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Comment by Kon-Peki | Hacker News Reader

My local Walmart has about 100 different breads in the bread section - too much for a single aisle.

Even the Aldi, known for having just a single option for everything, has about 15 different breads.

I'm sorry if your options are bad, but don't claim that the entire US sucks.

You've just reminded me of a German colleague who moved to the US that was asked in his first week "How are you enjoying things? What have you found surprising?" and replied with "Shopping has been difficult because I don't recognise most of the brands or products. The supermarket has like 100 different types of bread, except as best I can tell it's actually just the 1 type of bread in 100 different shapes. Also it's not bread, it's more like a cake."

Yes, American bread is far too sweet - mostly HFCS, but even molasses make an appearance.

Let them eat cake.

P.S. But I do like the sourdough and rye bread (uncommon in UK).

From Qu'ils mangent de la brioche of course, and brioche is quite bready ...

I mean it's the same in the UK - there are probably 30+ different types of bread in any supermarket, but it's all the same. It has the same shape, same taste, just different bakery that makes it.

I'd say the UK is somewhere in between, with different types of white bread actually being different (e.g., baps vs rolls). My early encounters in the US were similar to my German colleague where much of the variation in bread was simply to shape (e.g., rolls vs sliced loaf) but it was ultimately the same flavour and texture. Obviously in both countries you can go looking and find a much broader array of options. It's just a stark contrast to experiences in many continental European countries where almost any store that sells bread seems to have white, sourdough, regular rye, dark rye, etc. and each variety is so vastly different in taste and texture.

Good bread is something you buy from a bakery. It's made from flour, water, salt and yeast. The stuff you get in supermarkets is full of additives to "keep it fresh" and a lot of it has added sugar.

Not every sandwich tastes as good with that style of bread tbh. Sliced store bread just "gets out of the way" sometimes.

What does the number of options have to do with how good they are?

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