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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.

The politics of doughnuts

Homer Simpson would approve. The Lede has an excellent post up today about all things doughnut-related.

We've already looked at the nomination race to lay on the most baked goods. Now a scandal has broken out about the keffiyeh-like scarf worn by Rachel Ray, the celebrity chef advertising Dunkin' Donuts. Left and right are up in arms. Why so much passion about pastry?

Here's the Lede's explanation:

America’s love for doughnuts is hard to overestimate, having originated in North America at least as far back as the mid-19th century. Artifacts from one chain, Krispy Kreme, sit in the Smithsonian.

And why shouldn't they? It's good to know that doughnuts have found their place in US history - somewhere just between the Smithsonian's anthem-inspiring Stars and Stripes and Judy Garland's ruby slippers.

Alice Fishburn

When spin hits sausages in the Commons

Breakfast in the House of Commons and you realise how deeply the culture of spin is now embedded in politics.

MPs can order two eggs, two rashers of bacon, two sausages, buttered toast and a cup of coffee as a breakfast special.

The name given for this greasy fry-up? The High Protein Breakfast.

Marie Curie...Prawn Puri

In case you are not trawling the comments on this blog as assiduously as you should be, I feel constrained to point out that top Nobel Prize-Tasty snack rhymes are flooding in.

Swaf has posted this:

Seamus Heaney - Ham Panini

while Tim Hedges provides:

Amartya Sen - Gingerbread men

New Diet Coke research shows why I am right about almost everything

My previous tongue-in-cheek post on Diet Coke produced a startling response from readers of Comment Central with intense feelings on the subject. I was rather taken aback.

And now this.

Researchers at Purdue University have concluded that:

by breaking the connection between a sweet sensation and high-calorie food, the use of saccharine changes the body’s ability to regulate how many calories it consumes.

“The data clearly indicate that consuming a food sweetened with no-calorie saccharine can lead to greater body-weight gain and adiposity than would consuming the same food sweetened with a higher-calorie sugar.”

Given how much Diet Coke I drink, you might have thought this would rock my world.

But far from it. I think this is the strongest confirmation that I am right, not just about DC but about, well, almost everything.

You see, I hold the strong view that people risk compensate.

Prevent them smoking in one place and they do it somewhere else. Force people to wear safety belts and they drive faster, killing people outside the car. And so on.

The theory is explained well in Professor John Adams' book Risk.

Risk compensation is a strong argument against trying to regulate things using law.

This new research suggests that we compensate even at the basic biological level. If we do this with Diet Coke, it is quite likely that we compensate in a similar way for all diet foods, giving at least one reason why diets don't work.

I am not at all surprised to hear this news about DC. It's why I am so sceptical about regulation of all kinds.

Just for the taste of it...Diet Coke

Martin Amis has given an interview to the Independent's Johann Hari and, as Matthew D'Ancona points out, most of the time he is gloriously right.

But there is one issue he gets shockingly, unforgivably, wrong.

He disses Diet Coke.

Here is Hari's account of the fateful moment:

He then asks what I would like to drink. A Diet Coke, I say. "Ah," he replies. "The least cool of all drinks."

Uncool? Uncool?

Doesn't he realise that REO Speedwagon insist on the provision of Diet Coke as a contract rider? And so do Mariah Carey, Elton John, the Beach Boys and Cher.

Doesn't he realise that Shania Twain and LeAnn Rimes drink copious quantities?

Hasn't anyone told him that DC (sorry Mr Cameron but DC will only ever mean one thing) is Donald Trump's soft drink of choice? That Harvey Weinstein's limo is stacked with cool, refreshing cans?

That Al Gore drinks DC constantly? That John Edwards downs 10 cans a day?

Uncool! Huh.

McCoincidence? I think not.

The woman married to the burger-flipping king, McDonalds CEO Frank Turner, is called Patty Turner. This is not a coincidence, of course.

What giving up McDonald's can do for you...

Has Morgan Spurlock found Osama Bin Laden?

The American Bream

Horrible as the footage of the California fires is, it's good to hear that Hollywood glamour is thriving in the face of adversity. The Blitz spirit is kicking in, everyone is doing their bit, and, this being Tinseltown, there is a certain pizzazz to the contributions. Hats - or possibly helmets - off to Nobu Malibu, who treated the firefighters to a banquet of their eye-wateringly expensive sushi, gratis. Cod bless them.

Alice Fordham

The Tories shouldn't treat junk food manufacturers as polluters

The Conservative Party is consulting on a new plan to tackle obesity:

Food and drink manufacturers could be given strict quotas for producing fatty and sugary foods and alcohol under plans to tackle obesity and excessive drinking being considered by the Conservative Party.

The idea is that fat, salt and sugar have externalities and the people that manufacture them should be treated as polluters. Does this idea work?

Let's leave aside the bureaucratic difficulties of such a scheme, which are legion. Instead let's concentrate on the parallel being drawn between environmental polluters and these so-called social polluters. I am afraid it is not a good one.

Manufacturing food does not cause obesity. Consuming too much of it causes obesity. Actually even this may not be true, since lack of exercise plays an important role. So the companies who manufacture a chocolate bar do not create "pollution" of any kind. The proposal to tax Cadbury's for the sugar in their bar is similar to a proposal to tax Paul McCartney for the noise pollution caused when someone plays his records too loudly.

This idea should start and finish with this consultation paper. 

Eating to excess

I hope the Heart Attack Grill in Tempe, Arizona plans to go global. Customers (or rather "patients") are served Quadruple Bypass Burgers and Flatliner Fries by "nurses".  Those who finish the Quadruple are then pushed to their cars in a wheelchair. They also are proud to sell cigarettes. What's not to like? No surprise, it's not to everyone's taste.

Robbie Millen

Junk the junk food ban

The striking thing about Ed Richard's piece for this morning's Times is how tentative the Ofcom chief is about his junk food ad ban. Here is his central argument for intervention:

The evidence: children’s food preferences are shaped by TV adverts — which must come as a relief to brand managers everywhere. That influence, while limited when compared with the role of parents and other factors, is real and cannot be ignored. However, it can also be overstated. Other influences are much more important, and much harder to change.

See what I mean? And while I am grateful for such a balanced pronouncement, it certainly raises a big question about whether his action is right.

You see, there are no bright line arguments that can easily be made here. Every statement of principle you might make ("I think people should advertise as they wish to whoever they wish") can be countered with an example where that principle is already breached (You can't swear, for instance). So defenders of free speech end up saying the equivalent of "Yes but come off it". In other words, we rely on the suggestion that the other side is being unreasonable.

By conceding that the evidence he is using is not that strong, therefore, Richards is conceding a lot. I think he strengthens the hands of those of us who believe that the ban is pushing things too far.

Or if you prefer the same point made more robustly, you can read Spiked's Brendan O'Neill on the subject.