and they check in with each other.
It's like a, "hey, how you doing?"
"I'm doing great." This is what's happening.
- Why, why, why, why?
That is the question.
Why are these bread cultures so different?
And the answer comes down to what America was founded on.
I mean, a reminder that America is a country
founded by a bunch of people who left their country
to go make a new life, to do things differently,
to do things more individualistically.
And the way that expressed itself
for a really long time was mechanization industrialization.
And to be clear, in the history,
Britain was as much to blame for all of this
mechanizing of bread as America was.
- That's insulting!
- But anyway, we're talking about the USA for a little bit.
So by the 1920s, you had this machine that was invented,
an automatic bread slicer.
Hello, convenience, innovation, America.
(eagle calling) (patriotic music)
No more serrated knife versus a tough crusty loaf.
Now the machine will do it for you.
This is the greatest thing since sliced br...
(record scratching)
Oh, so that's where we're at.
"This is the greatest thing," says America,
and Europe was like, "wait, yeah, we like machines too,
"but like, not for bread.
"Slice this bread, and you make your bread spoil faster.
"We don't need a machine for sliced bread."
But the automatic slicer was just the beginning for America.
- Now, I'm just getting warmed up.
- Now that we have sliced bread that, yes, spoils faster,
let's make it, I don't know, not spoil as fast.
One way to do this is to take the part
of the wheat berry that has oils in it,
the husk and the bran, and get rid of it.
(objects clattering) (cat meowing)
Focus on the big, carb-loaded berry in the middle.
But there had to be a more industrial solution
to make the bread last longer, to be whiter, to be softer.
And it's the 1950s, and Europe is like,
"whoa, dude, America. Chill out.
"Like, bread is just bread.
"We've been doing this
"for literally tens of thousands of years.
"Let's just like stick to the program."
And America's like, "no!"
So America starts adding all of this stuff to their bread,
bleaches and dough conditioners.
And suddenly they're putting their bread
into controlled chambers so that it will be
hot enough to rise faster.
And they're putting preservatives in
so that their bread can now sit on a shelf
for not just one or two days like it should,
but four days, five days, six days,
a whole week, and it's still soft.
It is still white. It is still spongy and delicious.
But it now has 15 ingredients instead of three.
And it's cheap and convenient and stable,
and America is loving this.
And Europe is like, "whoa."
- Whoa. "You took this way too far.
"This is not bread anymore."
And indeed, I would argue that this is not bread anymore.
This is a bread-like substance.
It's a different product made from a different process,
and yet we use the same word for it.
If you want to know more about
what's inside of this kind of bread,
I was actually here, making this video,
when I stumbled upon a video
from one of my favorite YouTubers, Adam Ragusea,
that's like a deep dive into all of the ingredients
in this kind of industrial bread.
Definitely go check it out.
Some bread in the US has taken it so far
that they will put in additives that keep it
spongy and soft or that keep it really white,
even though these additives are known
to like cause cancer and inflame asthma...
(coughing) And...
Do all of these terrible things.
Many of these additives that are legal
to be put in American bread are literally illegal
in Europe and many other countries.
Azodicarbonamide... (X-Files theme song)
Is one of 'em.
This is a whitening agent, but you know what?
This product, ADA, also helps other things
stay softer, like yoga mats.
ADA is in yoga mats to make them...
(toy squeaking) Spongy and soft.
And it is banned in the EU and many other countries.
Our obsession with convenience, cheapness, softness,
shelf life has led us down a really dangerous path,
and yet we're totally okay with it somehow.
This is why I think bread is a useful symbol
for broader American culture.
It shows us how far we are willing to go
to prioritize things like cheapness and convenience
over tried and true methods
that have been baked into culture.
(drumbeat) (cymbal clashing)
Of course, industrialized bread exists here as well.
It doesn't have some of the carcinogenic ingredients
that are not allowed in the EU,
but it still has all of the dough conditioners, bleaches,
still artificially risen, all of that.
The difference is that it is rare.
It is much more rare here.
What is much more common is the ability
to go to your local bakery and get bread
that only has a few ingredients,
and it's the ingredients that humans have been using
for tens of thousands of years to make this staple food.
- The feeling that I generally have
is that this is how it should be.
And then when I go elsewhere
and you have other kinds of bread
that last kind of bizarre amounts of time,
you're like, "this is not really how it should be."
You get calibrated to kind of this new standard here,
and it kinda ruins you. (laughing)
- It turns out Paris is lowkey
one of the most bikeable cities I've ever been in,
but it used to not be like that.
Like last time I was here, it was not this bikeable.
I smell some urban design policy changes afoot here.
Someone tried to change this in the US a few years ago,
a company called Panera.
- [Announcer] What could be better
than a visit to Panera Bread?
- It tried to bring like European bread culture
to the United States. And they did.
They had a high quality, delicious bread,
but what happens next is potentially
the best metaphor for America.
- Hello, I like money.
- They got a business loan so they could expand,
and then they got investors,
and they started to expand and scale.
And then they were purchased in a massive merger,
and now they're planning to go public
on the public stock exchanges.
Like, they just became a massive corporation
who does not focus on making quality artisan bread.
Instead, they're now just a machine pumping out bread
that kind of looks and feels like European bread,
but is now done in a uniform,
mass produced, industrialized process,
all in the name of scale and profit.
- (gasps) Wow, they have it. Canned bread.
- So the question is, why does this matter?
Like, am I just being a snob who's like,
"traditional bread is better, and therefore,
"everyone should have it, and I hate America"?
- That was snobby. You're a snob.
- No, I'm not.
- Kind of, yeah, but also, it actually makes a difference
in how it goes into your body.
The beauty of bread, always,
was that you could put this goop out in the air,
and bacteria would come down and start to feast on it
and kind of start the digestion process.
That is what natural fermentation does,
is it starts to break down the wheat
and make it ready to go into your body.
The way that we make bread in America
doesn't really leave time for this.
We use heat and chemicals to speed this process up,
to make it rise faster, to make it rise bigger
in an artificial, synthetic way.
And so you're actually getting a much inferior product
to what original bread making looks like
and what it produces.
Yes, it lasts longer.
Yes, it tastes like chewy, pillowy, sugary heaven,
but it's not bread the way that humans have been eating it
for tens of thousands of years.
Convenience, scale, independence.
That is what we love in America.
We love shelf life.
We love industrialized efficiency.
And to me, yeah, all that stuff is super great,
because it means we get to live these wonderful,
prosperous, convenient lives,
but I think we lose something really big
when we focus on those as the priorities
as opposed to quality and community and culture.
Last thing I'll say here is that this is slowly changing.
You have a movement in the US of people making
some of the best bread in the world,
using the most traditional methods and ingredients.
In these big cities, you have amazing bakeries doing bread
that is on par with anything you could get in Europe,
and that kind of blows my mind.
The problem is, and my critique,
is that that is still so rare, and specialty,
and really only available to people
who live in big urban areas.
And meanwhile, the rest of us,
the most accessible bread to us
is this industrial, mass produced garbage.
- Belongs in the trash.
- And that is enough to make me pretty frustrated.
(upbeat accordion music)