Delicious Bread: Hidden Hygiene Hazards. Knowing the Truth, Would You Still Dare to Eat?
Introduction: Every morning, many people love to buy a tasty bread from a bakery for breakfast. These delicious, beautiful, and fragrant treats are a temptation for everyone. But did you know what health hazards lie behind these tasty foods? And how many chemical additives and substitutes are used to make those low-cost, affordable breads? The truth is right in front of you, would you still dare to eat?
In the common cake shops on the market, from appearance to aroma, from texture to price, they are a constant temptation for almost all consumers, from children to the elderly. But do you know what hygiene hazards are hidden behind these delicacies? What is the difference in the ingredients used by different bakeries, from cream and sugar to jam, pork floss, and chocolate? To reduce costs, how many secrets of production are hidden behind the rich aromas in some bakeries?
Mid-to-low-end bakeries have the most problems
Bakeries in large supermarkets, small roadside shops with hard-to-remember names... these low-end bakeries are a common sight in our lives. At 10 AM on February 14th, a reporter visited the bakery in the Yonghui Supermarket near Qinghe in Haidian District, Beijing. Due to the low prices, a long line of people formed to buy here. The best-selling items were the pork floss rolls for 1.9 yuan each and the egg tarts for 1 yuan each.
The real reason for the cheapness is the low cost: the egg and milk flavor of the egg tarts is not rich at all; To make a good egg tart, butter should be mixed into the dough to create a flaky, layered crust, but here it is not layered at all—it's a single piece of "dough"; The pork floss rolls contain very little pork floss, no visible floss threads, and are completely powdery.
The quality of bread in some low-end bakeries is poor, and there are hygiene hazards. The quality varies from brand to brand, and the practice of passing off inferior goods as superior ones also happens from time to time. Due to the high indoor temperature, many packaged breads on the shelves are covered in water droplets. This not only affects the texture of the bread but can also lead to bacterial growth due to excessive moisture.
Various tricks to save costs
Why is there such a big difference in taste and quality between breads produced by high, medium, and low-end bakeries? This is closely related to the quality of ingredients and the production methods. For some bakeries, reducing ingredient quality and simplifying the production process have become the "only way" to cut costs and increase profits. This not only greatly reduces the nutritional value of the bread but may even pose health risks to consumers.
1. Passing off inferior cream as superior. Fats are an essential ingredient in making bread. Whether using expensive, high-quality fresh cream (animal cream) or cheap, low-quality vegetable cream (trans fats) determines the cost of the bread.
Nowadays, the vast majority of bakeries choose the cheaper vegetable cream. However, the large amount of trans fatty acids in it not only increases the risk of consumers developing diabetes and cardiovascular diseases but also makes people more prone to weight gain. Mid-to-low-end bakeries on the market generally use vegetable cream, while high-end bakeries are mixed. Most use both fresh and vegetable cream, and very few use pure fresh cream only.
2. Improvers are used to make soft bread. It looks as big as a noodle bowl, but when squeezed into a ball, it's only the size of a child's fist. Experts say that this kind of bread that can shrink so easily likely contains improvers.
A traditional dough of the same size will increase 1.5 to 2 times when made into bread, while bread using improvers will expand 2 to 3 times. If more improvers are added, the expansion rate will be even greater. This way, less flour is used, which can greatly reduce costs. In addition, soft bread may also contain a large amount of oil.
3. Varying quality of ingredients. For breads with fillings like pork floss, jam, and fruit, it's easier to cut corners on the quality and price of these fillings to reduce costs.
Good jam is made by cooking fruit with sugar, which is very expensive. You can clearly see fruit pieces in it, the color is natural, and the taste is sweet with a fruity aroma. Inferior jam is mainly made of starch, dextrin, and flavoring with a small amount of fruit for "decoration." It's mostly pasty, with no visible fruit, and has a strong, sweet flavor.
Even the coloring used for cream has good and bad varieties. Better bakeries use natural colors, while poorer ones use artificial synthetic colors directly.
4. It's hard to tell the real shelf life. Most bakeries claim their products are made fresh every day, but few are willing to explain to consumers what happens to the bread if it doesn't sell out on the same day.
5. Hygiene and disinfection become a hazard. Almost all cake shops have various health and safety problems. For example, trays and tongs used for bread are reused without being disinfected; during on-site production, bakers do not wear masks, hats, etc., as required. This can lead to dandruff, hair, saliva, etc., getting into the bread and cakes being made, posing risks to health and disease transmission.
Experts teach you how to choose good bread
To ensure consumers can buy safer and more reliable bread, in addition to relevant departments increasing supervision over bakery hygiene and ingredient use, the simplest and most practical method is for consumers to learn how to choose for themselves.
1. Real cream is soft, fake cream is hard. Fake cream (vegetable cream) has a harder texture, while real pure animal cream is relatively soft and melts easily in the mouth. Judging by appearance, good cream has a light yellow color, a fine texture, and a strong milky flavor; fake cream is snow-white, has large air holes, and a very faint milky smell.
2. When buying bread, pay close attention to the ingredient list on the label. Any words like "shortening, pastry shortening, vegetable shortening, vegetable fat, margarine, milk powder, creamer" all refer to vegetable cream.
3. Good pork floss is fibrous, bad pork floss is powdery. Good pork floss looks like pure meat with visible strands; bad pork floss is mostly powder because bean flour has been added. In addition, among all types of bread, pork floss bread is the most prone to spoilage.
This is because pork floss is highly absorbent of water, and to prevent it from falling off, the bread is usually brushed with a lot of salad sauce, increasing the risk of bacterial contamination. Therefore, pork floss bread must be bought on the day it's made and eaten as soon as possible.
The color of whole wheat bread should not be too dark. Truly good whole wheat bread should have an uneven, natural brown color. If the color is too dark and close to black, it might be dyed; this bread has a coarse texture, and you should be able to taste the natural bran inside. If there are only a few whole wheat grains on the surface but the inside is soft, it's almost certainly fake.
4. For jam bread, the fruit pieces should be evenly distributed. Choose jam bread with fruit pieces or pulp that are of a consistent size and evenly distributed. If you can't find any fruit pulp, the quality is likely poor.
5. Cracked ham means the bread is not fresh. In ham bread, if the ham or bacon has a high starch content, it indicates poor quality. If the ham or bacon is cracked, it means the bread is not very fresh.
6. Donuts may contain carcinogens. Donuts are arguably the unhealthiest bread. They are made by directly frying a dough ball in oil. To save costs, many shops reuse oil, causing the donuts to turn dark and greasy, and even develop a rancid smell.
Potato starch is added to donut dough, and potato starch is more likely to produce the carcinogen acrylamide when fried at high temperatures. Secondly, reused oil contains more carcinogens.