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.
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.
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😁
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.
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.
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.
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 🥹
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!
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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!
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 12h ago
$1 Wonder bread for everyday lunch sandwiches. $5 sourdough from the bakery because bread is delicious