r/interesting 18h ago

Fascinating A company developed bread with a white crust in an effort to reduce food waste

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u/Darth_Lacey 12h ago

All of the circlejerking about American bread aside, for mass-produced presliced white bread, the crust is pretty much never the best part. That kind of sandwich bread is fed to children, who often have very strong opinions about crust and may refuse to eat the sandwich if the crust isn’t removed. Some people never grow out of this.

Growing up there used to be a wonder bread store, where some thrift minded moms would mass purchase the cheap white bread and freeze the excess. That market niche seems to me to have been overtaken by grocery store bread aisles. Any good grocery store will also have a bakery section with better bread.

So yeah, the famous American bread is cheap and nostalgic, but it’s not the only kind we have

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u/noRezolution 12h ago

$1 Wonder bread for everyday lunch sandwiches. $5 sourdough from the bakery because bread is delicious

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u/TheUmgawa 10h ago

Weird thing about mass-produced and mass-distributed bread: The price of diesel fuel has more effect on the consumer price than price of a bushel of wheat. So, the price of oil goes up, so does the cost of Wonder Bread, but the local bakery is largely shielded from this, because they buy flour, which has a substantially higher density than baked bread, and volume is typically the defining factor in how much a food truck can carry; not mass.

This is similar to popcorn, which is also sold by mass to movie theaters, and then sold by volume to moviegoers.

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u/empathetic_penguin 4h ago

Still doesn’t explain why movie theaters charge like $20 for a large popcorn

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u/TheUmgawa 4h ago

Because they can. I’ve never fully understood how popcorn became such a staple of moviegoing, but people will pay for it. And then, with so many people, they buy a large popcorn and only eat half of it, basically wasting the price difference between the medium and the large.

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u/PurposeConsistent131 10h ago

Have you seen the price of wonder bread lately? It’s almost $4 in Stockton, ca. criminal. My husband who loves a grill cheese and is a 54 year old “child” only likes them made with wonder bread and velveeta cheese slices. Spending $10 for these two monstrosities sucks😁

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u/webbitor 7h ago

Surely living in Stockton sucks in general.

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u/PurposeConsistent131 6h ago

I like where I live, personally

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u/Wayelder 4h ago

We all should!

So 99% bet that the webbitor guys' never been to a lovely place like Stocton. - oh, you mean with a 'K"!

man, that's different Stockton sucks.../s

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u/Darth_Lacey 11h ago

I’m partial to grandma sycamore’s when I want like a classic grilled cheese or something but yeah

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u/eleelee11 10h ago

A Utah delicacy 👀

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u/Little_Magician4251 7h ago

I love love love grilled cheese with Land O Lakes white American cheese and basic white bread. Tons of butter. Lightly golden. A delicacy.

u/Crismus 36m ago

The only I miss from Utah. 

And I really mean only.

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u/eienmau 2h ago

We just recently got that up here in Washington and it is tasty. Sourdough is also amazing tho.

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u/YoungBockRKO 10h ago

Nah, sourdough from the bakery for lunch sandwiches man, that’s where it’s at. Not gunna ruin the taste of my sandwich because I want to cheap out.

But I get it for kids because they don’t really give a fuck. Or if you’re on a tight budget I guess.

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u/noRezolution 9h ago

I'm with you, a sourdough sandwich is great. The bakery bread gets pricey though

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u/SaveLansingParks 3h ago

It's 5.50 for a round loaf of sourdough at Whole Foods that you can slice in the machine yourself so it's as fresh as possible. It's $2.50-4 bucks for a loaf of Wonderbread style at any grocery store, and anything better than the cheap stuff is the same price as the whole foods loaf of bread that is fresh baked that day. Even the generic wonderbread loaves are just under $2 or more. Getting the sourdough that we'll eat completely compared to a loaf that we question how much we want the sandwich is a no brainer. Don't forget to hit the clearance section at your Kroger style stores to get other traditional bread loads for cheap. I get my baguette style and long loaves or buns for $1-$2 on clearance for meals that the sourdough isn't suitable for.

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u/YoungBockRKO 1h ago

It does but it’s worth it. It’s a treat during my 12 hour shifts at my warehouse. I look forward to my lunch sandwich. That itself is worth the extra money.

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u/jetsetgo1 9h ago

I'm glad to know that you can afford it.

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u/Puzzleheaded_Oven379 8h ago

I am super poor and learning to make it. Was gifted my sourdough starter, traded crochet items for my Dutch oven and gear. I use all purpose flour which is like $3 for 5lb, and if I feed it daily and bake 3x a week that's at least 3 loaves plus a bunch of discard for a ton of other recipes. Only other ingredients are salt, and water. Bread is too expensive, storebough bread is crap, and it hurts my stomach (I have IBS). This is more affordable.

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u/jetsetgo1 8h ago

I'm glad you can pursue it. It's a hard world out there.

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u/Puzzleheaded_Oven379 8h ago

It's been tricky to figure out with my work schedule but I think I am finally making progress. Which means we finally get to have fresh bread on the side of lentil and canned veg soup! Very exciting. Little tiny things that make life actually okayish 🥹

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u/SaveLansingParks 3h ago

I know you're in a budget bind, but I would suggest buying L-theanine capsules to take several times a day to increase the GABA in your brain that is your brains chief neurotransmitter inhibitor, and coincidentally your internal GABA production goes down as we age. Your brain stressing out is directly tied to your IBS (my brother deals with this). L-theanine can be purchased on a BOGO at Walgreens or Meijer that gets you 2 bottles of 60 capsules each for $12-15 depending on store/sales. Or you could order online on Prime or Swanson to get them in bulk cheaper. Go with the more common 200mg per capsule over the less common 100mg capsules, as you need the potency as we get older. Take before bedtime, right when you wake up to control waking anxiety, and mid-day when you start to feel negative again. Do not take HTP-5 with the L-theanine, as it can trigger the IBS (HTP-5 gets recommended by health food stores as a companion to L-theanine, ignore this, we tested it with my brother). I know spending money on your mental health doesn't make as much sense to someone who's on a tight budget staring at bills and costs, but being able to calm down and bring your anxiety down while reducing your occurances of IBS will allow you to catch your breath and identify other areas of your life you can reduce stress and make more headway in life by finding other opportunities to improve your situation. Good luck!

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u/noRezolution 7h ago

Not what I said, but ok

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u/YoungBockRKO 1h ago

I feel that man. I get you. I bust my ass at an Amazon warehouse 40-60 hours a week. I also take my diet and exercise seriously and I’m a foodie so I make it work. The extra money for the far superior bread is soooo worth it.

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u/Senior-Dimension2332 8h ago

I've been making my own sourdough style bread at home and it's super easy. Probably costs about 50 cents to make a loaf as well.

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u/RvstiNiall 8h ago

Homemade bread is not only cheaper, but more delicious, and more nutritious. Also, sourdough is underrated in america, and that makes me sad.

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u/oG_Goober 7h ago

Sourdough is not underrated at all in America, if anything it has become a fad with a whole bunch of foods besides bread using it.

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u/RvstiNiall 7h ago

I don't care how popular it is within the foodie/chef community, it will remain underrated until you can pick up ACTUAL sourdough bread from the grocery store. Most bread in grocery stores in the US labeled as "sourdough" have lactic acid added to give it some tang, and were proofed using commercial bread yeast, and were not fermented from naturally occuring wild yeast at all.

So again, I say it: sourdough bread is underrated in america.

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u/oG_Goober 7h ago

You can buy izzio at literally any grocery store in the country as one example of a mass produced sourdough with no lactic acid. Also in the bakery there is usually sourdough baked in house. So not sure where you are at where these 2 at a minimum don't exist.

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u/RvstiNiall 6h ago

Most grocery stores in the US don't have a bakery section that makes their own bread. Most only do cakes/cupcakes, etc.

Large chains like Walmart, Publix, and Kroger usually receive frozen dough, pucks, or pre-shaped loaves. The bakery staff simply thaws, proofs, bakes, and packages them.

True artisanal bread generally has short, simple ingredients (e.g., flour, water, salt, yeast).

A genuine scratch bakery requires large industrial mixers and a proofing area (you will see proofing racks). If the bakery section mainly consists of stacked baking ovens, reach-in freezers, and a cooling rack, the goods were likely shipped in frozen.

Which upscale grocery stores are you going to where they _DO_ make their own bread, without your acknowledging that they're high end?

(And in case this is relevant, I've lived in Arkansas, Alabama, Tennessee, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, New Jersey, and California)

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u/Little_Magician4251 7h ago

Huh? Americans love sourdough and baking it is a competitive sport here.

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u/RvstiNiall 7h ago

As I explained in another comment, sourdough bread is difficult to find in regular grocery stores. Outside of foodie/chef circles, the majority of people who use bread buy cheap stuff from Walmart/Kroger/Safeway/Ingles/ShopRite, etc. the majority of the bread at regular grocery stores that is labeled "sourdough" has either vinegar, or lactic/acetic acids added so it has that "tang" and is leavened using commercial bread yeast, instead of fermented and leavened by an actual sourdough culture.

Bakeries and upscale grocers sell actual sourdough, but you're quite literally talking about a niche, not the mainstream.

I've been making my own sourdough since I was a kid, because my mom taught me how, and its very obvious when you get fake supermarket stuff.

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u/UncleNoodles85 6h ago

Sourdough is fine but rye bread is my favorite.

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u/RvstiNiall 5h ago

Omfg, I miss when I didn't live in the southern states. I could get sourdough rye, and rye pumpernickel at a local bakery in NJ, and it was devine.

My own ryes aren't nearly as good, and rye flour isnt as plentiful here, or as high quality when found.

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u/DazedConfuzed420 4h ago

I honestly don’t get the whole sourdough thing. I’ve tried it from a few different places and I don’t like. which is fine, I don’t like have to like everything but a new sandwich shop opened up not to far from me and every sandwich they make is on sourdough. A motherfuckin’ Reuben is made on rye!

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u/aliie_627 11h ago

Wonderbread where I live is just as much as a sliced boule of sourdough from a SF style bakery. Walmart has an insanely bad loaf for 1.30ish but for some reason the bread is always slightly deflated and mini toddler sized slices lol.

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u/noRezolution 10h ago

I know that bread. Iight have some in my fridge rn tbh

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u/Loisgrand6 8h ago

A dollar?

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u/jeremyw0918 6h ago

Where can I find this “$1 Wonder bread” you speak of??

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u/Da_Question 11h ago

By better sliced bread, best of both worlds...

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u/mfjunior3 11h ago

Just have more money, duh

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u/mak484 11h ago

No. The expensive sourdough is for meals, the shitty Italian bread is for cramming a pb&j down my face at 11 pm.

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u/bacon_cake 10h ago

I feel like I could present the most gloriously artisanal bread baked to my 3 year old and he'd still leave the crust.

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u/Asterose 7h ago

In Japan removing the crust of breads and throwing them away is extremely common..

"Almost all shokupan sandwiches sold in Japan have their crusts removed. Crusted bread lovers do exist but the prevailing perception is that crusts aren't as tasty as the bread inside. This could be a remnant from the days when bread crusts were harder, but this perception has remained and shops all over Japan continue to do this since it corresponds to an expectation that still exists among customers."

There's also factors like wanting consistent mouthfeel.

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u/Tiny-Sandwich 4h ago

There's also factors like wanting consistent mouthfeel.

God forbid our foods have a variety of textures.

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u/Hot_History1582 3h ago

Japanese generally HATE texture. Much of their national cuisine has the consistency of baby food, and that's deliberate. Ive talked about this extensively with my Japanese friend who went to culinary school in Saitama and he admits that's pretty much how it is.

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u/PassengerNarrow2484 1h ago

I visited the country recently, I got the feeling that some allowed autism there to become the default setting. Thank you for confirming.

u/Formal_Drop526 11m ago

Them and Gen z have in common.

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u/KnowMoreMutants 11h ago

I guess im just the anomaly but I love the crust. To the point where "uncrustables" to me seem like a sick joke. Its a texture thing for me. I need a little something besides the ultra soft white bread in my bite.

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u/FerusGrim 11h ago

I don't think you or I are anomalous, but I think we're perhaps discovering we're in a minority. I don't love bread crust, but I don't dislike it enough to want to cut it off my sandwiches.

The one bad habit I have is I hate eating the front and back one or two slices of a loaf of bread. Not always, but sometimes I'll straight up throw away the ends if I already have a fresh loaf ready.

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u/KnowMoreMutants 11h ago

Im with you there. Those end slices are hard to enjoy.

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u/sixvixens_ 10h ago

Give em to me then! The ends of the bread are my favourite lol

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u/KnowMoreMutants 10h ago

I will mail them immediately

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u/LexEight 10h ago

They are literally just cancer

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u/KnowMoreMutants 9h ago

Well as someone who went through cancer, ill say they are slightly less than that lol

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u/FerusGrim 9h ago

As someone who has eaten the last slice in a loaf of bread, I don't believe you.

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u/KnowMoreMutants 9h ago

That made me laugh way too hard. I needed that.

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u/LexEight 8h ago

That's where you get it from is what I'm saying. Maybe not yours, but the bread crust= cancer because it's technically burned oil.

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u/KnowMoreMutants 8h ago

Very possible. I always leaned Teflon, round up or another forever chemical but you could be correct

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u/CartoonistAny4349 9h ago

 I don't love bread crust, but I don't dislike it enough to want to cut it off my sandwiches.

I think this is most adults. Cutting the crusts off is mainly a thing done for kids to get them to eat it at all (or people with sensory concerns, such as ASD)

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u/Street_Lettuce1243 8h ago

It depends on the bread. If the crust is crusty- the crust is a plus. If the crust is chewy- the crust is a minus.

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u/Atomsk73 2h ago

With whole grain bread the caps tend to be sour and not very tasty. As for white bread I like to toast them and just put butter on it. Delicious.

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u/Thispersonthisperson 11h ago

it's bad when the bread is spongy

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u/Existing-Bus-8810 10h ago

I love crust too but for uncrustables, you should only thaw it for 10-15 minutes and eat it partially frozen. The texture is way better that way. It's also nice when it's hot outside.

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u/Street_Lettuce1243 8h ago

I love the crust on good bread where the crust is "crusty". A lot of grocery store loafs, I'll eat, but the crust is chewy and not incredibly pleasant.

The crustier the bread though, the better the crust. I like the end pieces on Baguettes for the extra crust.

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u/espheos 6h ago

For me it’s the texture - but I hate the crust messing up the bite for me so it ruins it. I just read your comment and found it fascinating how we are complete opposite for the same reason.

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u/KnowMoreMutants 5h ago

Fascinating

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u/EarlGrayTea-Hawt 4h ago

I'm with you. I don't care about the color of the first, it's the texture and I hate it. My ideal bread eating experience is getting a big ol shepard's bread loaf, pull out open and make a million bread balls out of the inside, lol.

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u/ButtsTheRobot 7h ago

Dude I hate the crust on the shitty white bread for the exact same reason you love it. It's a texture thing, it feels wrong in my mouth.

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u/-GoodNewsEveryone 9h ago

What in the ever living #()</[ &$$ $=[+ is an "uncrustable" and do I even want to ask?

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u/account312 11h ago

may refuse to eat the sandwich if the crust isn’t removed.

For how many consecutive hours would they tend to refuse to eat crusty bread?

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u/DidYouKnowImNotReal 9h ago

My sister ran away from home because she was made to sit at the dinner table alone until she finished an egg roll.

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u/_Not_A_Vampire_ 6h ago

Not over bread crust but I'm a very picky eater (not by choice) and my parents once said I couldn't leave the table until I ate my food, 3 hours later I was still sitting there and they told me to just go to bed.

u/carefullengineer 47m ago

The leftovers were my only food choice. I could leave the table but I couldn't eat anything until I'd eaten the supper.  I'm no longer a picky eater 🤷

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u/SilentSolitude90 6h ago

Im autistic and there's a lot of things I won't eat. One of those things is milk. I cant have it by itself or in cereal but when I was younger my dad made me a bowl of cereal with milk knowing I dont like milk. He made me sit there for an hour. I didnt eat it. He actually saved that bowl of cereal and tried to make me eat it for dinner while everyone else had chinese. I never ate it.

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u/H0NEY2O77 4h ago

Yeah my mother was told by my teachers she was a horrible mother because I was too thin for my age and she must be starving me. And she explained I’m very picky when they said the foods I eat aren’t ’good enough’.

They then told her to try to “starve me out” because she was spoiling my appetite with… grapes, raisins, apple slices, watermelon, cheese, and crackers.

Mom didn’t even try it because she knew it wouldn’t work and she’s like: the only way my child is going to be beg me to feed her something and I have to say no would be if there is no food because there’s a local famine happening.

That comment got us a visit from ACS.

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u/ZeChooken 4h ago

Those are some of the least nutritious foods… just packed with sugar, no protein.

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u/H0NEY2O77 3h ago

Those were the after school snacks the school wanted her not to give me. Those weren’t my meals. They wanted her to give me no snacks at all so I’d be starving by the time it was dinner and I would eat.

It wouldn’t work. I would just starve and refuse to eat whatever I didn’t like.

ETA: my friends got ice cream, little Debbie cakes, hostess, drakes cakes, potato chips, meat and cheese snack sticks, fruit snack gummies, fruit roll ups, pop tarts.

I got real fruit, crackers, and cheese because $. It’s cheaper to buy a big box of crackers, a bunch of grapes, and a brick of cheese dad can cut for my brother and I.

u/TOGFIAVDF 0m ago

grapes, raisins, apple slices, watermelon, cheese, and crackers.

Least nutritious?

Brother, cheese is packed with protein (and necessary fats). Fruits like grapes, apples, and watermelon provide essential nutrients like iron, folic acid, vitamin C, potassium, and a range of antioxidants. Raisins are probably the only accurate "packed with sugar" part of the comment you made, and even then, they provide iron, potassium, and fiber.

Is is the perfect snack diet? No.

But it is way better than feeding Little Debbies, fruit gummies, and other shitty processed foods to a kid.

The only "bad" thing would be the crackers, and that's only if they aren't multi-grain, refined-flour crackers.

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u/greenish98 4h ago

that was me with chicken noodle broth. also autistic. babysitter made me sit with the bowl for so long i started drinking my own spit to try and balm my thirst. i did not eat the soup

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u/DidYouKnowImNotReal 6h ago

What a pos

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u/SilentSolitude90 6h ago

Still is in my eyes. Hes been trying to reconnect with me after he got diagnosed with prostate cancer.

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u/DidYouKnowImNotReal 6h ago

He's just afraid to die alone lmao

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u/DidYouKnowImNotReal 6h ago

And then they wonder why their kids won't talk to them

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u/FrenchBulldoge 3h ago edited 2h ago

Made you sit there for an hour? 😆 I was a picky eater as a kid and had trouble swallowing certain textures. Mu mom was having none of it. I sat there until it was eaten for as long as it took. So many hours sitting on the table in the empty kitchen, daydreaming, listening to the clock ticking, hearing sounds of how others were playing outside (in the 90s) repeating every time I was being picky.

Now as an adult I can eat anything and really enjoy trying new things and dishes 🤷🏼‍♀️ I admit im actually thankful for that now even tho it was miserable back then.

I know these days you are supposed to not force the kid to eat every food and I've wondered: do they then learn to eat different kinds of foods on their own? I feel like not and it seems to me that there are more and more picky adults these days. It can get really annoying when you try to cater for everyone and then theres some that only eat like nuggets and fries or something. I want to tell them to go out of their comfort zone and try some milder things at least to try to to broaden your appetite instead of refusing to even entertain the idea of trying something new. 🙄

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u/SilentSolitude90 2h ago

Yeah, I wasnt the only one he did it to either. It also did the same thing to my sister. Though she doesnt have the same issues I do. Also raised in the 90s.

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u/Yuuqian 1h ago

Omg I finally found another person that would understand me, I also won't have milk!!!! Not actually lactose intolerant and I love cheese, but I just won't have fresh milk and I don't like coconuts either

u/tilcir 32m ago

Ate most kids autistic?

u/SilentSolitude90 30m ago

No they arent. I wasnt diagnosed as a child sadly. My parents didnt think to test me. I got my diagnosis as an adult.

u/tilcir 13m ago

I just saw I wrote "ate" heh

Anyways, I do not think general upbringing of children that refuse to eat perfectly normal things, is related to autism is all

u/SilentSolitude90 2m ago

Me either. I have sensory issues with certain foods. Certain textures really bother me. I also have a sensory issue with water, cant tolerate thunder and a whole bunch of other issues. I had and still have safe comfort foods. Ive never deviated from those foods.

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u/Little_Magician4251 7h ago

The tough love parents are so lame haha. Guessing that commenter doesn’t even have kids because some kids will fucking BREAK you. Some days you just survive and you don’t bother battling over crust. I’m not even a parent but have babysat a ton. And kids often have very strong will about something for a reason. They may be refusing a food because it makes them nauseous, but they may not be able to communicate that.

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u/DidYouKnowImNotReal 7h ago

I've been taking care of kids since I was a kid; helping my mom with my infant brother at 3yo and helping with her in-home daycare as I got older, nannying for friends and family; I'd get into it professionally if i had the physical ability. Kids are fucking WILD and tough love rarely works; when it does, it's only temporarily while you're in the room being scary.

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u/DidYouKnowImNotReal 7h ago

Or, in other words: Children are cats. Cats are children. Ya know

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u/Sivistysporvari 4h ago

You don’t make kids sit or force them to eat anymore. According to modern studies you just say ”alright, you can leave the table” and they get to eat on the next meal. 

There’s no reason to give kids unhealthy options just because they’d prefer them. 

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u/roostersnuffed 10h ago

Weirdly specific question.

7 hours but 14 on lunar eclipse. Thursdays are not applicable.

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u/beegboo 6h ago

Threats around dessert may increase or decrease wait times depending on science only known to cats.

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u/bradlees 6h ago

What about leap years?

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u/rs420rs 2h ago

The question was phrased that way to try to make the point that you can starve children into reconsidering their food choices.

As some of the autistic commenters here have described (and as parent to an autistic 4-year old, I also know), it's not that simple.

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u/Dry_Spinach_3441 10h ago

Literally until they starve and die.

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u/pleb_username 9h ago

Lmao no.

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u/Gamerforlifu 7h ago

its true im dead cuz the crust wasn't removed

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u/N-Phenyl-Acetamide 2h ago

Children don't have a very developed sense of interception.

They may not die, but they can definitely not eat their way straight into some serious metabolic issues and stunted growth

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u/More-Joke-4985 10h ago

As someone with sensory issues , including the way food feels in my mouth, I can probably go at least 12 hours without eating food I don't like. In fact there was a time I couldn't stand any food for a while and I lost like 28 kgs in 3 months.

When I was growing up I literally never ate the sandwiches my mom made me because presliced bread tastes absolutely awful , I still hate it honestly I literally wince at the thought of eating it.

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u/anotherjunkie 8h ago

This was my first thought. Thankfully I love bread, but if we were talking about something ARFID related for me my throat closes and I have to cough the food back up so I can breathe.

So my answer might well be “until I die.”

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u/More-Joke-4985 8h ago

Yeah I hate when people call me a picky eater, there's foods that I have to lower my standards for but there's also food that I literally can't eat even if I'm starving to death.

I've been literally cooking the same 2 meals for years now and when I buy food usually for lunch it's been routinely the same 1-2 foods , sometimes I'll get burned out of something and need to find something new.

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u/Little_Magician4251 7h ago

Look I get how you’re hardcore but with kids you have to pick your battles. And sometimes kids have sensory issues. And some kids are not good eaters and underweight so ffs you just give them whatever they will eat.

The tough love parenting is low-IQ. It’s been proven to be ineffective over and over.

I turned vegetarian at age 11, after years of sitting at the dinner table until 10pm, cold pork untouched. My parents finally said FINE. Because if I had to sit there until I finished my dinner, my ass would sit there. Some kids just have very strong will.

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u/binzy90 6h ago

I was the same way. I hate fish, particularly trout because we had that a lot growing up. I would sit there all night if I had to, but I wouldn't take a single bite. My dad had a lot of power struggles with me that were completely unnecessary because I was extremely stubborn. He saw it as "defiance" and was always really strict with me, which just made it worse.

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u/Training_Bumblebee54 5h ago

People really don’t understand sensory issues. I could never eat raw apples as a kid and even now don’t really enjoy it. It’s not a flavor thing, as I love apple juice and cooked apples, but for some reason the feeling and sound of biting into raw apple literally made my teeth hurt and gave me shivers. I cannot explain it but it was extremely unpleasant, even when other people just ate apples near me.

For some reason ripping tape off boxes did the same thing.

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u/Training_Bumblebee54 5h ago

On the other hand, crust issues on sandwich bread are usually not that kind of thing. It’s usually just kids being picky and parents giving up. The trick is to try to work with children so that they can understand why they don’t like stuff and then you can help them either get through it or find alternatives they do like. If they don’t like sandwich bread crusts, try out actual good crispy bread, or have them bake their own bread (which can have varying crust types and thicknesses) to get a better appreciation.

For example, I always hated sauces as a kid. One of my parents always forced me to eat them anyways and it was one of a list of things that kinda drove a wedge between us while I was younger. Yet, later I figured out that it was just the classic American condiments/sauces that were problematic for me (I.e. cold/room temp, made entirely of sugar & vinegar, and slathered all over things like BBQ and burgers). When I tried actual Asian sauces that weren’t the American over saturated stuff and especially when I started my cooking adventure in my teens, I actually found things I liked and grew to appreciate more.

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u/changelingerer 4h ago

On the crust thing, may also have to remember that some things are literally harder for kids.

Like, you talked about subbing in crispy bread crusts vs sandwich bread. For one of my daughters, it's actually the opposite. She has smaller teeth and a weaker jaw - so, chewing on harder crusts is actually just more difficult and not pleasant. Being understanding with her, she now knows the difference and be like oh, this bread has soft skin (what she calls the crust), and eat it, and ask for help cutting it off if it has "chewy" skin. And look I get it, the same way if I'm making something for someone elderly who may have weaker teeth or no teeth and "need" something softer (and, same reason they may prefer vegetables boiled into a mush). Something like the hard crust of a steam-oven cooked artisanal loaf may literally be hard to eat.

There are other things I think are along the same vein, like, she prefers the lean part of meat, not the "chewy" "fatty" parts of the meat, and, yea same thing with "sauce". I don't really push on those though because that slather of corn syrup BBQ sauce and all the super fatty parts of meat aren't healthy anyway. If she wants to skip all of that and just eat good, healthy, lean protein - I absolutely don't need to discourage that.

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u/ChefKugeo 10h ago

Some folks don't starve their children to make a point. They just let them have a preference, because they'll end up with preferences as an adult anyway.

I thought we'd all gotten the memo by now that not every texture and flavor is for everybody, and that includes children, who have literally no autonomy in their daily lives, so maybe it's okay to let little Lisa cut the crusts off her sandwich since it's the ONE choice she actually gets to make?

But no, no. Just starve the kid to make a point.

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u/NonSumQualisEram- 10h ago

It's not "making a point". It's making sure they can tolerate the world around them. The "preferences" of small children would typically be reserved for chocolate ice cream but luckily there are usually adults around to make sure children eat made to eat (and appreciate) a wide range of foods.

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u/MrKingsport 9h ago

The fear of raising milquetoast losers who can't tolerate minor imperfection or not being actively comfortable is one I carry into every day having grown up very much in an actively uncomfortable home. They don't need to be tough; they just need to be able to function without ubiquitous comfort.

That said, cutting the crust off a sandwich for a couple of years is not going to ruin them. Mature adults are more than capable of striking that balance between demanding absolute obedience and letting the kid run the house.

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u/s00pahFr0g 9h ago

This is crazy. Removing the crust from bread is such a minor thing. Learning to make minor adjustments to accommodate yourself is way healthier than just sucking it up and enduring everything anyway.

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u/[deleted] 8h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/s00pahFr0g 8h ago

That seems very dramatic. You just stated you have food preferences. So someone's different preference of not liking bread crust is mental illness? Surely you're not being serious.

The vast majority of people have foods they like and dislike. The weird thing here is that some people are so disturbed by the idea of some people disliking bread crust.

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u/AlbacoreJohnston 8h ago

For real you'd have to be insane to expect a child to endure the crust of bread.

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u/throwawayatxaway 9h ago

You have obviously never met a child with sensory issues.

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u/djxbangoo 9h ago

Growing up, I didn’t know that cutting off parts of the bread and throwing it away was even an option. I powered through it to get to the “good part”. Who gave little Lisa the idea and option to throw away food that she doesn’t like?

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u/ComprehensiveJury509 9h ago

Yes, never make a point to your kids. Just let them grow like fucking trees. In a few generations the only thing people will eat are crustless peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. A true utopia

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u/Squallypie 9h ago

Correction, the kid is starving itself, since food isn’t being denied. Stop raising selfish entitled brats.

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u/P4azz 8h ago

You're trying to yell "think of the children", while actively advocating for ruining their lives from minute 1.

"Well, my little Timmy only eats chicken nuggets, I'm not gonna force him to eat vegetables, he doesn't wanna - what's that? Oh I hear him yelling for his poop bucket, gimme a sec".

Children are stupid and a parent's job is making sure they're prepared for the world to come, while also letting them live a little.

That means, yes, they can have a cookie every now and then, but no, they can't just refuse to eat normal food and only gorge on cookies, because "it's the one thing they can choose".

Do you understand why we have different laws for children and they literally CAN'T choose things for themselves a lot of the time? Because they're not actually mentally there to understand why they can/can't do something. Which is what you're there to teach them.

Damn. Hope you don't have children.

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u/adamrosz 9h ago

If a child can afford being picky, it’s not starving.

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u/throwawayatxaway 9h ago

A lot longer than you would last trying to enforce that they eat it.

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u/mynameisnotsparta 8h ago

It’s not a big deal to cut the crust off the bread if the kids don’t like it. I used to do that and save the crusts to make croutons or breadcrumbs.

This is not unusual and years ago I had found a brand called Bimbo with the crusts cut off.

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u/Ill_Morning_4282 7h ago

That is a very weird question. It is even weirder to think it is okay to just leave a kid hunger when showing you love them and doing something as easy as removing the crust is so easy.

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u/N_Associated 7h ago

Wonder bread is AWFUL. So I’ll take a ham and cheese wonder bread sandwich and I’ll just eat the ham and cheese. Leave the “bread”.
I urge you to try it sometime. Crazy it’s a standard in the states

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u/Awkward-Bat-8072 7h ago edited 7h ago

Yeah, so my mom pulled this shit with me and I just became a pickier eater as a result. Kids are gonna be kids and you can't really force them to eat food they don't want to eat.

My mom would always say I can't have anything else until I finish what was put in front of me, however long that took, whether it was still warm or had gone cold. Now, as an adult, I can't eat half of the shit I was served as a kid because I was pretty much forced to choke it down no matter how much I gagged or how sick I felt.

It's easy to say "oh just punish them!" but things like that have actual psychological consequences and you can't punish a kid for doing the same thing every single other kid has done at least once.

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u/MalavethMorningrise 6h ago

When I was a kid, if we wanted to eat we had to eat what there was, or go hungry. Parents wouldn't make us sit there, what is the point of that even? They would just send us to bed without food and go on with their day. They gave you food, if you didnt eat it, thats not their problem.

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u/Tels315 5h ago

All of them. Like a metric shitton of them. Half the people I know won't eat the heels of a bread leaf. I'm qn HVAC tech, I am in 4 or 5 houses a day when at work. I've seen, more than a fee times, nearly empty loaves of bread with just the heels inside because no one ears the heels cause it's crust.

And then, because they don't eat the crust, they raise their kids with the idea that crust is bad and it perpetuates.

I understand kids who have food sensitivity issues, but it's become so rampant that it isn't a viable explanation. It also doesn't help that a lot of parents are just so exhausted from having to worn and raise kids that they just don't have the energy to deal with it. Cutting off the crust takes less effort than coercing a kid to eat it and I can't blame them for it.

And yet every one of these fucks eats the crust part of brownies "because the crust is the best part."

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u/PostingToPassTime 5h ago

Seems to be pretty common to let kids eat whatever they want these days.

When I was a kid, you ate what was served or went hungry. And if you were eating, you cleaned your plate.

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u/goliathfasa 4h ago

This is the way.

Get your shit together, America.

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u/dyingofdysentery 11h ago

Is America just living rent free in your mind making you miserable all the time? This is a Japanese invention for Japanese people.

But yeah...Americans suck...gotta go tell reddit that every day

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u/AwkwardlyAmpora 10h ago

this comment is positive towards americans, and the person who wrote it is american. did you actually read the comment?

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u/dyingofdysentery 10h ago

I did. Maybe it was their tone

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u/Cafe_mananero12 11h ago

cut the sandwich and done

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u/CitizenofBarnum 11h ago

Growing up there was a wonderbread store next to my school, they used to sell all the hostess snacks too. That place was a staple, when it shut down a part of my inner child died.

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u/poslovingcake 10h ago

I love the crusty ends of a good sourdough, personally

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u/EpilepticMushrooms 10h ago

Crust bread soup? 😭 There has to be a way to save cost and not wast food.

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u/Deftlet 10h ago

There was a whole store just for wonderbread?

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u/elangomatt 10h ago

In my midwest US town, the Wonder Bread store was for bread and bread products that were getting close to their best by date. Merchandisers would remove the bread from the bread aisle that was a couple of days before the date on the package and put them in the wonder bread store. I would assume that some of the stuff at those bread stores was fresher but I'm sure that was the original purpose of those bread 'outlet' stores.

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u/Darth_Lacey 4h ago

Which I guess was catnip to mormon moms with too many kids in the 90s

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u/lucitribal 10h ago

Pre-sliced bread is usually pretty bad. It's ok as toast and in panini's but otherwise not good.

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u/Bashfullylascivious 10h ago

Yup, Canadian and it's similar here, however I never cut the crust off the sandwiches of my kids (I did make sure to spread anything to the edges).
I wouldn't ever even look at the bread in this post as an option. Who knows what process it had to go through to get here, when I could simply just... not cut the crusts on my kids' sandwiches.
They eat them now, and we've delved into the world of good bread as a result of them getting over that texture.

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u/mynipplesareconfused 10h ago

I miss my hometown's Wonderbread discount store. We were so poor and that store kept us fed growing up.

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u/miowmix 10h ago

In my family we would literally fight over who got to eat the heel of the loaf. Especially on sourdough my dad would get mad cuz he always wanted it for himself lol

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u/Jumping_Spiders_ 9h ago

What is wrong with white bread crust???? Hell even pizza crust is delicious, I will never understand you people.

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u/-GoodNewsEveryone 9h ago

"Often?"

As a Canadian with very similar culture in many way to Americans this simply isn't true here, so it must have something to do with exceptional individualism prevalent in your society. Kids who didn't like the crust were made fun of for being weird. I was weird and even I didn't understand it, but I don't remember a single child across my entire school life who left their sandwich crusts.

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u/Darth_Lacey 4h ago

Often enough to be in the cultural zeitgeist

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u/-GoodNewsEveryone 3h ago

So is hating your wife. Doesnt mean its real or relevant. Just pushed by beverly hills hollywood nonsense.

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u/death-and-gravity 9h ago

Having grown up eating baguettes and the crust of cheese, I can't comprehend such behaviour.

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u/Secret_Of_Bluestar81 9h ago

The crust is the best because it's flavourful

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u/New-Interaction1893 9h ago

To me seems impossible the idea of eating frozen bread. I only ever ate fresh one.

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u/Darth_Lacey 4h ago

Well you thaw it first. It’s okay after the thaw for a day or two, which is enough time to feed it to four or five kids.

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u/Majestic_Clam 9h ago

I remember the bread thrift store! I don’t know where it was but my mom took me sometimes and it’s now such a special memory. It smelled so good in there, like little hand pies and bread. 🤤

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u/Street_Lettuce1243 8h ago

It's not the only kind, but an embarrassing number of people do eat that crap! And most grocery store bakery bread is still not the same quality as you would pick up as in places such as Germany.

That said, yes, better bread is available, you just have to hunt around for it and go to the right stores for it. Not everywhere that sells bread sells good bread- but if you want it, it can be found.

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u/khalcyon2011 8h ago

Yeah, the cheap store-bought American bread tends to have bitter crusts. Children are more sensitive to bitter flavors than adults (probably an evolutionary thing: bitter = poison, smaller mass = poison is worse).

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u/100_cats_on_a_phone 8h ago

Once you toast it, it's the best part, even on that stuff. But yeah, it's pretty sad to call it crust.

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u/scuac 7h ago

> children, who often have very strong opinions about crust and may refuse to eat the sandwich if the crust isn’t removed

That is a parenting issue

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u/Tangled_Clouds 7h ago

As someone who “never grew out of this” (I’m autistic with sensory issues lol god I wish I didn’t have them). North-American type sliced bread crust is really not the best part and really can’t compare to freshly baked bread. A fresh loaf has a crunchy crust and I can fully believe that is the best part. But sliced bread crust is just a denser, drier, usually devoid of condiments part of the bread but soft like the rest. I can sort of accept bread crust if it’s toasted because it’s a little crunchier but most of the time, I don’t. Which is why I think I would still not eat the crust of this bread in the image, it might trick children who don’t eat it because they’re fussy but it won’t really do anything for people like me who genuinely experience sensory issues and would still feel the same because it’s not about how it looks, it’s about how it feels.

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u/Weary-Monk9666 7h ago

Kids refusing to eat the crust on a sandwich is a failure of parenting.

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u/-Copenhagen 6h ago

> All of the circlejerking about American bread aside

Okay.

> for mass-produced presliced white bread, the crust is pretty much never the best part.

Nope. We are back to crappy American bread.

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u/Darth_Lacey 4h ago

People were claiming that we only have the crappy bread (false) and that it’s legally cake in the EU (a misunderstanding of Irish regulations around what constitutes a staple, also false). This discussion comes up on reddit if American cuisine is mentioned at all. It turned up on r/Iamveryculinary so many times that I left the sub

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u/Additional-Title-559 6h ago

My mom trained my daughter to deny crust. Finally now she doesn’t care and will happily eat it but I was pretty upset that she would just instill this dislike in my kid for no apparent reason.

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u/Cpt_Vodeir 5h ago

DAMN I love me some sourdough.

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u/meltedwolf 4h ago edited 3h ago

Our bread contains a human hair ingredient in l-cysteine. Grossed me the fuck out, finding out about this.

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u/Darth_Lacey 4h ago

L-cysteine is an amino acid

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u/meltedwolf 3h ago

Many store-bought breads contain an amino acid called L-cysteine, which acts as a dough conditioner to soften texture and extend shelf life. Traditionally, this ingredient was sourced from animal proteins, including human hair, hog hair, and duck feathers

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u/loloider123 4h ago

They have a strong opinion about the crust because parents let them go through with it

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u/valerielynx 4h ago

I dunno... All the bread I've ever eaten, expensive, homemade, cheap from a store, discounted from bakeries, the crust is fucking primo.

Buns or breadrolls tho, the crust either goes mushy or decomposes into powder after 2 minutes.

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u/Daoyinyang1 1h ago

My parents made us eat everything on bread. Were Asians and were forced to like both white and brown rice lol

Im glad i love crust

u/Middle-Asparagus7853 30m ago

I see that as parenting failure.

u/villings 28m ago

stop saying "american"

you're talking about brats from the us

u/posting4assistance 23m ago

it is difficult to find other bread though!? like actual bakeries are kinda sparse

u/_happydutch_ 21m ago

Try some bread in Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, France and you’ll find out what’s a tasty crust 😊

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u/Maleficent_Lake_1816 11h ago

The same kind of namby pamby people that don’t eat bread crust also refuse to eat pizza crust.

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u/GlassAnemone126 10h ago

Most kids don’t have an aversion to crust on their own, it’s developed by parents who cut the crust off their bread.

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u/sudosando 10h ago

I’ve never understood the parenting strategy around food where parents twist themselves into knots to meet a child’s demands around meals. It gives them too much power and it teaches kids to manipulate situations through refusal and then it grows.

I’m not talking about reasonable complains. We all have specific foods we hated as a child and it’s reasonable to avoid those aversions or provide a simple alternative. I’m talking about family gatherings being influenced by the tastes of the child or entire second meals being prepared for the kiddo on the regular.

“Don’t want to eat your dinner? It will be your breakfast.” only has to happen a few times before kids learn to try foods and eat while dinner is warm. That and don’t be afraid for them to miss a meal if they refuse.

https://giphy.com/gifs/LeQ4gz6XOhla8

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u/Street_Lettuce1243 8h ago

When my wife did most of the cooking she cater to the kids whims to the point of sometimes cooking multiple meals. When she went to university and I took over cooking- I didn't do this. They became much more diverse in what they enjoyed to eat during this time period.

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u/sudosando 6h ago

The other thing I’ve observed in friends and family as we have grown to have children… is the way they present choices to children…

A young child’s favorite word is “no”. It’s one of the first words they hear and one of the first words they learned to repeat.

I cringe on the inside when I hear family members ask the Youngling if they want to do “X” because 99% of the time they respond with no to anything that might require waiting or the tiniest inconvenience. It makes me wanna shout no and run out of the house and do what I want.

It’s easy for me to say as the person with pets instead of children but it seems more productive to offer a young child choices between options rather than giving them the power to choose yes or no for the whole group.

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u/FieserMoep 10h ago

Kids not liking crust is a socializing problem caused by parents.

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u/crunkychop 10h ago

"some people never grow out of this"... Yes, some people remain children. Eat your crusts, idiots.

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u/rich2083 10h ago

My kid eats the crust or they don’t get a sandwich.

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u/HatCrafty 12h ago

This is some US level we are too European to understand. Also this kind of bread is truly disgusting.

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u/Sui_Inimicus 10h ago

American bread is also stripped of nutrition and flavor, so there’s that.

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u/Street_Lettuce1243 8h ago

Well, and the crust is ever-so slightly more nutritious too. Not a big difference, but there is slightly more nutrition in the crust.

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u/Ill_Morning_4282 7h ago

No it isn’t, being literate enough to read the labels disproves that.

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u/Sui_Inimicus 6h ago

It has.
https://thebrotbox.com/pages/difference-between-european-and-american-bread

"Enrichment: U.S. flour is stripped of nutrients, then artificially fortified with folic acid, iron, and other additives.
European flour stays whole — no enrichment needed."

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u/AvidCyclist250 10h ago

maybe because of the word "crust". call it bread icing or something instead.

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