Do you buy your bread at a bread store?

90% of my bread comes from the Franz day old bakery. mostly because its cheap and when i take my Son, the nice ladies behind the counter always gives him freebies. guess i am cheap that way.

but other than that, i like the round loaves with baked jalapeños, whole garlic and sun dried tomato thing. pretty spendy but great with the multitudes of red pasta dishes i have a tendancy to eat a lot of.

 

We use the same recipe, very easy to make and very tasty. A 50 lb bag of flour lasts us about a year and it costs about $0.25 per loaf. The problem is that we always seem to eat a loaf immediately out of the oven. Nothing like fresh bread straight out of the oven.

When we are feeling lazy we buy the "Artisan" bread at Costco which is about $2.50 per loaf.

EDIT: We found out about this recipe from Mother Earth News. The article is here:
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Real-Food/Artisan-Bread-In-Five-Minutes-A-Day.aspx

 

Buying local is great, as it saves the diesel fuel of having to transport your food from across the United States, from Mexico, or even from South America.

Organic, however, is a huge environmental offender. "Organic foods" are not genetically modified and not grown with pesticides. As a result, about 40% (on average) of the crop dies from disease or bugs. When the crops are genetically modified (like all corn today that is not specifically marked "organic"), the crops produce produce proteins that either render the crop unattractive to insects, or else proteins that poison any insects or disease that trys to feed on them. As a result, crop yields from a GM (genetically modified) crop are often around 99%.

Translation: "Organic crops" that do not use pesticides or genetic modification often produce only about a 60% crop yield, and therefore require TWICE as much land to produce the same amount of crop that pesticides or genetic modification produce.

 

Crop yields for complete organic farm systems are usually HIGHER than crop yields for GMO and pesticide ridden crops. Yes, the land might only produces half as much corn, but it produces a crop of beans, food for the pigs, and improves the soil at the same time. It also doesn't suffer from top soil reduction, poison accumulation, single points of failure, human health issues, huge energy inputs, and on and on.

The downsides are larger amounts of manual labor; and if you want certification, huge amounts of paperwork overhead to satisfy a government which has been bribed by the agro-business to make things hard for people doing farming correctly.

 

Yeah but then you can't build up immunities to pesticides!

 

We used to purchase Orowheat 12 grain bread at the Orowheat day old outlet. The same bread is now available at a cheaper cost at a near by grocery store. We buy whatever is available and freeze it. High density, high nutrition.

 

No offense, but that sounds crazy. Less environmental damage is one of the major goals of the entire organic movement. Are you saying it's just making things worse?

 

What he said was that it used twice as much land. And his own figures only support 66% more land. No account was made for other environmental damage. And given that organic farming should be improving the soil, while pesticide, herbicide ridden farming ruins it; personally I would rather improve 1.66 acres rather than ruin 1.

 

any farm whether its organic or not, can be good or bad. even organic farms that do not provide a balanced land use is still going to be bad for the soil. being able to grow complementary crops that enhance and use different minerals is key to longevity.

not using chemicals is a great start but it has to go beyond that. remember, we destroyed plenty of farmland before chemicals ever came about by overfarming one product without diversity.

 

In college I worked at a small French boulangerie, making baguettes and croissants. Nothing beat having fresh oven-baked bread in the morning before going to class!

We don't eat much bread in our household, but when we do, I like go to the local Market Street for their sourdough baguettes because that's the best around here. When they run out (which is often) I resort to the Whole Foods regular baguettes - not as good but still edible.

 

Maybe you lucked out and your farm never had any pests or bugs that ate your crops. That must have been a nice year for you.

I agree that pesticides are VERY bad for humans and the environment - especially when farmers allow the pesticides to run off their land and into streams.

For large scale industrial farmers, statisically, when no pesticides are used and the crop is not genetically modified to prevent insects from eating the crop, statisically, 60% of the crop will die due to bugs. We are talking about large fields that cover several acres and not a small little house farm that has one row of corn, one row of tomatoes and just happens to luck out and not have insects eat their crops. (Source: I have a degree in biochemistry, I work in the biotech industry, one of our customers is actually Monsanto. You may suggest the data is biased; however all you have to do is ask a large-scale farmer what happens to his crops if he doesn't use pesticides or GM seed) Monsanto is a $35 billion dollar company. Why? Because farmers are willing to pay more for patented GM seeds that provide a 99% crop yield.

Very true.

--
Statistically, organic crops require twice as much land:

http://www.glogster.com/media/4/12/96/38/12963834.jpg

https://wiki-land.wikispaces.com/bibliography+Peter+K

http://startswithabang.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/clear_felling_holt_pound.png

What's left after clearcutting in the Boreal forest. | Greenpeace International

CSERC: Private land logging issues in the Northern Yosemite region

Destroyed Forest Stock Photography
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Now look at this:
Monsanto ~ Water and Agriculture

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As a matter of fact no. A few years ago, my organic farmer had a problem with late tomato blight. I got no tomatoes. Of course, the entire state had late tomato blight, and pesticides or not, no one had tomatoes. Non-organic Farmers growing mono crop tomatoes went broke. My farmer just sold their other crops. Elliot Coleman was told by an FDA official that his crops had fewer bugs without any pesticides than most farms the official had inspected which used pesticides.

Gosh, if you do it wrong, you lose crops, what a surprise. You aren't comparing organic farms with pesticide farms here.

There are many large organic farms. Not huge ones, but that is because huge farms tend to be mono crop environmental nightmares.

That's an awfully large font for a figure which isn't even supported by your own numbers! Say it loud enough and people will believe anything?

 

All those nasty pictures of clearcuts are for farming? Not logging, or ranching?

And Monsanto is interested in the betterment of mankind? :suspicious:


Have you seen "The World According to Monsanto" ?

 

Hey, let's get back to the OP's question.

 

Do those pictures of huge expanses of clear cutting look like?

1)"a small little house farm that has one row of corn, one row of tomatoes and just happens to luck out and not have insects eat their crops."

2)"Large scale industrial farmers"

Right. So according to Rybold these pictures can't possibly be of Organic farming. This is what happens when people listen to his friends at Monsanto.

 

Good idea - I've flirted with the idea of buying my bread from a bread shop, but a LOT of places around here sell it for 2x - 8x what it costs normally... so economically, I can't justify it... it would be cheaper to just make my own at a certain point... or buy the white bread Kwik Trip sells.