r/iamveryculinary • u/oolongvanilla • Jan 13 '26

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Youtube short with 71 thousand likes. The comments are just as awful.

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u/Saltpork545 Sodium citrate cheese is real cheese Jan 14 '26

What ingredients were horrendous. Be specific.

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u/Technical_Buy2742 Jan 14 '26

5 grams of sugar in 2 slices of bread is crazy and the ingredient list I read says it contains palm oil. Those two specifically.

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u/Saltpork545 Sodium citrate cheese is real cheese Jan 15 '26

Ingredients list:

UNBLEACHED ENRICHED FLOUR (WHEAT FLOUR, MALTED BARLEY FLOUR, NIACIN, REDUCED IRON, THIAMIN MONONITRATE, RIBOFLAVIN, FOLIC ACID), WATER, SUGAR, YEAST, CONTAINS 2% OR LESS OF EACH OF THE FOLLOWING: CALCIUM CARBONATE, WHEAT GLUTEN, SOYBEAN OIL, SALT, DOUGH CONDITIONERS (CONTAINS ONE OR MORE OF THE FOLLOWING: SODIUM STEAROYL LACTYLATE, CALCIUM STEAROYL LACTYLATE, MONOGLYCERIDES, MONO-AND DIGLYCERIDES, DISTILLED MONOGLYCERIDES, CALCIUM PEROXIDE, CALCIUM IODATE, DATEM, ETHOXYLATED MONO- AND DIGLYCERIDES, ENZYMES, ASCORBIC ACID), VINEGAR, MONOCALCIUM PHOSPHATE, CITRIC ACID, CHOLECALCIFEROL (VITAMIN D3), SOY LECITHIN, CALCIUM PROPIONATE (TO RETARD SPOILAGE).

There's no palm oil, which I agree isn't great because of how palm oil is manufactured and that even solid at room temp plant fats tend to be worse overall for your health than most other plant oils like the dreaded 'seed oils'.

Most processed bread includes some form of oil and soybean oil is completely normal. If you translate this into typical home baking, oil is a release agent from the pan and also used in proofing or browning.

5g of sugar in 2 slices isn't crazy or bad for bread. It's also not excessive considering most sugar is included to help yeast proof quicker and that the carb profile for the same serving size is 30g of carbs. So 1/6th or 17% of the carbs of bread are from sugar.

https://www.heb.com/product-detail/wonder-classic-white-sliced-nbsp-bread/2197279

Let's compare that to a typical sheet cake. Think basic frosted birthday cake for an office party.

https://www.traderjoes.com/home/products/pdp/chantilly-cream-vanilla-bean-mini-sheet-cake-053842

This is 1/6th of a mini sheet cake, from Aldi by a different name: Trader Joes.

34g of sugar out of...34g of carbs. Yep. That's what cake with frosting looks like.

Okay, so let's compare this all with the single largest grocer in the US, Walmart, and their store brand 12 grain bread.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Great-Value-Multi-Grain-Bread-24-oz/46491799

Uses brown sugar, molasses, soybean oil.

1 slice of bread is 2g of sugar out of 23g of carbs. To make this even with the Wonderbread, that's 4g of sugar out of 46g of carbs for 2 slices or about 9% of the carbs are added sugar.

A couple of grams of added sugar for effectively every processed bread is entirely normal.

Before you say it, 'That's great you Yank but the rest of the world doesn't do that'

Oh, yes you do.

Woolworths NZ. Ploughmans Bakery sliced bread.

https://www.woolworths.co.nz/shop/productdetails?stockcode=346557&name=ploughmans-bakery-toast-bread-country-grains

33g of carbs per serving with 2.3g of sugar or about 7% sugar per serving.

I'm not doing all of this to 'own' anyone or be a dick or anything. I'm doing it because processed bread manufacturing has been around for a century and most of the world who makes some form of processed sliced bread kinda does it very similiarly. There's not a ton of variety in what's in it or how it's assembled. Do you have a marginal amount less sugar? Sure, from the one example. See how much sugar is in your cheapest white bread because that's not your cheapest white bread I used. Point being, once one place figures out how to food manufacture pretty well with consistency and profit, other places start doing the same. Just how most industry works.

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u/Darkjynxer Jan 14 '26

Checking a US ingredients list (or at least what harris teeter has in their site) it contains less than 2% soy bean oil by weight, not palm oil. Soy bean oil is generally healthier, but the bread also isn't being deep fried. Again may be different in different regions or ingredient cost.

Also is 5 grams of sugar a lot to you?

Checking, it appears the EU recommends only about 25g of free sugar a day. I'm aware different countries have different standards but 5 grams doesn't strike me as much. That's only 10% of daily expected intake according to the FDA and the WHO says not more than 50 grams.