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Crusty Chronicles: Top 7 Fun Facts About Bread You'll Love to Devour

illustration of bread
Bread lovers, prepare to loaf around as we slice through some deliciously fascinating fun facts about bread that you 'knead' to know!

1. Bread as Ancient Egyptian Currency

In a yeast from the past, ancient Egyptians kneaded dough and coins into one swoop: bread loaves were used as currency, with standardized sizes and nutritional values, ensuring workers were rye-ghtfully paid for their toils.
Source => grantsbakery.co.uk

2. Yeast's Dough Party Bubbles

When yeast walks into a dough party, it's always popping with bubbles of laughter: The fluffy texture of bread is a result of yeast or baking soda releasing carbon dioxide during the proofing process, creating airy pockets that expand as the bread bakes and giving the loaf its signature holes.
Source => co2meter.com

3. Butter Shortage Births Margarine

Holy cow, butter me up! It was an unexpected spreadventure in France when a butter shortage led to the invention of a moo-velous alternative: Margarine was created in 1869 using beef tallow churned with milk, which eventually evolved into a popular, cholesterol-free spread commonly enriched with plant sterol or stanol esters that help lower blood cholesterol levels.
Source => sciencedirect.com

4. Record-Breaking Gigantic Loaf

When life gives you a colossal amount of dough, you bake an enormously gigantic load: On Guinness World Records Day in 2008, Joaquim Gonçalves of Brazil rose to the occasion and crafted a whopping 1,571 kg (3,463.46 lb) loaf of bread, setting the record for the heaviest loaf ever baked.
Source => guinnessworldrecords.com

Crumb-Free Bread for Space

5. Crumb-Free Bread for Space

In space, no one can hear you scream... about bread crumbs: As it turns out, munching on a crusty baguette in zero gravity could pose a crumby hazard to equipment and astronauts' vision, leading to the cosmic ascension of tortillas and the invention of crumb-free bread in 2017 to mitigate this interstellar snack attack.
Source => rd.com

6. Yeast: The Bread Fairy Godmother

Yeast is like the fairy godmother of the bread world, transforming plain dough into a magical, lifted creation fit for carb royalty: This fungi not only makes bread rise, but also ups its flavor, color, texture and overall quality by converting sugar into carbon dioxide gas, conditioning gluten, and maintaining its effectiveness for up to two months when stored at a chill -1°C (30°F).
Source => opentextbc.ca

7. Irresistible Fresh Bread Aroma Tactics

Who needs a pied piper when you've got bread? Bakeries and restaurants have cracked the code to creating our own personal kryptonite, leaving us powerless to resist their dough-licious temptations: Studies have revealed that the aroma of freshly baked bread can triple sales in bakery departments! Chains like Panera Bread and Subway cleverly place their ovens near the entrance, while some grocery stores rely on scent machines to waft the olfactory delights of baking bread or chocolate, making customers hungry and, as a result, hungry to spend more on their scrumptious offerings.
Source => foodbabe.com

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