A few days ago Mark Bittman wrote a wonderful article in the New York Times about McDonald's new breakfast offering: oatmeal. The column makes some great points and I suggest anyone with an interesting in what is in the food they are eating reads it.
The article really resonated with me because I have asked similar questions of companies that I feel add too many ingredients that are not really necessary to their food. Being from a baking and pastry background I often question the bread you find in every quick service and casual dining restaurant.
For people who are not familiar with mass produced bread their are a few reasons that everyone uses unnecessary ingredients, e.g. dough conditioners, and that is automation. The bread being pumped out for your enjoyment at your local fast food joint or chain family hang out is being done so by machines and the machines cannot handle any changes in the dough from mix to mix. The dough has to be the same every day it has to be consistent.
The finished product also has to have a longer shelf life than an artisan loaf of bread because it gets shipped from a centralized bakery, if you can call them that, to all corners of a region so the bread has to stand up to travel. This of course is a pretty big problem because food is not really meant to travel well. Every tried traveling with a nice ripe summer tomato? It doesn't go so well does it?
The desire for cheap fast food that offers a lot of calories has really screwed up what we eat. So the next time you are out remember that even though the food may look all natural and healthy it may not be.
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