Mathematically correct breakfast: How to slice a bagel into two linked halves (2009)
georgehart.com
georgehart.com
As someone who uses half of a brick per bagel regardless of size, I'd say surface area is a non-limiting factor for cream cheese application. If you want more cream cheese, just have more cream cheese -- it's delicious, on top of being more filling (and arguably healthier) than the bagel itself.
Now I use ricotta, or just butter.
I don't really care what it is exactly; a food additive that didn't exist until a research team found it 60 years ago, I can do without.
You've made that perfectly clear, but your personal standards for food safety are entirely arbitrary and not reflective of reality. If you tried applying those same standards to medicine, for example, you'd find that simple injuries all of a sudden become deadly and for no legitimate reason.
Also, gums (particularly locust bean gums) have been used in food for hundreds of years, and in other uses for thousands of years. They're nothing new, and your concerns are imagined.
The point is not that I'm right because it works for me; the point is that if you follow recommended diets from various governments, you'll end up on average worse than my entirely arbitrary made up diet I do to feel rustic. Government can be wrong about HFCS and seed oils being safe, and so instead of trusting them, I will just eat what is proven to be safe and wholesome across human history: meat, fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, fry in tallow, drink bone broth. Your appeal to science is precisely what I'm avoiding.
You were just told that gums are a simple and naturally occurring ingredient and have been used for thousands of years, and your rebuttal was to refuse them because you don't eat compound ingredients recently invented in a lab. I think that says everything about the mental gymnastics you're doing to convince yourself that you've got it all figured out.
If you eat nuts, or the skins of many fruits, or any root vegetables, then you are consuming gums (aka polysaccharides (aka sugar)). You just don't call it that, because it's one ingredient among many in a larger product -- like say, a potato.
You seem to think that I'm arguing that I have the optimal diet, or that if you can prove something I don't eat is safe, then I'm wrong. Obviously, trivially, there is something invented in the past 2000 years that is safe and fine to eat. I just choose not to eat that. I have literally not made an arguable claim in this thread other than stating what my diet is. When you call my diet irrational or unscientific, you fail to understand that I explicitly distrust and ignore nutrition science. Yes, it's naturalistic and unscientific; that is intentional.
Except that all you've done is repeatedly try to convince everyone that gums are "nasty" and "invented" and "unsafe" within the personal anecdote of "I don't eat gums and look at me, I'm the definition of perfect health, and that means you shouldn't trust any science!"
Despite your insistence that you've "literally" made no claims at all, here is a shortened list of the false and disinformative claims you managed to make within the span of five brief comments:
1. Seeds and gums are "unsafe" because "reasons."
2. Gums were "invented in a lab."
3. Gums are "unnaturally and chemically produced."
4. You can "taste the gum" in "cheap" cream cheese products.
5. Cream cheese contains "other unsafe and lab-invented ingredients."
6. Food science is "arbitrary" and "isn't even science."
7. A naturally occurring process "doesn't exist until it's observed," at which point it becomes an "invented manmade process."
8. Anecdotes can "prove" safety, but scientific research can't.
9. You are "one of the few remaining people" in the world to not be overweight.
That's a whole bunch of completely untrue claims for "literally only stating what my diet is," and the last claim is easily one of the most arrogant and ignorant statements I've ever heard, given that only 39% of the global population is considered "overweight or obese." It's very telling that you consider yourself to be so uniquely special despite being in the same classification as 4.75 billion other humans, which explains why you're so overly (and mistakenly) confident about your anti-science views.
> If someone would like to replace it with a traditional fruit skin gum or whatever, then I would eat it.
It has been explained to you multiple times now that locust bean gum -- the gum used in nearly every cream cheese brand -- is a milled seed that has existed and been used for thousands of years. It is completely natural in every conceivable way, it meets all of your arbitrary pre-science and pre-modern requirements, and is chemically the same as a "traditional fruit skin gum." So if you're willing to eat fruit skins, you shouldn't have an aversion to locust bean gum. Yet, you're still here trying to convince people that it's "unsafe" and "invented recently," and that your anti-science philosophy is something to be applauded.
Quite the contrary. Your intentional dedication to irrationality and disinformation is quite disturbing, and that you think irrationality is a characteristic that makes you better than other people is even more troubling. Nobody is trying to convince you to eat bean gums, but you're decidedly trying to convince everyone not to.
Now please feel free to go back and find all the other points you've created from a phantom to be mad at. I'd say at least 5 of those bullets are not based on any coherent reading of my posts.
Below are all of the direct references from the list, where you make baseless claims in an attempt to convince everyone that cream cheese and seed oils and bean gums are unsafe. You zeroed in on trying to use xanthan gum in an attempt to repeatedly advertise your entirely (and self-admittedly) irrational belief that anything discovered less than 2,000 years ago (no matter how naturally occurring) is unsafe, while everyone else was talking about the actual product in question -- cream cheese, for which locust bean gum is almost universally used.
> Yep, it's a chemical product for sure, full of xantham gum and other such "ingredients" [...] you can actually taste the gum [...] Lots of nasty things [...] like seed oils [...] the ingredient was invented in a lab less than 100 years ago [...] a food additive that didn't exist until a research team found it 60 years ago [...] current state of nutrition "science" [...] and I'm one of the few remaining people to not be overweight [...] I will just eat what is proven to be safe and wholesome across human history [...] I have literally not made an arguable claim in this thread other than stating what my diet is
Please explain to me how you didn't say any of those things -- I copied them directly from your comments -- or how they magically mean something other than what you're plainly saying.
Honestly cheesecake is better with ricotta anyways, and my waist can do without bagels, so I'm kinda post-cream cheese at this point.
> pasteurized milk and cream, whey protein concentrate, whey, salt, carob bean gum, natamycin (a natural mold inhibitor), vitamin A palmitate, cheese culture.
https://www.myfoodandfamily.com/brands/philadelphia/product/...
We can summarize this as "a bunch of milk products, salt, vitamin A, an antifungal, and carob bean gum".
It seems pretty inoffensive. There is one (1) bean gum in there, but at this point I'd ask whether "carob bean gum" is different from "carob powder".
For example, quoting from wikipedia:
> Locust bean gum [another name for carob bean gum] occurs as a white to yellow-white powder.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locust_bean_gum
It appears to be the powdered endosperm of carob beans.
If this is bad, wait till you hear about chocolate. Or refried beans.
> Full Fat Soft Cheese, Salt, Stabiliser (Locust Bean Gum), Acid (Citric acid).
Which is similar, except without the mould inhibitor (only allowed on hard cheeses here) or vitamin A.
For an outside viewer, it looks like someone went out of their way to create a shape that makes it as difficult to deal with as possible, and then mass psychosis took over and everyone went all Hail bagel shape! for no good reason.
What am missing?
(in case you are wondering why they are boiled, it's to develop a chewy crust)
A proper bagel is boiled first, then baked.
It's also used for transportation and display by threading a rod or string through the hole, but the main reason is for even boiling. Same as a doughnut (except that is boiled in oil).
Still, I eat plenty of bread that's non bagel shaped and fairly evenly baked. I guess I pay slightly more for the more difficult production process then, or have to suffer bread that's just not quite as perfectly uniform in texture as it could be. Well worth it, if you ask me, to not have to deal with the frustrating shape. Mileages vary, of course :)
They're different textures. They are best suited to different things.
But if you want non-bagels in the shape of bagels, Costco's store-brand bagels are like that. I hate them so much. If I wanted regular bread, I'd buy regular bread.
I'm surprised at the number of commenters here talking about toasting a bagel. In my opinion, if you need to toast the bagel, you already failed at finding a good bagel. A good bagel should already be somewhat crispy on the outside and pleasantly soft on the inside, and it shouldn't need anything spread on it to be edible.
This gets three textures going: the crump stays chewy and dense, the crust isn't burned (very important if it has any allium topping, fairly important for seeds, still not great for plain), and a nice crumbly toast layer.
Which holds up under schmear and butter excellently. I agree that a fresh bagel should be tasty direct from the bag, but I'm still going to be eating them with toppings for the most part.
So do people that eat bagels. I'm going to guess that you consider rolls and a slice of bread different bread, though. The sheer amount of the 'crust' on a bread roll contributes significantly to the taste and texture of a roll. Similarly, the sheer amount of "inside bread" on a slice affects its texture and taste. And of course, they affect how they cook.
Same thing with a bagel. A good bagel has a fairly chewy outside and a somewhat dense interior. Changing the ratio of these two affects taste. Heck, you even notice it if you eat different sizes of bagel.
I'll also note that the shape isn't often all that frustrating, at least to me. Half of the bagels I've eaten have very little hole in the middle and they hold sandwich fillings pretty well.
Edit: I might be a little nostalgic, though: I moved to a place with few bagels indeed and I kind of miss them.
Although this is not a definite answer I think it makes sense, that the inconvenient hole actually provide a convenient storage solution, historically at least.
Spreadability of stuff on something isn’t the only relevant factor.
* not a perfect photo, the difference between the thin and thick parts is a bit small, but it’s ok: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Laugenbrezels#...
So I suppose the original form might not have been closed yet into a ring.
Around 2005 one of my coworkers from Germany would bring a large box with assorted beers for us when he came to the US. He would always fill it with bagels before returning. He loves bagels but said they don't really have them back home and he didnt know why. I paused and said "oh... they're a Jewish thing." He paused, lowered he head slightly and said "Oh, oops."
But I wonder if perhaps historically there might be a convenience aspect too. In Turkey there is also a bread with a hole called simit, and over there street vendors sometimes thread the breads on sticks or with string to carry them around. I think there is a Middle Eastern bread like that too. That makes more sense to me than carrying a bag full of hot, fresh breads without a hole, especially in warm climates.
I’d like to introduce you to pretzels. :)
https://newyorkerbagels.com/bagel-safety-dont-be-an-er-stati...
Seriously. As any nurse about a "bagel injury" and they will know exactly what you are talking about. It is so common that it is addressed in some military first aid courses.
Moreover, my wife, who is a nurse, has never heard of "bagel injury."
Well, if we go by the numbers in the article...
> Americans ate an estimated 3 billion bagels at home in 2011, an average of about 11 per person (this doesn’t include bagels eaten at work). And in the course of slicing up all those bagels, almost 2,000 people cut their fingers so badly that they ended up in an emergency room.
You have roughly (very roughly) a 0.24% chance of being one of those people injured, each day, across the entirety of the nation. I'd say the chances are low enough that some nurses will have heard of it, and some won't have, depending on distribution of bagel eaters.
2,000 / 330,000,000 / 365 = 0.00000166% chance of daily bagel injury. Not sure what calculation you did, but as far as I can tell it is off by 5 orders of magnitude.
You seem to have forgotten to move the decimal place to get a percentage.
Keep in mind that when a HN user writes things like "seriously", "ask any x", "it's so common". It means they probably don't know what they're talking about.
People should be careful with knives, but this is not the most serious risk modern people face. Living near cars is like 3+ orders of magnitude more dangerous.
Basic safety tip: Don’t pull or point pointy bits towards your meaty bits.
Every dumb thing I've done with a chisel has been trying to use it at an odd angle or stabilizing the piece with one hand and holding the chisel in the other.
My lesson from it: buy a serrated bread knife instead of trying to make do with whatever is in the at the time super minimal kitchen drawer. Saw the bread instead of trying to cut it.
To be honest, I would have laughed at the thought of cutting myself whilst cutting bread of all things as well before it happened.
My takeaway was to be vigilant at being 100% focused whenever using knives.
> Use the right kind of knife for slicing bagels. This would be a knife with a deeply serrated edge, NOT a knife with a smooth, sharp edge. The serration helps “rip” into the bagel with a crosscut saw type effect, gripping and cutting into the bagel instead of slipping across the crust and cutting your hand.
So, a bread knife? Who'd've thought?
(ducks and runs)
There is another way! To do so, cut the bagel just one time (not four), turning the knife around the bagel until the bagel is 180 degrees flipped when the knife returns to the starting position.
Here is a short video for this sort of a mobius-bagel method. [1]
Edited to add: before everybody gets the impression that I'm a total curmudgeon about kitchen appliances, I think electric kettles are up there with sliced bread and my immersion blender is the best $3 I've ever spent at a thrift shop. I thought food processors were moronic until I discovered how easy they make pesto (so easy!). And I would entertain the idea of sous-vide if it weren't so cultish.
On the subject of bread machines, I'm convinced that the world needs no more of them and that the existing supply will suffice for decades if people who wanted to try one went to the thrift shop instead of buying new. I've never seen a thrift shop that didn't have a couple in stock.
I hope you'll pardon my hot take above. I don't consider the way I cook to be the only valid one, but it's genuinely never crossed my mind that I'd bake something small enough that a toaster oven might suffice.
For example: you can bake a full sheet of chocolate chip cookies, eat one or two while they're warm and delicious, and put the rest into a jar to eat over a week. That's a thing you can do. Or.
You can make a batch of chocolate chip cookie dough, and whenever you're feeling like one or two cookies, bake them in the toaster oven. That way you never have to eat a stale cookie, or even a cool one. Whatever minute out of the oven is your ideal cookie, all the cookies are that one.
At some point I decided to stop wasting my time and ruining bagels and just ate them as they were :)
Yes, we are well adjusted and have real priorities, just imagine how envious bagel-aficionados would be and what they would think if they knew what we look like. :(
I wonder if the guy who sells Klein bottle hats can come up with a knife for cutting this way. Cliff Stoll.
The surface area of the usual planar bagel slice is straightforward, but what’s the most intuitive way to integrate the surface area of a twisting strip?
What if the bagel had been made from the scraps of flour spilt in dusting over the years? Or found where someone else (or the supermarket) had already discarded it?
I don't think it's 'waste' to use something differently.