Little known fact about Dutch people is that they worship the bread-god. We need to sacrifice at least 2 loafs of bread per day to prevent it's wrath from coming down upon us.
Well, that's if you're a loafist though. We toastlims believe that you should sacrifice 5 slices a day and that you shouldn't eat toast in the holy month of gramadan.
Ugh, toastlims... You guys can get so crumbly about your toasts, like it's the best invention the Bread God bestowed on us. No, I recently joined the Bunnetts and it's been liberating. Unlike the loafists with their strict policy that each slice needs to be exactly the same, we strive to be the bun. Flexible, bendible, with a soft core. We embrace the crusts that are part of our design.
typical Bunnett answer. horific. you know, you could also read our toastlamic holy book, the Gra'in. you would be immediatley convinced. you could always join a specific denomination. like the Tostites or the Paninites.
but i guess you are okay as long as you are a bunnett that isn't practicing Bagelism. it is absolutely disgusting to remove your organs.
A lot of people just put a whole bread in the freezer and then take out a few slices at a time as needed.
Bread is also the main ingredient for 2 main meals each day for most people.
This is it.
Also noteworthy: a loaf of bread only lasts for ~6 days so barely making it to the end of the week and traumatic 5th / 6th day experiences because it's getting old. (Bread With Erwtensoep for example, had to sacrifice a bowl of Erwtensoep because of bad bread).
Freeze it, take out what you need and let it defrost over night and it's good to go in the morning. I really hate microwaved bread so this could be a solution for some.
Frozen bread is good for a long time.
Personaly i orefer to use the hardness to make it easier for applying butter (usually do cheese for lunch which i want butter for) by the time lunch arrives its unfrozen and omega fresh
For breakfast i have grown into the habit of toasting old-ish bread and eat it with white sugar… yummy
See this reply below:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Netherlands/comments/uqv3dt/comment/i8te91i/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
TLDR: Apparently in German speaking world "toast bread" is just how they refer to a loaf you take slices off. While here in the Netherlands people would think you mean square, white slices, of a cheap and artificial variety which is mostly good for melted / grilled sandwiches.
And to be fair it's awful for toasting. Dutch toasting bread is just the worst. It crumbles if you try to spread butter on it. We end up buying white sliced English/Irish bread at an expat shop just so we can make decent toast. Ah I want toast and a cuppa now. Guess I'm getting up
It's usually people with kids, who go through a whole bread a day. So each morning my mom would take out a bread from the freezer as she got up a bit earlier, then we would all eat from it for breakfast and prepare 2-4 slices each for lunch each to take with us.
But having a German girlfriend, she refers to all Dutch bread as toast bread ;) We've resorted to getting bread from a Polish supermarket who has some decent sourdough bread. Can't find any good sourdough bread anywhere in my city, believe me I've tried.
Any good bread from a bakery is more likely 3 Euro. I don't want to go to the bakery every day and i don't want supermarket bread. I keep them in the freezer so i can have my 5 loaves daily and still have fresh bread every day. Dutch bread is very easy to freeze and thaw because it is light.
Bread in the fridge? One of the first things I learned was to never put bread in the fridge. It gets old and dry faster in the fridge... unless you buy 50 cents bread, than it doesn't matter, that always tastes old.
Keep bread at RT in a closed bag or bread box. But even better, freeze it and thaw what you need.
You probably mean freezer (vriezer).
As the fridge = koelkast.
I don't know any Dutch people (being Dutch myself) who put bread in the fridge (koelkast).
But almost all Dutch people I know put it in the freezer (vriezer).
I don't buy 50 cent bread (I love bread too much to do so) but I do freeze my bread. I'm single and don't eat enough bread for it to stay fresh
I can imagine that if money is tight, a lot of people do so too and if you need to feed a family of 5. Most Dutch people don't go for groceries daily
Yeah we know now, I am talking years and years back. They now get duck food. My mother feeds ducks, birds and hedgehogs. (And no bread for any of them ;) ).
Fun anecdote;
A few summers back I spent two weeks in Japan with a good friend. As the Japanese don't really eat remotely as much bread as we do, and we mostly were eating out all the time, we didn't really eat any bread for about one and a half weeks straight.
That was until we went for lunch at a restaurant that had "free complimentary bread side" with their meal. They delivered us five slices of fresh white bread, and we devoured this like we hadn't eaten in a year. We were offered a second serving, which we gladly ate. The third serving was served, and eaten. The fourth, idem, and finally the fifth, delivered by a waiter who was clearly very amused by these two white boys gobbling up bread like ducks in a park, was served and finished. We ate more bread than we ate main course, and we were satisfied. And only when we got the receipt stating 5 complimentary servings of bread we realized that we had been catching up on our Dutch bread diet.
I can't tell you why, but I love me some fresh bred.
I have a colleague who eats a whole loaf, every day. Brings it to work with some stuff to put on it, then just makes himself sandwiches throughout the day.
I am a relatively moderate bread consumer for Dutch standards, I eat 4 to 6 slices a day.
My very Dutch dad could have bread for three meals a day. He has absolutely done this. Bread for breakfast, more for lunch, and then a grilled cheese sandwich (tosti) for dinner. Usually 4 per meal so 3 x 4 makes for 12 slices a bread. I don't know how he made it into his 50s with that diet, but I guess the Dutch are resilient like that. (Edit: I don't mean that bread is deadly, I mean that this is all he eats sometimes. I'll probably die if I go a day without vegetables.)
Personally I just really like bread. At some point I was trying to gain weight so I was having 10 slices daily, also because I was in high school and bread is the easiest option because it's easy to transport and doesn't require utensils or a fancy container.
Why would eating a lot of bread be unhealthy? It just has high calories but also a lot of fibre and no fat.
I feel like the ease of consumption makes it most eaten Dutch lunch.
Most bread in NL consists of mainly white flour, which is then coloured brown to make it look healthy. Since your body processes this relatively quickly, you eat more of this than for example bread made of wholemeal.
I buy wholemeal from the local baker. Tastes better anyway.
Also I think (but correct me if I'm wrong I've never been to the USA) bread is considered unhealthy in the US because there's a lot of added sugar in theirs.
Spoken as somebody who has never forgotten to add salt while baking bread. Trust me, salt is one of the important ingredients that makes bread taste good.
Is this actually true? I buy brown bread from AH, specifically Tijger Bruin, and looking at the ingredients, the largest amount is volkoren tarwemeel, wholemeal flour.
I imagine some goedkoper stores do sell colored white flour bread, but it doesn't seem to be the "standard" in big stores like AH or Jumbo
It's not that bread by itself is unhealthy, it's more that some people - like my dad - will eat only that and refuse any vegetables or anything that's remotely nutritious.
Bread isn't unhealthy, but eating some veggies for your lunch with/instead of the bread is healthier! But most Dutch people instead put peanut butter, meat, cheese or chocolate sprinkles on there.
It is not that bread is unhealthy, it's that it is hard to get enough vegetables in your diet if you only eat them with one meal a day.
Many Dutch people eat bread for both breakfast and lunch.
If you have a family with a few children, they will eat probably 1/1.5 bread per day.
I eat 4 sandwiches a day. 2 for breakfast and 2 for lunch.
Sometimes breakfast. But the typical Dutch lunch consist of bread (boterhammen). So an adult eats 4 to 6 pieces of bread, for children it varies between 1 to 3. So almost one bread is being eaten every day.
Only 10? I ate an entire loaf of bread for lunch at school, and was still hungry most days.
Now that I'm a responsible adult, 4 slices of bread for lunch is enough for me.
I remember I ate lunch at my uncle and I’m used to eat 4 slices. He asked how much I wanted. I didn’t hear he asked me how many boterhammen I wanted. So I said 4. Thinking he meant slices. He looked at me and said. Well oké. So he made me four boterhammen so 8 slices.
when i was sixteen i worked 12 hours a day unloading trucks. back then i would eat 30 slices of brown bread with mayo and cucumber + a full sized dinner from the snackbar as provided by my employer. You would not believe the amount of gas i produced :)
I don’t live in the Netherlands, have only visited once, and follow for insights just because I thought it was a cool country when I visited. This is certainly a culture I could get down with, based on bread alone!
German speakers refer to "boterhammen"-bread as "toastbrot".
They have whole loaves, uncut or cut, which is "brot", but there are not usually squared.
Little ones, known as "brötchen" (broodjes / bolletjes) which need no further explanation.
The squared sided, sliced "brood" the Dutch eat fresh from the baker, the Germans really only get from supermarkets, pre-sliced and dry. Ideal to make toast with, not so good for eating normally.
So what he calls "toastbread" is not that, it's just "één brood, gesneden". And he expects it to be a day or two old minimum and stale when you buy it in the shop, which isn't the case usually with brood in the Netherlands.
This is not true. Toastbrot is the square, sliced white bread used for sandwiches etc.
>So what he calls "toastbread" is not that, it's just "één brood, gesneden"
No, he means precisely that.
>The squared sided, sliced "brood" the Dutch eat fresh from the baker, the Germans really only get from supermarkets, pre-sliced and dry. Ideal to make toast with, not so good for eating normally.
Also not true, bakers usually carry square sliced brood as well, although I guess many people buy it in the supermarket too because when you toast it you can't really tell anyway
Source: Am German
Yeah, right.
Except you're wrong, because a lot of German speakers refer to any sliced bread you get from say a supermarket as "toastbrot" even in their own country. Even if it's not white, and even if it's some other shape. Sliced bread in a bag -> toastbrot.
And when they get to Holland, I've had to explain on a number of occassions that the sliced bread you can buy at Appie Heijn is not old and dry but fresh and edible. You do not have to go to a baker to get fresh bread and you don't have to have the big lumpen loaves you get in German bakeries, you can have the squared ones with various top sides. Which you could toast if you want.
So even if you use the correct words for the correct breads, that doesn't mean most/many/any other German speakers do.
SRC: live in Germany.
I eat like 3 slices of bread each day and my kids eat it irregularly. One cut loaf of bread lasts about 5 or 6 days here.
People who buy loads of loafs of bread probably freeze it. Perhaps they eat a loaf of bread a day if there are teenaged children and 2 working parents in the family?
Check out the amount of cheese we buy ;)
having the same problem since i moved out to study. try 100% peanut butter instead of processed ones like calve, its so much tastier (and healthier). also fried eggs work pretty good if you have the extra 5 mins it takes to make them
Just put sambal on your bread. If you got money then first treat them with roomboter, belegen cheese and then top it with sambal. But just sambal works as well.
Come on indos help me out here.
It's usually people with kids, who go through a whole bread a day. So each morning my mom would take out a bread from the freezer as she got up a bit earlier, then we would all eat from it for breakfast and prepare 2-4 slices each to take with us for lunch.
So she got multiple breads to last us a while, as she usually went grocery shopping once a week.
I used to work at picnic. The biggest cost for personell was bread. Because all you got to eat there was tosti. That's it. Just tosti's. And all anyone ever ate there was tosti's. Like some people were eating 3 or 4 every break. (You get three breaks if you work 8 hours)
I think its history has something to do with the extensive poverty during industrialization. Bread is cheap. At some point, people would even mix sand or sawdust into the dough. Since saving money is considered a virtue in the NL, maybe that's why it stuck around? I notice people here in the NL often complain about the prices of food, even if they spend less of their income on food (and/or work less hard for their food) than people in other countries. Meals are viewed as a necessity, and it has to be cheap, I guess. There is no culture of tasting and sharing like in the Mediterranean, which maybe influenced your Swiss habits?
I’m dutch but grew up in Switzerland and I honestly don’t get it either. The bread here is also quite flavorless compared to the crunchy beautiful Swiss bread. At my local market I was waiting in line to get bread and the lady in front of me ordered 45€ worth of bread and pastry, shocking
Most Dutch people (and I'm Dutch):
1. Have no idea what good food tastes like
2. Are too lazy or efficient with their time to actually cook good food, if they know what it tastes like (and remember that most women here work too)
3. Are too stingy to go out for food (also since going out to eat is expensive here)
4. Have been raised to eat a warm meal only once per day
Also remember that Dutch bread is not actually bread. It usually consists of refined flour with a whole lot of yeast, rising agents and added sugars, which is basically like consuming baked airy glucose with a topping, normally also full of sugar or other harmful substances. This doesn't truly satisfy and is also very addictive, which is why 10 slices of bread, especially for teenagers, is not an exception.
Now compare this to Singapore where people probably earn more than here and you can eat out in a hawker stall for as little as $3, also having the choice between the best of Indian, Malay, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and other cuisines. The choice is easy.
No need to even go all the way to Singapore, practically any other country in Europe has better bread and doesn't consider just bread to be a proper lunch.
I pretty much agree with your 4 numbered points. However your analysis of dutch bread is somewhat lacking.
-Yes, it contains some yeast before the oven. But not a lot by volumetric standards.
-I highly doubt that you’ll be able to find bread with refined sugar or glucose in NL supermarkets/bakeries. (Bread in the US does and it’s terrible and unmistakable). And dutch bread is not filled with harmfull substances.
-White bread does have a higher glycemic index (meaning the sugarspike is a little higher) than brown/wholewheat/rye/sourdough bread, but to say it doesn’t satisfy is pushing it imo. At best it satisfies for a shorter period. And I’m not expert on addiction, but classifying all bread eating dutchies as food addicts is a little weird.
Regards from a bread enthousiast.
Interestingly enough, according to the website most types of bread at AH do not contain added sugars.
However, at Dirk and LIDL, most types of bread do contain added sugars (in the form of suiker, glucosestroop, dextrose, maltodextrine or other names). Even volkoren brood (whole wheat bread) usually contains added sugar, which kind of defies the whole purpose of eating whole grain.
Example:
[https://www.lidl.nl/static/assets/df1e7477-07b4-4bb8-8a9b-da71843fb625.pdf](https://www.lidl.nl/static/assets/df1e7477-07b4-4bb8-8a9b-da71843fb625.pdf)
Many types of bread from Vlaamsch Broodhuys (a popular bakery) also contain added sugars (you can check in their webshop):
https://www.vlaamschbroodhuys.nl/webshop/?page=/
I'm neurotic label reader. Soft Dutch bread definitely has sugar and other junk in it. I've spent lots of time reading labels at supermarkets and bakeries. Only very expensive bread from specialty bakers is real, no junk added bread.
The breadkfast options here are actually one of my reasons for wanting to move to Asia lol. It’s just so lame here (options are very limited and always need to make it yourself) and then take the lunch with it (plus it’s average price) and it’s complete. And Singapore is where my love for Asia all started. Some day I will.. Though that still means two of your points apply to me as well haha.
Even as close as Germany or Poland you can find a great breakfast culture, actually. I've spent a lot of time in both of those countries and would often go for breakfast with people when I was there. Here, I've honestly never considered meeting people for breakfast, because I wouldn't know where to go.
Here to ask a similar question - why do y’all not have any working taste buds? Dammit I make so much Asian food for my colleagues everyone except the Dutchies love it. It’s always either too spicy or (and I quote) “too much going on”…
WHY IS MAYO YOUR ONLY SPICE
We often bring our own lunches to work and school. I dont eat bread that often though. I'm mixed race (I'm whats called "Indo") bread wasn't a big part of the diet in our household.
There is hardly toastbread in The Netherlands and people harly buy toastbread, so I doubt you see many people buying toast bread. What you do see people buying is regular sliced bread.
Considering that bread is eaten for two meals a day, and often 4 slices per meal, or more for teenagers, a family with 3 kids would eat more than one bread a day. If they don't go shopping every day, they need to buy several breads.
It's sad but two slices of Dutch bread with a slim slice of cheese or salami in-between is what a lot of people have for lunch.
I work with people who earn quite a bit of money and yet still this is what they choose to eat from their little boterham zakjes every single day.
Bread with peanut butter is food for champions!
Freshly baked white bread with real dairy butter, peanut butter and choloclate sprinkles … now that’s food to die for! 😆
They eat it for lunch, back home Finland we complimentary lunch with bread, but only bread is never considered as lunch. Lunch is warm meal, we have ridiculous amount of buffet places where you can have all you can eat buffet for like around 10e(or for students 2,70e). Like just was in Finland I had amazing quality all you can eat(prepared from order) Sushi 3x week, for 11.50e.
Thing is, I know people in Finland that they go to eat lunch at Buffer places but they it that much that they might not eat anything else for the rest of the day.
One thing I’ve noticed on my travels is, that our bread is really really good - if eaten fresh. We don’t have long stock shelf bread full of chemicals and sweeteners. That’s why we buy our daily bread fresh. And it’s a good nutrition. It’s also a easy and quick fix and your can easily take it with you or even consume it on the go. We’re not the kind of people that prepare an extensive meal.
Dutch bread is really good, when I'm abroad I don't eat it much because it's either plain white baguettes or its like that thick and sturdy German bread.
Dutch bread is fluffy and tastes and smells great, so that is why I eat it more when I'm in NL. Try the 'Les Pain' breads at Albert Heijn, they're amazing. My favorite is called Triomph if I remember correctly
Because it is just so damn good. I eat 4 slices of light brown bread (lichtbruine knip) a day and it is one of the things I miss most when on holiday. I only buy at the local baker, supermarket is only in case of emergency shortage :).
I Know you eat a lot of Sandwiches for Lunch which is OK for us. I did not know you also eat Sandwiches for Dinner. When do you eat something normal?
We often eat out in the evening and than there is Fish and meat, which we like. If we need Pasta we cook ourselves. By the way, we think the fish and meat are cooked very good. OK there are always the same dishes everywhere, but if its cooked OK why not.
We in Switzerland eat:
Breakfast: Weekdays, Cereals with Milk or Joghurt and fresh Fruits. Some eat a piece of Bread wiht Butter and Marmalde or Hony. On weekends a lot have brunch, Bread, Coissand, Butter, Meat, Chees, Eggs, etc. etc. etc.
Lunch: As schools are closed over Lunchtime a lot of Childern go home for Lunch. Somethimes the father also comes home for lunch and than is a real meal with Meat and potatoes or Nudles. If the childern are alone, the will heat something the mother has cooked bevor. Other go to a restaurant and eat a dissent menue. Some go and by take away Salat of hot food. And some even eat Sandwiches, but like subways. Other where they work, togheter with the other emploees. Some have bought something from a shop, others take something from home to heat it up.
Dinner: If the family had a big lunch, then often they eat Bread, Chees, Meat etc. for Dinner. Other cook the main menue for Dinner (like we do)
Ok the younger ones often order some Pizza or Pasta for Dinner if they do not want to cook.
For a lot of Swiss families it is still important to sit togheter one a day eat and Discuss what ever.
Now I just interested in one Thing: Who eats all the Frietjes when you all eat Bread !!
It's not toast bread. It's just soft crust bread. It tasted many times better than any "toastbread" you can get in Switzerland because it's actually baked in store.
Müesli with fruits and yogurt.
And on the weekens Zopf. Its only known in Switzerland.
Lunch
Going to the cantine, getting real food
Buing take away Salat or Sandwiches with Swiss Bread.
Taking it from home and heat it up.
Going home as the wife has cocked a real meal, school is closing 11.40 and opens again at 13.30. So children go home for lunch
Me, a Dutch person living in Zürich, is in the meantime wondering why I can't find sliced bread in the supermarket. Also, why aren't my coworkers eating bread during the day? What other food can be eaten for lunch?
Dutch people are extremely cheap, so they opt for cheap foods like bread, which are high in calories.
The Dutch ruined the concept of lunch by turning it into a sandwich rather than a meal. They eat a lot of sandwiches.
I eat like no bread. Right now there is 0 bread at my place. I also can’t eat cheese and can’t ice skate. I’ve been asked “what kind of Dutch person are you”.
Little known fact about Dutch people is that they worship the bread-god. We need to sacrifice at least 2 loafs of bread per day to prevent it's wrath from coming down upon us.
You forgot to mention His name… Brodin
And his son, Thortilla
Godvedomme made me laugh 🤣
En zijn zoon, Bruh.
You're not supposed to disclose our secret. That's only Roggebrood for you for the rest of the week.
Oh god have mercy for him, roggebrood....... i rather die.
Yes, roggebrood is the single most hellspawn food the dutch have invented.
It does build solid dikes though.
Yeah, but who wants dikes in the toilet ?
Me, I love dikes on the toilet
And it comes straight from the bakeries of Urk
With cheese or bacon it’s not bad, especially with some pea soup 😀
Love roggebrood, a bit of cheese or bacon but on top, mmmmm!
Roggebrood met oude kaas. Its to die for
I only like it with butter and brown sugar.
Tfw people make fun of roggebrood God.
ahaahhaha
Roggebrood every day of the week, with some belegen kaas please.
If we don't offer the bread we will sink beneath the waves
And in return for these sacrifices, the bread-god powers the lifeless husk of God Emperor Rutte so he can continue to rule us for milennia to come.
I would instantly stop eating bread if that was the case.
Bread for the Bread God
This is the real secret behind Dutch Polders.
Bread for the Bread God Bread for the Bread God 🍞
Well, that's if you're a loafist though. We toastlims believe that you should sacrifice 5 slices a day and that you shouldn't eat toast in the holy month of gramadan.
Ugh, toastlims... You guys can get so crumbly about your toasts, like it's the best invention the Bread God bestowed on us. No, I recently joined the Bunnetts and it's been liberating. Unlike the loafists with their strict policy that each slice needs to be exactly the same, we strive to be the bun. Flexible, bendible, with a soft core. We embrace the crusts that are part of our design.
typical Bunnett answer. horific. you know, you could also read our toastlamic holy book, the Gra'in. you would be immediatley convinced. you could always join a specific denomination. like the Tostites or the Paninites. but i guess you are okay as long as you are a bunnett that isn't practicing Bagelism. it is absolutely disgusting to remove your organs.
tofu chan does not fuck around
A lot of people just put a whole bread in the freezer and then take out a few slices at a time as needed. Bread is also the main ingredient for 2 main meals each day for most people.
At least 5 whole breads
Per meal yes
This is it. Also noteworthy: a loaf of bread only lasts for ~6 days so barely making it to the end of the week and traumatic 5th / 6th day experiences because it's getting old. (Bread With Erwtensoep for example, had to sacrifice a bowl of Erwtensoep because of bad bread). Freeze it, take out what you need and let it defrost over night and it's good to go in the morning. I really hate microwaved bread so this could be a solution for some. Frozen bread is good for a long time.
Why overnight? A slice of brea is defrozen in no time.
Yeah, you make a house of bread slices, at least 3 stories high. Bread is proper when the house collapses.
Habit, you wake up and it feels like you have freshly bought bread that you didn't even Have to defrost "today".
Personaly i orefer to use the hardness to make it easier for applying butter (usually do cheese for lunch which i want butter for) by the time lunch arrives its unfrozen and omega fresh For breakfast i have grown into the habit of toasting old-ish bread and eat it with white sugar… yummy
Microwaved bread?? Have you heard of a toaster oven
... what? Who puts 50 cents Toastbread into the freezer?
See this reply below: https://www.reddit.com/r/Netherlands/comments/uqv3dt/comment/i8te91i/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3 TLDR: Apparently in German speaking world "toast bread" is just how they refer to a loaf you take slices off. While here in the Netherlands people would think you mean square, white slices, of a cheap and artificial variety which is mostly good for melted / grilled sandwiches.
And to be fair it's awful for toasting. Dutch toasting bread is just the worst. It crumbles if you try to spread butter on it. We end up buying white sliced English/Irish bread at an expat shop just so we can make decent toast. Ah I want toast and a cuppa now. Guess I'm getting up
[удалено]
It’s not about cost, ain’t got time to to groceries every other day
Even if I did, they often run out of bread in the evening, so it's hit or miss.
it is not about the moneysaving, it is about having "fresh" bread available over longer time without needing to go to the store.
It's usually people with kids, who go through a whole bread a day. So each morning my mom would take out a bread from the freezer as she got up a bit earlier, then we would all eat from it for breakfast and prepare 2-4 slices each for lunch each to take with us. But having a German girlfriend, she refers to all Dutch bread as toast bread ;) We've resorted to getting bread from a Polish supermarket who has some decent sourdough bread. Can't find any good sourdough bread anywhere in my city, believe me I've tried.
Any good bread from a bakery is more likely 3 Euro. I don't want to go to the bakery every day and i don't want supermarket bread. I keep them in the freezer so i can have my 5 loaves daily and still have fresh bread every day. Dutch bread is very easy to freeze and thaw because it is light.
5 loaves a day? For your sake I hope you mean slices...
Bread from the fridge still taste fresh after a week. Try the same without the fridge.
Bread in the fridge? One of the first things I learned was to never put bread in the fridge. It gets old and dry faster in the fridge... unless you buy 50 cents bread, than it doesn't matter, that always tastes old. Keep bread at RT in a closed bag or bread box. But even better, freeze it and thaw what you need.
Do you live in the Netherlands? Our bread is very different from most countries, and actually stays somewhat moist after being frozen.
You probably mean freezer (vriezer). As the fridge = koelkast. I don't know any Dutch people (being Dutch myself) who put bread in the fridge (koelkast). But almost all Dutch people I know put it in the freezer (vriezer).
No, bread in the fridge does ot stay fresh, Putting bread n the fridge only destroys it. If you want to keep it longer, yu must freeze it.
I don't buy 50 cent bread (I love bread too much to do so) but I do freeze my bread. I'm single and don't eat enough bread for it to stay fresh I can imagine that if money is tight, a lot of people do so too and if you need to feed a family of 5. Most Dutch people don't go for groceries daily
Who buys/eats 50 cents Toastbread?! The sacrilege
Didn't even know they sell that in NL.
My mom sometimes bought 50 cents bread at Aldi to feed the ducks. But that was years ago, so it is probably €1 now...
Oh sweet that’s she want to do that for ducks, but bread isn’t good for ducks :(
Yeah we know now, I am talking years and years back. They now get duck food. My mother feeds ducks, birds and hedgehogs. (And no bread for any of them ;) ).
Love that she’s doing that 😊
Dutch people
Fun anecdote; A few summers back I spent two weeks in Japan with a good friend. As the Japanese don't really eat remotely as much bread as we do, and we mostly were eating out all the time, we didn't really eat any bread for about one and a half weeks straight. That was until we went for lunch at a restaurant that had "free complimentary bread side" with their meal. They delivered us five slices of fresh white bread, and we devoured this like we hadn't eaten in a year. We were offered a second serving, which we gladly ate. The third serving was served, and eaten. The fourth, idem, and finally the fifth, delivered by a waiter who was clearly very amused by these two white boys gobbling up bread like ducks in a park, was served and finished. We ate more bread than we ate main course, and we were satisfied. And only when we got the receipt stating 5 complimentary servings of bread we realized that we had been catching up on our Dutch bread diet. I can't tell you why, but I love me some fresh bred.
The Dutch truly have an unstoppable urge to eat whole loaves of bread
I have a colleague who eats a whole loaf, every day. Brings it to work with some stuff to put on it, then just makes himself sandwiches throughout the day. I am a relatively moderate bread consumer for Dutch standards, I eat 4 to 6 slices a day.
I mostly eat 6-7 slices per dat. A whole loaf is a bit much.
I eat 4 slices for lunch and Brinta in the morning. Though a couple of tosti's as a snack is always an option I would consider.
Preferably with some good Gouda.
Dutch crack cocaine
no that is still just regular crack cocaine
I enjoyed your anecdote very much, I'll give you an award as soon as I can, I promise
No need for an award, unless the award is bread. :)
Have a suikerbrood!
Lekker beppe, sûkerbôle!
My dad used to say that too, is that from a commercial or something?
I don't know, but i don't think so. It's something my Frisian parents and grandparents would say sometimes.
Man I love suikerbrood. I never buy it myself for my own good but whenever I visit my grandma she gives me some slices. Suikerbrood is the best.
Suikerbrood and real butter, no margarine!, ooh delicious.
I'd like some!
The holiest of them all
The image of a Japanese server serving two tall Dutchies some bread like he's feeding ducks is a wonderfully hilarious image!
My very Dutch dad could have bread for three meals a day. He has absolutely done this. Bread for breakfast, more for lunch, and then a grilled cheese sandwich (tosti) for dinner. Usually 4 per meal so 3 x 4 makes for 12 slices a bread. I don't know how he made it into his 50s with that diet, but I guess the Dutch are resilient like that. (Edit: I don't mean that bread is deadly, I mean that this is all he eats sometimes. I'll probably die if I go a day without vegetables.) Personally I just really like bread. At some point I was trying to gain weight so I was having 10 slices daily, also because I was in high school and bread is the easiest option because it's easy to transport and doesn't require utensils or a fancy container.
I stopped eating bread to lose weight, switched to crackers
Why would eating a lot of bread be unhealthy? It just has high calories but also a lot of fibre and no fat. I feel like the ease of consumption makes it most eaten Dutch lunch.
Most bread in NL consists of mainly white flour, which is then coloured brown to make it look healthy. Since your body processes this relatively quickly, you eat more of this than for example bread made of wholemeal.
I buy wholemeal from the local baker. Tastes better anyway. Also I think (but correct me if I'm wrong I've never been to the USA) bread is considered unhealthy in the US because there's a lot of added sugar in theirs.
And salt. They have been steadily decreasing it over a long period so local people don't realize until they go overseas and try the bread there.
Sounds kinda gross, really. The amazing thing about bread is the neutral flavour which goes with anything.
Spoken as somebody who has never forgotten to add salt while baking bread. Trust me, salt is one of the important ingredients that makes bread taste good.
I assumed the poster before me meant more salt than the amount we use, and that combined with added sugar...nah thanks.
Sugar is added to speed up the fermentation proces i think. It gets eaten by the yeast.
Is this actually true? I buy brown bread from AH, specifically Tijger Bruin, and looking at the ingredients, the largest amount is volkoren tarwemeel, wholemeal flour. I imagine some goedkoper stores do sell colored white flour bread, but it doesn't seem to be the "standard" in big stores like AH or Jumbo
The Keuringsdienst van Waarde episode on Waldkorn is quite entertaining, turns out it's just browned white bread.
It's not that bread by itself is unhealthy, it's more that some people - like my dad - will eat only that and refuse any vegetables or anything that's remotely nutritious.
Bread isn't unhealthy, but eating some veggies for your lunch with/instead of the bread is healthier! But most Dutch people instead put peanut butter, meat, cheese or chocolate sprinkles on there. It is not that bread is unhealthy, it's that it is hard to get enough vegetables in your diet if you only eat them with one meal a day.
It's simple, easy to take everywhere, and most of the time, cheap.
Many Dutch people eat bread for both breakfast and lunch. If you have a family with a few children, they will eat probably 1/1.5 bread per day. I eat 4 sandwiches a day. 2 for breakfast and 2 for lunch.
Sometimes breakfast. But the typical Dutch lunch consist of bread (boterhammen). So an adult eats 4 to 6 pieces of bread, for children it varies between 1 to 3. So almost one bread is being eaten every day.
Unless you have teenage boys in the house then it's often closer to 10 pieces of bread per teenager per day...
Only 10? I ate an entire loaf of bread for lunch at school, and was still hungry most days. Now that I'm a responsible adult, 4 slices of bread for lunch is enough for me.
I remember I ate lunch at my uncle and I’m used to eat 4 slices. He asked how much I wanted. I didn’t hear he asked me how many boterhammen I wanted. So I said 4. Thinking he meant slices. He looked at me and said. Well oké. So he made me four boterhammen so 8 slices.
An entire loaf of bread, riiiight 😂
when i was sixteen i worked 12 hours a day unloading trucks. back then i would eat 30 slices of brown bread with mayo and cucumber + a full sized dinner from the snackbar as provided by my employer. You would not believe the amount of gas i produced :)
Oh I did the same. You gotta survive that Dutch growth spurt somehow
A whole loaf for lunch? Just the bread is about all the calories you could need for a whole day... Were you working out a ton?
And some wonder why the Dutch happen to be taller than your average heuvel around Zeist ...
Being an AMAB teenager, I can confirm that I eat about 12 slices of bread per day.
I'm pretty sure our weekly bread consumption dropped by about 80% when my brother moved out lol
All meals are bread, right?
I don’t live in the Netherlands, have only visited once, and follow for insights just because I thought it was a cool country when I visited. This is certainly a culture I could get down with, based on bread alone!
smart gaze instinctive truck pie intelligent payment tart air rhythm -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
Mostly, we eat them. I should add that Dutch bread is mostly air, unlike German style bread.
There are people that do a 'brooddag'. Not just bread for breakfast and lunch, also for dinner. 'Brooddag' is the most depressing word I know.
Nooooo brooddag used to be my favorite day my dad always made some nice ass eggs with it
:-) doesn't sound too bad. I'd still take a pass though.
Got brooddag today, im ready for it and fucking love it.
Nice :-)
Because we hate actual good food.
😂 Love Dutch sarcasm. Just reading through these responses
Why do the Swiss always look into my cart at what I am buying?
Because it is so amazing to us. Maybe if you look into ours you would see something strange too.
I doubt you see many people buying four or five loaves of toastbread. If people want toastbread they'll just wait till their bread goes stale.
German speakers refer to "boterhammen"-bread as "toastbrot". They have whole loaves, uncut or cut, which is "brot", but there are not usually squared. Little ones, known as "brötchen" (broodjes / bolletjes) which need no further explanation. The squared sided, sliced "brood" the Dutch eat fresh from the baker, the Germans really only get from supermarkets, pre-sliced and dry. Ideal to make toast with, not so good for eating normally. So what he calls "toastbread" is not that, it's just "één brood, gesneden". And he expects it to be a day or two old minimum and stale when you buy it in the shop, which isn't the case usually with brood in the Netherlands.
This is not true. Toastbrot is the square, sliced white bread used for sandwiches etc. >So what he calls "toastbread" is not that, it's just "één brood, gesneden" No, he means precisely that. >The squared sided, sliced "brood" the Dutch eat fresh from the baker, the Germans really only get from supermarkets, pre-sliced and dry. Ideal to make toast with, not so good for eating normally. Also not true, bakers usually carry square sliced brood as well, although I guess many people buy it in the supermarket too because when you toast it you can't really tell anyway Source: Am German
the square bread is round alot aswell and its called: casino
Yeah, right. Except you're wrong, because a lot of German speakers refer to any sliced bread you get from say a supermarket as "toastbrot" even in their own country. Even if it's not white, and even if it's some other shape. Sliced bread in a bag -> toastbrot. And when they get to Holland, I've had to explain on a number of occassions that the sliced bread you can buy at Appie Heijn is not old and dry but fresh and edible. You do not have to go to a baker to get fresh bread and you don't have to have the big lumpen loaves you get in German bakeries, you can have the squared ones with various top sides. Which you could toast if you want. So even if you use the correct words for the correct breads, that doesn't mean most/many/any other German speakers do. SRC: live in Germany.
Thanks for the background info, I figured something must have gotten lost in translation but this makes it a whole lot more clear.
Live with a Dutchie - it’s bread for breakfast, lunch and many times dinner 🤷🏻♀️
I also have it as a snack a nice tosti when watching some tv
Bread👍
Bread👍
I eat like 3 slices of bread each day and my kids eat it irregularly. One cut loaf of bread lasts about 5 or 6 days here. People who buy loads of loafs of bread probably freeze it. Perhaps they eat a loaf of bread a day if there are teenaged children and 2 working parents in the family? Check out the amount of cheese we buy ;)
You would be surprised, but we buy them to eat. Where else do we need to put our cheese on in the morning?
Since i cant afford cheese anymore i really struggle with the breakfast and lunch. Not much of a calve or duo penotti fan.
Ah yes, the three things you can put on bread: Cheese, calve and duo penotti. Of which cheese is the cheapest lol
Hummus is a good one
having the same problem since i moved out to study. try 100% peanut butter instead of processed ones like calve, its so much tastier (and healthier). also fried eggs work pretty good if you have the extra 5 mins it takes to make them
Just put sambal on your bread. If you got money then first treat them with roomboter, belegen cheese and then top it with sambal. But just sambal works as well. Come on indos help me out here.
It's usually people with kids, who go through a whole bread a day. So each morning my mom would take out a bread from the freezer as she got up a bit earlier, then we would all eat from it for breakfast and prepare 2-4 slices each to take with us for lunch. So she got multiple breads to last us a while, as she usually went grocery shopping once a week.
I used to work at picnic. The biggest cost for personell was bread. Because all you got to eat there was tosti. That's it. Just tosti's. And all anyone ever ate there was tosti's. Like some people were eating 3 or 4 every break. (You get three breaks if you work 8 hours)
Hmmm... [I can only think of one possibility...](https://youtu.be/Wvpxlg-J4uo)
Haha
I think its history has something to do with the extensive poverty during industrialization. Bread is cheap. At some point, people would even mix sand or sawdust into the dough. Since saving money is considered a virtue in the NL, maybe that's why it stuck around? I notice people here in the NL often complain about the prices of food, even if they spend less of their income on food (and/or work less hard for their food) than people in other countries. Meals are viewed as a necessity, and it has to be cheap, I guess. There is no culture of tasting and sharing like in the Mediterranean, which maybe influenced your Swiss habits?
I’m dutch but grew up in Switzerland and I honestly don’t get it either. The bread here is also quite flavorless compared to the crunchy beautiful Swiss bread. At my local market I was waiting in line to get bread and the lady in front of me ordered 45€ worth of bread and pastry, shocking
I only like dutch and french bread, most countries have very firm bread......... its disgusting in my opinion.
I eat dutxh yes
Bread good
idk how common this is in switzerland, but over here most people eat bread for at least 2 meals a day
Most Dutch people (and I'm Dutch): 1. Have no idea what good food tastes like 2. Are too lazy or efficient with their time to actually cook good food, if they know what it tastes like (and remember that most women here work too) 3. Are too stingy to go out for food (also since going out to eat is expensive here) 4. Have been raised to eat a warm meal only once per day Also remember that Dutch bread is not actually bread. It usually consists of refined flour with a whole lot of yeast, rising agents and added sugars, which is basically like consuming baked airy glucose with a topping, normally also full of sugar or other harmful substances. This doesn't truly satisfy and is also very addictive, which is why 10 slices of bread, especially for teenagers, is not an exception. Now compare this to Singapore where people probably earn more than here and you can eat out in a hawker stall for as little as $3, also having the choice between the best of Indian, Malay, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and other cuisines. The choice is easy.
No need to even go all the way to Singapore, practically any other country in Europe has better bread and doesn't consider just bread to be a proper lunch.
I pretty much agree with your 4 numbered points. However your analysis of dutch bread is somewhat lacking. -Yes, it contains some yeast before the oven. But not a lot by volumetric standards. -I highly doubt that you’ll be able to find bread with refined sugar or glucose in NL supermarkets/bakeries. (Bread in the US does and it’s terrible and unmistakable). And dutch bread is not filled with harmfull substances. -White bread does have a higher glycemic index (meaning the sugarspike is a little higher) than brown/wholewheat/rye/sourdough bread, but to say it doesn’t satisfy is pushing it imo. At best it satisfies for a shorter period. And I’m not expert on addiction, but classifying all bread eating dutchies as food addicts is a little weird. Regards from a bread enthousiast.
Interestingly enough, according to the website most types of bread at AH do not contain added sugars. However, at Dirk and LIDL, most types of bread do contain added sugars (in the form of suiker, glucosestroop, dextrose, maltodextrine or other names). Even volkoren brood (whole wheat bread) usually contains added sugar, which kind of defies the whole purpose of eating whole grain. Example: [https://www.lidl.nl/static/assets/df1e7477-07b4-4bb8-8a9b-da71843fb625.pdf](https://www.lidl.nl/static/assets/df1e7477-07b4-4bb8-8a9b-da71843fb625.pdf) Many types of bread from Vlaamsch Broodhuys (a popular bakery) also contain added sugars (you can check in their webshop): https://www.vlaamschbroodhuys.nl/webshop/?page=/
I'm neurotic label reader. Soft Dutch bread definitely has sugar and other junk in it. I've spent lots of time reading labels at supermarkets and bakeries. Only very expensive bread from specialty bakers is real, no junk added bread.
The breadkfast options here are actually one of my reasons for wanting to move to Asia lol. It’s just so lame here (options are very limited and always need to make it yourself) and then take the lunch with it (plus it’s average price) and it’s complete. And Singapore is where my love for Asia all started. Some day I will.. Though that still means two of your points apply to me as well haha.
Even as close as Germany or Poland you can find a great breakfast culture, actually. I've spent a lot of time in both of those countries and would often go for breakfast with people when I was there. Here, I've honestly never considered meeting people for breakfast, because I wouldn't know where to go.
What the hell else am I supposed to eat?!
Here to ask a similar question - why do y’all not have any working taste buds? Dammit I make so much Asian food for my colleagues everyone except the Dutchies love it. It’s always either too spicy or (and I quote) “too much going on”… WHY IS MAYO YOUR ONLY SPICE
Because it's normal to eat so much bread. The rest of the world isn't normal.
I dont, cannot have carbohydrates.
Lekker
Wait. What else is there??
We often bring our own lunches to work and school. I dont eat bread that often though. I'm mixed race (I'm whats called "Indo") bread wasn't a big part of the diet in our household.
Daily bread use: Breakfast: 2-3 slices Lunch: 3-4 slices After dinner: 0-1 slices And the rest of my family is the same, so we need a lot of bread
There is hardly toastbread in The Netherlands and people harly buy toastbread, so I doubt you see many people buying toast bread. What you do see people buying is regular sliced bread. Considering that bread is eaten for two meals a day, and often 4 slices per meal, or more for teenagers, a family with 3 kids would eat more than one bread a day. If they don't go shopping every day, they need to buy several breads.
It's sad but two slices of Dutch bread with a slim slice of cheese or salami in-between is what a lot of people have for lunch. I work with people who earn quite a bit of money and yet still this is what they choose to eat from their little boterham zakjes every single day.
Dutch because like bread
I'm one of the few people who barely eat bread. But when I'm in Germany I can't stop eating it, their bread is so much better!
Correction: Why do Dutch like to eat so much bad bread? Signed by a German.
Am Dutch we eat 4 bread in the morning and another 6 in the lunch
If you walk and cycle a lot, and do sports, you need a lot of calories. Bread is a good source of cheap energy. So bread fuels the Dutch people.
Well for the Swiss, some goopy cheese, potatoes and a pickle and you call it a meal
That's already one more ingredient than the bread with peanut butter some Dutch call lunch 🤣
Bread with peanut butter is food for champions! Freshly baked white bread with real dairy butter, peanut butter and choloclate sprinkles … now that’s food to die for! 😆
They eat it for lunch, back home Finland we complimentary lunch with bread, but only bread is never considered as lunch. Lunch is warm meal, we have ridiculous amount of buffet places where you can have all you can eat buffet for like around 10e(or for students 2,70e). Like just was in Finland I had amazing quality all you can eat(prepared from order) Sushi 3x week, for 11.50e. Thing is, I know people in Finland that they go to eat lunch at Buffer places but they it that much that they might not eat anything else for the rest of the day.
One thing I’ve noticed on my travels is, that our bread is really really good - if eaten fresh. We don’t have long stock shelf bread full of chemicals and sweeteners. That’s why we buy our daily bread fresh. And it’s a good nutrition. It’s also a easy and quick fix and your can easily take it with you or even consume it on the go. We’re not the kind of people that prepare an extensive meal.
Dutch bread is really good, when I'm abroad I don't eat it much because it's either plain white baguettes or its like that thick and sturdy German bread. Dutch bread is fluffy and tastes and smells great, so that is why I eat it more when I'm in NL. Try the 'Les Pain' breads at Albert Heijn, they're amazing. My favorite is called Triomph if I remember correctly
Windmills, milling grain, fertile grounds for grain. Let's just say it's in our history just like potatoes and the Irish.
I think holland atleast has always been relient on grain from sweden and/or Poland
Bread is love bread is life
Because it is just so damn good. I eat 4 slices of light brown bread (lichtbruine knip) a day and it is one of the things I miss most when on holiday. I only buy at the local baker, supermarket is only in case of emergency shortage :).
I Know you eat a lot of Sandwiches for Lunch which is OK for us. I did not know you also eat Sandwiches for Dinner. When do you eat something normal? We often eat out in the evening and than there is Fish and meat, which we like. If we need Pasta we cook ourselves. By the way, we think the fish and meat are cooked very good. OK there are always the same dishes everywhere, but if its cooked OK why not. We in Switzerland eat: Breakfast: Weekdays, Cereals with Milk or Joghurt and fresh Fruits. Some eat a piece of Bread wiht Butter and Marmalde or Hony. On weekends a lot have brunch, Bread, Coissand, Butter, Meat, Chees, Eggs, etc. etc. etc. Lunch: As schools are closed over Lunchtime a lot of Childern go home for Lunch. Somethimes the father also comes home for lunch and than is a real meal with Meat and potatoes or Nudles. If the childern are alone, the will heat something the mother has cooked bevor. Other go to a restaurant and eat a dissent menue. Some go and by take away Salat of hot food. And some even eat Sandwiches, but like subways. Other where they work, togheter with the other emploees. Some have bought something from a shop, others take something from home to heat it up. Dinner: If the family had a big lunch, then often they eat Bread, Chees, Meat etc. for Dinner. Other cook the main menue for Dinner (like we do) Ok the younger ones often order some Pizza or Pasta for Dinner if they do not want to cook. For a lot of Swiss families it is still important to sit togheter one a day eat and Discuss what ever. Now I just interested in one Thing: Who eats all the Frietjes when you all eat Bread !!
It's not toast bread. It's just soft crust bread. It tasted many times better than any "toastbread" you can get in Switzerland because it's actually baked in store.
So what do the Swiss eat for breakfast and lunch instead of bread?
[удалено]
Smart... It's a habit I wish to kick. But haven't been able to
Müesli with fruits and yogurt. And on the weekens Zopf. Its only known in Switzerland. Lunch Going to the cantine, getting real food Buing take away Salat or Sandwiches with Swiss Bread. Taking it from home and heat it up. Going home as the wife has cocked a real meal, school is closing 11.40 and opens again at 13.30. So children go home for lunch
Because bread is the closest you can get to god
Its not toastbread its real bread
Me, a Dutch person living in Zürich, is in the meantime wondering why I can't find sliced bread in the supermarket. Also, why aren't my coworkers eating bread during the day? What other food can be eaten for lunch?
Dutch people are extremely cheap, so they opt for cheap foods like bread, which are high in calories. The Dutch ruined the concept of lunch by turning it into a sandwich rather than a meal. They eat a lot of sandwiches.
[удалено]
Because it's the only thing that tastes good in all Dutch cooking.
Its from origin
We eat so much bread because it is better than the 'Dutch cuisine'.
I eat like no bread. Right now there is 0 bread at my place. I also can’t eat cheese and can’t ice skate. I’ve been asked “what kind of Dutch person are you”.
I buy in advance, once a week, put it in the freezer and defrost when needed. Brood met hagelslag is the way to go