Or "enough" sugar, I should say. It is countries that have decided that they need to add more sugar that are a bit worrisome. But of course just about all processed food now has added sugar and salt whether we want it or not.

I mistakenly thought Kerouac was attempting to answer my question, "Which northern European bread has sugar in it?" and I left out the rest of his post because it seemed even more irrelevant than the sugar content of yeast.

Yeast is a fungus. Commercial yeast is cultivated on some sort of medium which may contain sugars, because it needs some sort of nutrition, which would be some sort of carbohydrate. That's why people sometimes put a few grains of sugar in the liquid in which they dissolve yeast. It's not necessary, and yeast itself doesn't, as far as I know contain any sugar.

For that matter flour itself contains sugar. When Kerouac said that Northern European breads contained sugar, I thought he was talking about some special quality that differentiated them from other breads.

I think industrial breads are also irrelevant.

Someone (I forget who) said he preferred northern European breads to French and Italian breads, and for that matter, so do I. Kerouac said, ". The bread of northern countries is full of sugar... "

I'd like to know which breads are full of sugar. I've been baking bread my entire life, whole wheat, rye, pumpernickel, and many others, and (apart from clearly sweet breads) I've never heard of a bread full of sugar. I've certainly never put sugar in bread.

I think it's clear that most of us are talking about mass-produced breads, not bread baked at home.

For the record, you do not have to add sugar or anything sweet to yeast to make it activate. A little flour does just as well.

<justineparis on Oct 22, 16 at 1:00pm
I am confused , I am not a huge baker , but I distinctly recall one would add a little bit of sugar ( like 1/2 tsp) TO yeast to help it bloom , before adding yeast to flour.>

Justine, we would just to make sure the yeast was working. It wasn't much, just enough to see it bloom.

I'm thinking more and more that this whole discussion should be moved to a culinary site since nobody seems to be interested in the original question by the OP.

Comme la plupart des discussions...

L'expression de mes filles est 'j'men balec'
La mienne étant 'faiche'

But 45 replies on a queston about waste is a good score.