The Fascinating Origins of Everyday Things (Part 2)

In this episode of The Brain Food Show, we start off looking at that time the United States government banned pre-sliced bread… Really.

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Moving on to the next section we look at who exactly invented what is so often compared to the “best things”- pre-sliced bread and the little saga to him getting bakers to accept his invention.

After that, we look at the surprisingly interesting saga of the invention and popularization of the shopping cart.

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3 comments

  • Please provide a transcript for those of us who do not, or can not, watch videos.

  • I love your guys show. Never stop learning.

  • Seriously, have to agree with Saltwater Cracker. Very appreciative that you make podcasts, but I’m not going to spend 45 minutes listening to who invented the bread slicer or the shopping cart. A 3 paragraph synopsis will do, especially when Wiki gives me exactly that and I can read it in seconds:

    Otto Frederick Rohwedder of Davenport, Iowa, United States, invented the first single loaf bread-slicing machine.
    During 1943, U.S. officials imposed a short-lived ban on sliced bread as a wartime conservation measure.[6][7] The ban was ordered by Claude R. Wickard who held the position of Food Administrator, and took effect on January 18, 1943. … On March 8, 1943, the ban was rescinded.

    (but it was the plastic bag that sliced bread came in that really made it work. With a double plastic wrap, bread just doesn’t go stale. Not to mention all the preservatives added to modern white bread, along with the rise of instant yeast; for thousands of years all risen bread had been what we today call sourdough, which takes half a day to rise instead of 90 minutes)

    The shopping cart was invented in the mid-1930s by Sylvan N. Goldman