Recent studies in bread culture have revealed an alarming increase in
bread suicde rates.  Bread is simply no longer feeling the strong need to
exist.  Rather it is feeling the pinch of the variety of the 90's.  Bread
is isolated, alone; another carbohydrate source in a world of potatos,
pasta and protein enriched, carbohydrate deficient diets.  Barry is four
hours old, not old for bread by any standards, yet barry has found himself
in a bread rehabilitation centre.  This is his story.

"I feel okay to talk about it now.  I'm stronger, I can face it." Barry is
determined but the obvious stress this recall is taking on him is evident
in his shaking crusts. "I remember, I'd been alive for, I don't know,
maybe an hour, hour and a half.  Well, I was beginning to lose some of my
freshness you know.  No one seemed to want me.  You have to understand,
there was nothing wrong with me, I know that now, but I thought I must be
the ugliest piece of bread around.  Next thing I thought, well, what's the
point of it all.

Then this guy Ben, he came up with this idea of playing chicken with the
toaster.  I thought, why not, what have I got to lose.  It was a thrill,
getting closer and closer but then it happened.......I'm sorry.... I
can't...sorry."  Tears flow as Barry remembers the time that Ben came too
close. "When that happened to Ben, I thought, I need help, that's when I
came here."

Barry was one of the lucky ones. Ben and many others like him have not
been so lucky.  The question that must be asked is why is this happening
to our younger slices of bread.  Why are they giving up?  Dr Joe Lee,
Bread Physiologist and Psychologist says the answer lies somewhere in
bread history.

Traditionally bread society has revolved around the loaf unit.  All were
one.  However, around the sixties some of the more revolutionary loaves
started experimenting with free slicing.  Nicknamed the "flour children"
these loaves were the forerunners of what has today become the New Bread
Order.

Although slicing was originally seen as a passing fad and held up by the
most conservative loaves as immoral it soon caught on.  This remarkable
slice phenomenum has been a direct influence on the bread suicide rate.

Slicing created a distinctive bread class system.  Bread ends became a
despised minority as did those slices at the front of the loaf.  Loaf as
we had known it became highly fragmented.  No longer could the support
system of the extended loaf be counted on.  Slices were on their own.
When bread was not bought, it was these slices that were ostracised as
losing the freshness.  They became depressed, flat and often resorted to
mould dependency or worse.

Dr Joe Lee says the answer is not less slicing, rather it is a change in
attitude towards crusts and forward slices.  "Please, please don't reach
past them.  They'll go for the toaster, they just don't care anymore. Even
if you do not like bread ends still treat them fairly in front of the rest
of the loaf.  I've had to talk so many bread ends out of jumping into full
sinks of water because of the pressure placed on them by an injust bread
world.  Be considerate, be caring, be fair.  That's the answer."

For more bread information contact Bread Digest: A better loaf for us all.