We’ve been scouring the internet for bread stories for more than a decade and one thing is clear. There’s no food more influential than bread. People go on strike over it, fight about it, go viral on social media talking about it, steal it, doctor it, over-price it and can’t live without it. In some cases they’re sent home from holiday in disgrace because of it. Here’s the latest crop of bread news.

Nigeria’s bread woes rumble on 

When a nation’s bread scene goes wonky, it’s often a sign the economy as a whole is in trouble. Take Nigeria, where a bread price and quality crisis has been going on for a long time.

The latest news talks about the use of dangerous substances by Nigeria’s restaurateurs, bakers, greengrocers and others in an effort to protect their profits despite ‘extreme inflation’.

The country’s National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control is angry about a video claiming they told Nigerians to stop eating bread because it is failing lab tests, filled with saccharine which costs less than sugar. The organisation denies they intended to warn people off bread, but say that bakers found using unapproved additives will be sanctioned.

In Punjab they’re also worried about pricing. The Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif is keen to strictly enforce fixed bread prices in the region. She’s instructed officials to ensure bread is never sold above the fixed price.

Trump Wonder Bread stunt

Former president Donald Trump threatened to keep up his personal attacks on Kamala Harris during one of his increasingly strange, rambling speeches, this time at his New Jersey golf club.

Trump is clearly no fan of health food. His aides had arranged boxes of Cheerios, instant coffee and Wonder Bread behind him in an effort to showcase the way prices have risen under the Biden-Harris administration. But the Wonder Bread brand has been slammed many times when it comes to nutrition thanks to selling ‘nutrient-deficient white loaves’.

In truth US inflation is down to a combination of pressures on supply and demand, many of which are down to the pandemic and other worldwide events the White House has no control over.

Daft baking ‘influencer’ causes offence on board a plane  

An American ‘baking influencer’ thought it was a good idea to bake sourdough bread on board a flight to Spain, using the little fold-down table as a counter to mix the ingredients and videoing the whole thing.

The crew and passengers were less than impressed. One crew member said Ms Baradell was infecting the bread because the trays are, apparently, used by passengers for all sorts of unhygienic things like changing babies’ nappies and trimming toenails. Some passengers even accidentally vomit on them. Good grief.

Flour is highly flammable and can explode when floating around in the air. Some celiac people are allergic to flour, others are allergic to gluten. And a plane is an enclosed space with no fresh air. We recommend next time Ms Baradell outs other people first instead of performing dodgy social media stunts at 30,000 feet.

Bread storage wars continue

People are always arguing about where we should store our bread. It has been going on for years. Now food waste expert Kate Hall has waded in, suggesting we all freeze our bread. Some people disagree, saying frozen bread dries out fast because the cold speeds up the process of starch crystallisation.

We’re chilled out about the whole thing, being masters of beautiful flash-frozen artisan breads. Put your bread in a bread bin, the fridge, the freezer, the garage, on the roof, in the cat basket, down your trousers, wherever makes you feel happy. We won’t lambast you for it.

Gross British model leaves her smalls in a Spanish supermarket

It’s enough to make you cringe. A British model has been filmed leaving her knickers in a bread bin in a Spanish supermarket. Some shoppers called the police, others demanded she leave the country.

The video shows her removing her pants and leaving them next to fresh bread in a Mercadona supermarket, grinning her head off as she does it. It isn’t unusual. She frequently leaves her knickers in public places as ‘donations’. In one case she left them at a beach bar as a ‘tip’ for great service. We hope they treated her to a bum’s rush.

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