The best thing since sliced bread

It was a small cut for the Chillicothe Baking Company. But a giant leap for packed lunches all over the world.

Eighty years ago this Monday, the sliced bread machine made its first incision in Missouri, USA.

Not everyone was impressed. The Times noted derisively that:

Before long bakers will probably butter the bread themselves and spread jam on it at need. For very tired customers they may even cut the bread into finger shapes.

And, of course, so they do.

But on the whole sliced bread gained instant acclaim.

Among its many triumphs? The fact that, eight decades later, no-one has yet definitively answered the following: What is the "best thing since sliced bread"?

Comment Central readers, it's up to you. In honour of the perfectly dissected loaf, we're launching a competition with news.com.au to discover the best British and Australian inventions since 1928.

We'll pick the top nominations, host a poll this Wednesday and announce the winner at the end of the week. This will involve some friendly rivalry with the Aussies. Their contenders include latex gloves, the Speedo and the dual flush toilet. Surely we can beat those?

For while we Brits can not take credit for the sliced loaf, we've had a few small crumbs of our own success. After all, our nation is responsible for Viagra (Kent, 1996) the zebra crossing (London, 1949), cat's eyes (Yorkshire, 1933) and a little thing called penicillin (London, 1928).

And that's not even mentioning the World Wide Web (Sir Tim Berners-Lee, 1990)...

So get nominating.

Comments

[Jamie]

This is too funny...I just had a conversation the other day about sliced bread. I had purchased some specialty bread that came unsliced and we were discussing the fact that sliced bread dries out faster. Nice to have it fit in the toaster though!

[steve notman]

Velcro - no contest

[Frank Upton]

For me, it's a toss-up between nuclear power, GM food and DDT. Together, these could end CO2 build-up, hunger and malaria. What a pity that the 'environmentalists' wanted to ban them all.

[john wade]

power steering

[Hugh]

Is it my imagination, or is sliced bread thinner than it used to be? When it was introduced, there were three thicknesses - thin, medium and thick. Now there are only medium and thick, but the bread seems (respectively) thin and medium. Still with me?

[Tommy]

The best invention is the hubble telescope. It has told us more about space than we could have ever imagined and hopefully it will help scientist to build a better future for us all! And it might even find one or two little green men at the same time...

[Lucy]

But the only problem is that sliced bread is revolting - chemical tasting, overprocessed pap, that doesn't fill you up. It's supposed to be the staff of life - that stuff wouldn't support anything other than microbes. Pretty much any industrially produced bread is revolting - go to proper bakery instead!

[Interstella]

The Rotary Washing Line

[Chris Rose]

Just about anything you care to mention is better than sliced bread. I suggest the ball-point pen: it saves all that messing about with bottles of ink and having to carry a fountain pen with you. Now who remembers that?

[Rita]

The contraceptive pill which freed women to have children if and when they wanted.

[Evan Maloney]

The best British invention since sliced bread was the Swinging 60's. It might have required a Mexican to invent the pill, which presaged that era, but Mexicans themselves did nothing remarkable with the invention; it was hip British youth who took inspiration from the pill and invented free love.

Yeah baby yeah.

The best thing since sliced bread - 'Have Yours Say' columns on websites. What would the world do without a platform for every bigot, malcontent and crackpot to air their ill thought out views?

Now back to the subject of why Gordon Brown is so useless...

[Nick]

Well, my God was having a good day when He invented the dishwasher.

[Roger Inkpen]

What ‘fact’ is it that sliced bread dries out faster? Of course if you pre-slice quality bread, it’ll dry out faster. But the sort of preservative-rich sliced bread most of us buy or consume lasts much longer than traditional bread.

Certainly the world wide web counts as a great invention – although of course it was really just a simplification of an existing technology developed by the US defence dept. And of course no one could really claim it is time-saving, unlike sliced bread!

I see to remember the Biro was invented by a Hungarian, so we can’t claim that. Penicillin may be a great invention, but most of us don’t come into to contact with it on a daily basis. If the dual-flush loo was such a great invention – which has been around for years - why are most of us still using single flush? And who else in the word uses zebra crossings (the Aussies perhaps?).

To my mind the optical mouse has been a brilliant convenience, and a money saver, especially in schools where the balls used to be removed by the kids. Not sure who invented it though ...

[sarah]

Tampax

[Gill]

Absorbent paper!

[Colm Nugent]

The electric light bulb.

It transformed millions of lives, the landscape and how we interact with each other.

[Nick J]

Greatest British Invetions? Cricket, bicycles with pneumatic tires, and Harvard. Where would we be without them...

[Dan]

The computer: Alan Turing and his Bombe machines are credited with being the precursor to all modern computer science.

Without it we'd have had no world wide web in the first place nor could we take part in polls like this.

Computers both save us time and entertain us during all the time we've saved.

[Junk Male]

The Internet - it allows total strangers to hold idiotic conversations like this one.

Viva!

[adam]

The deep-fried mars bar.

[Ian Dunn]

I think the best invention since sliced bread is QI - the greatest, smartest, funniest and most interesting thing ever made.

[Bruce Shane Crikey]

Marmite. What a great invention. All the Aussies think Vegemite was the do. Marmite was around before Vegemite!

[Steven]

Pre-grated cheese. Think about it. When do you ever use cheese in block form?

[jski]

Loo paper - although sliced bread can be used as a substitute

[Mike]

The common zip. So damn adaptable!

[simona]

NHS

[Jim]

Ecstasy.. hands down the winner...

[alan]

The best invention since sliced bread?

That there were WMD in Iraq - pure genius!

[twolittlemonsters]

Not very eco-friendly but my vote would be the disposable nappy.

[Francis O'Hara]

Unsliced bread!

[ronnie]

The silver bullet.

[simona]

Tap water-a kind of re-invention-as an acceptable beverage to order in a restaurant

[Lazy]

Yes it is definitely the dishwasher. What's great is if you're too lazy to even turn it on, you can still hide the dishes away from nagging female's eyes.

[James]

The reason for the disappearance of the thin slice is that modern mass-produced bread is a lot of nothing chemically held together by numerous additives (none of which, quite legally, have to be listed as ingredients). These allow the bread to hold very large quantities of water, which constitute up to 40% of its weight. But when physically compressed, it squashes down to very little. That is why you need soft margarines or so-called "spreadable butter", spreads to put on it, because if you try to put real butter on an untoasted (or even toasted) slice, it rips it up and destroys the structure. And because it is nearly half water, you feel hungry again very soon after eating the stuff. Next time you buy a mass-produced loaf, remember that approaching half of the £1 you are spending is going on tap-water.

[Simon]

The French. I love the French. They're the probably even better than sliced bread.

That and Doctor Who.

[Terry]

Statins

[Paul]

Hollow fibre Duvets and Sunday Mornings.

[Alan]

The bicycle - carbon neautral, takes up little parking space, can turn around on a sixpence and outlasts several cars. Additionally, anyone with any nous can fix it!
It can carry loads, kids, power a generator and defeat obesity too.

[Sonia]

What about football?!!!!

[Mike P]

Glass and it's silicone derivatives. The stuff is simply everywhere. Car's and buildings have more than ever, computers would be useless with out silicone for the processors and memory and the millions of miles of glass fiber optics running all over the planet.

We could all live if had to slice our own bread. Without glass this planet would be finished.

[kate corwyn]

The best thing since sliced bread? Real bread of course.

[The Chiefton]

I reckon that the Aussies repeatedly beating the poms at nearly every sport imaginable is the best thing since sliced bread.

[mike]

One word: Bananas

[peter]

Pre -grated?? cheese ??? Thats's a block or wheel. Before grated !!
You mean grated cheese dont you ?
Either way the best British invention is the very british art of looking down ones nose as others !!
Ive never met anyone who can handle it. Not ever!
No need to say "I vant to be alone" the look is enough.
Elevenses and afternoon tea.
chin chin pip pip

[peter]

Glass ?? so tell me , how did the planet survive for 14 billion years without glass. !! sounds like a newly hired sales rep !
a fish called wanda qoute paraphrase
" the chip, the only english invention to the world of food"

yes "THE CHIP"

[David Lea-Smith]

How about a compromise invention involving both Austrlians and Brits, that is penicillin. It was first identified by Fleming but really developed by a British team at Oxford, led by the Australian Howard Florey. It and other antibiotics have saved countless millions and led to a new age of medicine.

[Michael]

The bets thing since sliced bread? Crustless bread.

Now I don't end up wasting and throwing out the two end slices of bread every week.

[Helen]

The washing machine, without a doubt.

[T. J. Cassidy]

1) The t.v. remote.

2) The mute button on the t.v. remote.

[Daniel]

The best thing since sliced bread? We are using it right now: the internet. Sliced bread was innovative because somebody else did the job for us and it didn't cost us a dime. The internet is the exact same thing.

[Nick]

Internet shopping

[John]

that Wimbledon final yesterday is pretty close

[steve lawrence]

The best thing since slice bread was when as a kid my deceased dad god bless his soul,gave his permission that whenever my mom cooked something we did't like we could go and bury it at the back of the yard.:-)

[Hugh Szymonowski]

Rock & roll!

[Luke A]

2-ply toilet paper.

1942: first two-ply toilet paper from St. Andrew's Paper Mill in England; toilet paper becomes softer and more pliable. For most of the rest of the twentieth century, both "hard" and "soft" paper was common. Hard was cheaper, and was shiny on one side. Sometimes it had messages like "GOVERNMENT PROPERTY", "IZAL MEDICATED" or "NOW WASH YOUR HANDS PLEASE" written on each sheet near the perforation. Eventually soft paper won out as the price differential between the two papers vanished. Hard paper is seldom seen these days in UK, but is still available. (From Wikipedia).

I would hope this discussion is now finished.

[Ai Leen]

1. Internet
2. Dishwasher
3. Washing machine
4. Tumble dryer
5. Microwave
6. PRE-CHOPPED GARLIC

[Meirav]

The worrying thing about some industrial sliced bread is the amount of preservatives they put in it. We went away for a month once, leaving a friend to house-sit and a loaf of sliced bread in the fridge, thinking the friend would eat it. The friend ignored the bread. The bread, after a whole month, showed absolutely no signs of ageing. That's when we changed to Hovis.

Best invention? Apart from the internet? Power steering, definitely! As a woman driver, I just love power steering.

[Ned]

The two tiered system of taxation that allows for efficiency, horizontal and vertical equity, as well as transparency and fairness.

Where would we be without it

[Eoin]

The satellite.

[Ryan]

Best thing since sliced bread?

Harry Kewell's dazzling run at Upton Park!

3-1 3-1 3-1 3-1 3-1

[Peri]

Penicillin is not an invention - it was discovered by Fleming, who abandoned work because he could see no future in it. Fleming's "discovery" His finding remained a mere scientific curiosity for more than a decade. Then Lord Florey, an Australian, came along and showed how valuable penicillin was and how it could be developed and used. [The Americans produced it on an industrial scale.] At the most generous it is a "shared" discovery; but more accurately, it was Florey who revealed penicillin's great benefits, and with Ernst Chain should have credit for it. Fleming then stole the credit - as history now shows. Fraud and plagiarism, supported by the then common anti-colonial-pommie-chip-on-both- shoulders. Thankfully those days have passed. See: http://www.abc.net.au/science/slab/florey/story.htm

[DJ]

Problem is... sliced bread isn't "best" at all.

Most of it is pappy, damp and nasty.

Sliced brown is little better.

And all sliced bread loses its flavour faster.

Ahem! Please pass the bread knife!

[red juice please!]

The piston engine, and then the government (always the clever ones!) sold off all rights to the americans. How's that for stupid. Also the Lemon Sherbert, and Pickled Onion flavour Monster Munch!!

[peter c]

undoubtedly the internet

sliced bread is vile

[Harriet]

Cricket. Given that it's an Aussie rivalry and all...

My favorite invention is Laser Eye Surgery. Anything that can give back sight is incredible. I don't know if it's British though.

[Raymond]

Either Hawkeye or Wellington boots.

[John Mullen]

That's easy - Punk rock, obviously.

[simona]

The best thing since sliced bread is we no longer live in a bleak world that considered it 'the best thing'.
Giant leap indeed.

[Oli]

The 4x4!

Can you imagine what life would have been like without the ability to drive anywhere you wanted to?

It has totally revolutionised the world - outside London - where they don't realise that public transport stops a fair few miles short of the M25!

[charlotte]

Aeroplanes!!
It'd take me ages to get back to the UK and sliced bread without one.