Fresh Bread, welllllll, maybe?

I just found out that one of the weird things that big bakeries add to commercial breads is something called L-cysteine.  An innoccuous ingredient, or so it would seem.  It is one of the non-essential amino acids that make up a large part of the protein complex of human anatomy.  I don't know why it is added, it is supposed to be a dough conditioner.  However, the way the stuff is made is what grosses me out.  It is made by taking human hair and dissolving it in solvents, then a complex chemical reaction is used to isolate the L-cysteine.  And most of the commercially available stuff is imported from China.  Oh no, not China!  I love Chinese food, but just the stuff cooked here.  China does not have the greatest track record for exporting food.  There is all the pesticide residues on their "ORGANIC" produce, the high melamine content of pet food, the toothpaste problem, the hold on all fish, the problems with unsupervised facilities, and well, just about everything with Chinese imports. 

The Feds appear unable, (well given the HUGE amount of money made by agribusiness outsourcing their food sourcing and manufacturing to China) or maybe unwilling, to take the initiative and test imports and inspect the factories that make the foods exported to the US.  Of course it does all go back to money.  Maybe the FDA just doesn't have the funds to inspect much of the 184 Billion dollars worth of food coming into the US every year.  Or perhaps the heads of the departments within the FDA feel that inspecting less than 1% of those imports is good enough to ensure that all the rest are wholesome and nutritious.  I don't know.  I do know that I will never ever ever buy a bag of Cheetos.  Nor will I buy a bag of organic produce if it says grown in China.  And I will always bake my own bread.  Did you know that bread baked with L-cysteine is not kosher?  It is made with products harvested from humans.  I'm not sure what the real problems are in the middle east, because in so many ways the Koran and Talmud say the exact same thing.  Here, it's simple, don't eat anything like human hair.  It definitely is not Kosher or Halal.

Baking bread is a very simple process, and my next post will show how it is done.