What Could Possibly Be Better Than Wonder Bread?
The train came to a screeching stop at the depot in Soda Springs where our small class of 28 third graders stood. Boys had put pennies on the rail tracks against the warning of our superiors, waiting for the big steel wheels to press them down into flat relics making the writing almost indiscernible.
We were excited for our first train ride to Pocatello for our Spring class trip. The year was 1964 and Aunt Golda, my teacher, had paid for my ticket as well as my cousin Nathan and we felt special. Climbing up the metal steps of the train, my friends and I found our seats while talking, laughing and shouting to our classmates. We were beyond excited!
As the train pulled out of the station we waved goodbye to our parents, our noses pressed up against the windows and then turned towards the front of the train. The conductor announced there was a bathroom at the rear and a drinking station with white cone shaped cups for water if we needed. It didn’t take long for me to venture down the isles with my friends to get a drink or take a turn in the small cubicle bathroom. The gentle swaying of the train made us rock back and forth as we walked back to our seats. Again and again we made the trip just to feel the freedom of waking about while we were in motion, always steadying ourselves on the seats as we walked past our friends.
By the time we pulled into the train station I was dizzy with motion sickness and my friends and I had drank too much water and needed a real restroom. We were herded onto a yellow school bus and delivered to the Wonder Bread factory where my friends and I headed up a narrow stairway and anxiously stood in line waiting for our turn as the tour began.
Two big men dressed in white jumpsuits, aprons and hair nets began our tour. Looking around at the 2-story interior, large windows and a maze of machinery I was in awe at the magnitude of bread being produced. Where I had only seen a few loaves of whole wheat bread being kneaded, raised and shaped by my grandmothers and mother at home in their kitchens, there were thousands of loaves being mass produced in a matter of hours. White bread without a smidgeon of whole wheat rolling off the assembly line.
Wide-eyed with our mouths open in astonishment we walked single file past mixers as tall as us with hundreds of pounds of dough mixing around and around. We walked past clinking conveyor belts with dough rising in metal bread tins and past large hot ovens where the loaves rotated inside on shelves browning as they baked. We walked past an area where the bread slowly cooled after being taken out of the oven and bread pans. And finally we stood watching where the bread was sliced, bagged and loaded for delivery. I had never seen so much bread. Our stomachs rumbled with the smell of fresh baked bread. As our tour ended we were each handed a miniature loaf of Wonder Bread. Some of the students ripped theirs open and began eating immediately while others of us carefully carried our little loaves home as souvenirs.
After our tour and a tour of a few other businesses we boarded the school bus and headed back the long winding highway to Grace where our parents picked us up at the school.
After my class tour of the Wonder Bread factory, it’s advertisements on television during the 1960’s boasted enough convincing information that we couldn’t help but make it our staple diet. After watching Mayberry RFD, Leave It To Beaver, Bugs Bunny while I was draped over the couch or lying on the floor with my siblings, we absorbed the Wonder Bread advertisements specifically geared to us children, By eating 10 slices of fortified Wonder Bread each day, they claimed, it could supply enough vitamins and minerals to make you just about super human. It seemed to be the wonder food of the day.
● Muscles: as much protein as a sirloin roast
● Bones and Teeth: as much calcium as a helping of cottage cheese
● Body Cells: Enough phosphorus as 1 egg
● Blood Enough: iron as 3 lamb chops
● Appetite: Enough vitamin B12 to help maintain hunger as a serving of liver
● Growth: Enough vitamin B6 to maintain growth as in 3 slices of American cheese
● Brain: Enough Niacin to maintain mental health as 6 sardines
● At Work and Play: as much energy to work and play as 2 glasses of milk
We were sure we didn’t need anything else to eat and we tried to convince Mom. I think she would have been happy to believe us because it meant less dishes and cooking. At times she gave in and bought a couple of loaves if it was a hectic grocery shopping day. We’d cook up hot dogs and put them on Wonder Bread with a little ketchup and mustard. I carried a loaf of Wonder Bread to bed one night. Stashed under my blanket I pulled a slice out, squished it into a cube (which was very easy to do) and consumed it slowly. I pull out another slice and roll this one into a ball before letting it melt in my mouth. The next slice would be a pyramid and so on eating slice after slice until I fell asleep with a bite still in my mouth (And I wondered why I was always at the dentist!).
Scientific studies have now changed our perspective on this Wonder food and the detriment of fortified vitamins, processed white flour and high glucose content of white bread. Eating too much white bread can contribute to obesity, diabetes and heart disease (Medical News).
My conversion to whole grains has been a process of time and experience. My first exposure to bread making was watching my grandmothers and mother make bread by hand in their small kitchens. Seeing hundreds of loaves produced at the Wonder Bread factory as a third grader opened my eyes to the potential of mass production. Making dozens of loaves of bread with the school mixer in the back room of my parents home provided ample experience. After marriage, starting my first handmade loaves has gradually evolved to my present day ritual of freshly grinding whole grains and making bread in the 20 quart commercial Hobart mixer. My bread making continues to be a journey of interest and fulfillment.
Written by: Paula Dawn Webb
Paula is our mom. She is a professional writer, baker, and life-long promoter of a whole-food, plant-based lifestyle. She writes weekly for our blog at plaingrains.com where she shares her experiences and love of mindful nutrition.
Paula earned an Associates of Food-Science Nutrition, Bachelors of English/Professional Writing and a Master's of Communications.