On a related note, one of the things I remember finding most interesting from Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens was his remark that (paraphrasing) "we didn't domesticate wheat—it domesticated us!"

The article does seem to have forgotten completely about the existence of modern wholemeal bread. I understand that people do buy white bread, but I can't for the life of me understand why.

I prefer white bread because the pleasant but mild flavor compliments most things without being overpowering. I only use non-white breads that compliment the flavors of what I'm topping it with, such as a Reuben sandwich. I couldn't imagine a PB&J, tuna/chicken salad, or cold meatloaf sandwich on anything other than white (and believe me, I've tried).

As it mentions, there are many uses of plain white flour other than bread.

> Flour can be engineered into a series of deeply likeable textures, from the softness of sponge cake to the crispness of a cracker to the custardy satisfaction of a Yorkshire pudding.

Some believe that removing the grain's bran/germ (while refining, in order to produce white flour), also removes some/most chemical compounds used by industrial agriculture (pesticides...). This leads to organic whole flour, which is expensive.

> I understand that people do buy white bread, but I can't for the life of me understand why.

I have the opposite view: who on Earth eats wholemeal bread and why would they subject themselves to that, when there's perfectly good and tasty white bread available?

For the same reasons people like everything sweet: more carbs less fibre.

Fried food and brown bread doesn’t really work - though perhaps that’s a UK cultural thing.

Zopf/tresse (with almonds) is the white bread we buy.

What's the connection to this? Seems a non-sequitur.

He's written a fair amount on the Green Revolution in particular, and the relation (at a spherical cow level) between agricultural advances and overall economic growth in general.

Edit: Enriching the Earth: Fritz Haber, Carl Bosch and the Transformation of World Food Production is probably how I associated high-yield, short-straw wheat with Smil.

Right. No mention in the context of this post though, unless I'm missing something.

This stuff annoys me to no end:

"white flour is ‘a pure starch so nutritionally void’ that by law vitamins must be added back into it. White flour must be fortified with calcium, iron, thiamin and niacin to make up for the fact that the nutritious part of the wheat has been taken away during the milling process."

In fact white flour is not pure starch (i.e. carbohydrates), it also contains proteins and fibers and some fat. And it's very nutritious, which means that it contain the calories and proteins we need most to get nourished. Of course you won't be healthy on a diet of flour alone, as you won't be healthy on any diet of a single basic ingredient, whatever it might be.

Also — assuming there isn’t more context to the quote (LRB hates mobile devices) — there’s no law that white flour must be enriched; there are regulations that state what must be done for white flour to be characterized as “enriched,” as one would expect. LRB’s fact-checking not looking so good here.

In some countries (such as Canada) such law exists.