January 17, 2025

Umma Habiba Begum

11th Grade

The Young Women's Leadership School of Queens

Bread has played a significant role throughout the century. It not only satisfied hunger but also played a crucial role in shaping cultures, influencing wars, peace, and even change. 

The creation of the first bread is thought to date back to the Neolithic era. The first bread was believed to be made by mixing crushed grains with water and using heat to make the dough rise. Over time, more techniques and methods were developed to enhance bread-making, such as the fermentation process, and the use of yeast, which improved both the quality and taste of bread. These developments made bread production much easier and more accessible, even to the poor, making it a common food among them and integrating it into culture as a symbol of sustenance. The cultural importance of bread was also encouraged by religious beliefs, as it played a major role in most religions as an offering to gods. In Christianity, it is often depicted as a gift from God.

Sawdust consists of fine particles that remain after sawing wood. It mainly contains cellulose, hemicellulose, lignin, and extractives. Cellulose and hemicellulose help in cell wall structure, and lignin acts as a binder of fibers, while extractives are responsible for certain properties of wood. These compounds are not safe for human digestion, as it causes problems such as intestinal blockages, effectively rotting the body. The human body lacks the necessary enzymes to digest the compounds that are in sawdust, mainly cellulose and lignin. Along with sawdust being dangerous to the body, it provides no nutritional benefit when it is baked into bread. 

Although fine sawdust particles look a lot like flour, it provides no benefits like the real thing. For instance, yeast fermentation requires fermentable sugars (such as those in flour) to produce carbon dioxide (CO2) and alcohol during fermentation. The CO2 causes the dough to rise, and thankfully, this is not present in sawdust. Since the cellulose in sawdust cannot be broken down into fermentable sugars by yeast, it doesn't contribute to the fermentation process. The dough would not rise as required, and the bread would be dense. Furthermore, the sawdust is akin to a sponge; it can absorb liquids quickly. After the bread would rise, it would be dry, crumble, and undesirable. The dust also cannot react with sugar and salt, which are crucial in the development of bread taste.

During economic crises and wars, bread contained sawdust, which somewhat effectively acted as fillers in order to conserve ingredients and produce a high amount of output using low amounts of resources that were available. While this was a revolutionary solution during days of distress, it later on brought many adverse effects. The bread made from sawdust was of poor texture, flavor, and nutritional value, which directly affected the health and well-being of the consumers dependent on it. While the aim was to make more bread available, the trade-offs in quality had significant social and health repercussions.