American Republics by Alan Taylor is an accessible book for a broad audience by a professional historian. It addresses the period when the U.S.A. expanded to occupy the midwest, the Great Plains, the Southwest and the Pacific Northwest. The book discusses the issues on which many Americans shared the same attitudes. Americans favoured expansion of the boundaries of American and of trade. While many Americans opposed slavery, few wanted to associate with Blacks (or immigants or Catholics). Americans viewed the resistance of indigenous Americans to settlement as an issue that was to be resolved in favour of settlement by Americans, by force.
It explains the war of 1812, the Louisiana purchase, the Seminole Wars and the annexation of Florida as an attempt by the USA to extend its boundaries and world trade while Britain, France and Spain were occupied with the Napoleonic Wars and were not devoting signicant military force to defend commercial interests in North America.
This post, after it was published in the spring of 2023, has been amended in 2023 and 2024.
Etymology
The Oxford English Dictionary entry for “woke” is: “Originally: well-informed, up-to-date. … Now chiefly: alert to racial or social discrimination and injustice.” The Urban Dictionary adds: “Being woke means being aware… knowing what’s going on in the community (related to racism and social injustice).” The Wikipedia entry discusses the American etymology:
Woke is an English adjective meaning “alert to racial prejudice and discrimination” that originated in African-American Vernacular English (AAVE). Beginning in the 2010s, it came to encompass a broader awareness of social inequalities such as sexism, and has also been used as shorthand for American Left ideas involving identity politics and social justice, such as the notion of white privilege and slavery reparations for African Americans.
The term does not connote “enlightened” in the religious sense or refer to the term in the sense of the age of Enlightenment in European intellectual history. The Wikipedia entry suggests a sense membership in a historically oppressed group.
Woke also connotes an ideological position in the American political “culture war” in the early 21st century. Woke is used to describe people who hold left-wing views on the left-right ideological spectrum, in the context of European and American history. The writer Ross Douthat suggested in 2023 that “woke” marks a change to left wing “progressive” or modern values in American politics, and the understanding of liberalism:
Can it be usefully defined? Is it just a right-wing pejorative? Is there any universally accepted label for what it’s trying to describe? The answers are yes, sometimes and unfortunately no. Of course, there is something real to be described: The revolution inside American liberalism is a crucial ideological transformation of our time.
… the word itself … has been a term of abuse employed by the far right, a battle cry for the progressive left, and an embarrassment to many liberals.
Ian Buruma, Doing the Work, Harper’s Magazine, July 2023 (gated1Harper’s has a paywall that limits views of some material)
The writer Yascha Mounk has written about an “identity synthesis” in articles and in the book The Identity Trap (2023). This concept contains a history and an argument about “woke”2political ideas synthesized into an antiliberal, censorious, segregationist dogma on college campuses and online in the early 2000s. This “ideology” went mainstream in the mid-2010s, especially in medicine and education, where institutions began to adopt theoretical frameworks under which it was believed the best way to achieve equity for students and patients was not to treat everyone equally, but to offer “preferential treatment” and exclusionary experiences to members of marginalized groups..
Demographic?
Methodology
Sociology is one of the “social sciences” taught in post secondary institutions in the U.S.A. Economics is another social science. The social sciences have a foundational belief that human beings have common needs, emotional tendencies, attitudes, interests and beliefs. Some of the social sciences attempt to identify and measure the aggregated effects of billions of individual decisions and events. The social sciences often base theories on facts determined by what people say, how they use resources and how they respond to surveys rather than to the physiology of human beings and physical facts about their environments and products.
It is not possible to discuss changes in culture or in American culture without recognizing the size and complexity of the human population and the many ways it is divided. Sociologists consider people in groups by age in generations.
The human species is discussed in the social sciences by reference to groups of persons living at different times and in different places. Some of the social sciences study cultures, subcultures and counter-cultures. Other disciplines with consider groups of individuals by some common features include genetics, language, and biology. Some social sciences discuss social generation (birth cohort), or generational cohort. The use of generational generalities by is common, but has been abandoned by some writers. The Australian economist and writer John Quiggan:
Dividing society by generation obscures the real and enduring lines of race, class and gender. When, for example, baby boomers are blamed for “ruining America,” the argument lumps together Donald Trump and a 60-year-old black woman who works for minimum wage cleaning one of his hotels.
Woke may be used, loosely, to describe the social, ethical and political values – in the early 2020s – of members of the younger social generation (birth cohorts), or generational cohorts: millennial or Gen Z persons
According to the consensus of sociology, “woke” is not a demographic term that can be applied to a generational cohort. Nor does it refer to educational credentials. Sociologists have theorized that a social generation may tend to be against the values of older cohorts, or transgressive.
Analogy to the 1960s
The 1960s Counterculture was a cultural movement in favour of new things, freedom, and rebellion against conformity. There were some political and social ideas circulated, but was the counterculture was a name about lifestyles, not an ideology. Some people were in the counterculture were lefists or new leftist. Many American boomers, during the ’60s, were
conservative, career-oriented, patriotic, and in favour of US involvement in the Vietnam War, or
blended liberal attitudes to some issues with conservative or neo-liberal views on personal freedoms to take drugs or possess firearms, act freaky and explore lifestyles.
Millennials and Gen Z. are different from previous generations; the young generations are versed in social media as a way of communication, among other experience in life in society. There are differences within social generations. All millenials have dealt with woke capitalism and cancel culture as existential facts. Millennials, GenZ members and students share some generational beliefs, values, assumptions, attitudes and language about:
people, psychology and sociology, and
about ambition, age,
even while they so not share beliefs and values. Millennials, GenZ members and university graduates share some beliefs, values, assumptions and language even while they are apart on the left-right ideological spectrum. They:
Have a common language and experience, including the use of social media as a medium of communication,
Use business jargon,
Hold beliefs that markets, individualism and consumerism are unchangeable and irresistible forces of nature,
Some millennials are pro-business, individualist, neo-liberal and right-wing. Woke capitalism tries to avoid alienating any market segment, and gives the impression that business and persons in business endorse or embrace woke ideas.
The members of the New Left who were young in the 1960s have aged, changed, or died. The Left has changed, and the language and methods have changed. Most of the Woke are a subset of the age and occupational groups of millennials, Gen Z and students, visible in the way that hippies and other parts of the counterculture were visible in the 1960s.
Other Theories
The interdisciplinary political scientist Peter Turchin3I am not convinced by his methods and theories observes that the U.S.A, where elites control politics to increase their wealth, educates young people and gives them elite status, has a problem with equality and political governance:
… our social pyramid has become top-heavy. At the same time, the U.S. began overproducing graduates with advanced degrees. More and more people aspiring to positions of power began fighting over a relatively fixed number of spots. The competition among them has corroded the social norms and institutions that govern society.
Philosophers in the rationalist traditions of the European Age of Enlightenment thought that scientific ways of understanding
how society worked (sociology),
how people managed property, labour and money (economics),
how people are governed (political science), and
how ideas worked in society (ideology)
would emerge from study and discussion of facts. It was an assumption about progress in these “sciences”.
Ideology has become a term for words expressing ideas (or theories) about how the power and wealth arise or are generated in societies. Ideas can be the subject of logical argument, but the explanation of ideas leads to the psychological, social and political dimensions of communication and persuasion. Ideologies are groups or system of belief about how societies are governed and wealth and power are distributed. Nationalism, Imperialism, Fascism, Liberalism, Progressivism, Socialism, Communism and anarchism were ideologies that influenced societies and government in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries.
Some social scientists have identified ways of proving facts about some aspects of social behaviour. However the questions of how ideas are spread and affect behaviour have not been answered. Ideology mainly involves the history of theories and arguments about whether humans act in the way that theories say they do, and whether theories may can explain what influence ideas had on what people did.
The Left
The left-right spectrum is based on how representatives were seated in the French National Assembly in 1789, after the French Revolution. “Left” in European politics was against established religion and government by a hereditary aristocracy. The “Left” has referred to liberal, socialist and communist parties.
Liberal connotes generosity, faith in humanity, modernism, or progressive ideas. Liberal refers to a political idea emphasizing freedom from something – aristocratic government, monopoly, tradition, restraint. It was an idea or ideology of the left in the 18th and 19th centuries in Europe and America. It is regarded in modern times as a centrist or conservative idea. The United States of America developed liberty as a right of individuals to be free from coercion, including some kinds of economic and existential coercion. This approach to liberal principles can be called libertarian. Americans largely accepted laissez-faire economic principles in the gilded age at the end of the 19th century.
The European Left of the middle decades of the 20th century was more socialist and communist than liberal. Marxist parties were popular in Europe. Marxist ideas were part or the European academy across Eastern and Western Europe. The European Left respected the philosophy, sociology and economics of Karl Marx including the idea that members of the working class were not aware of the cause of their oppression because of False consciousness.
The American economy was strong in the decades after World War II. Its internal and international politics were anti-communist. The American right, influenced by business, was against government. By the 1950s, many American followed their interests while also practicing the culture of hard work, good jobs and self-advancement.
Americans seeking to maintain patriotically nationalist positions avoided the term “left”, and tended to self-describe as progressives. 4American “progressives” during the Progressive Era at the end of the 19th century had wanted a society that rewarded farmers, workers, and also promoted efficient capitalism, regulated by an efficient political system. Some of those historical progressives were reformers and some were militarists and imperialists. An article in the old Britannica discusses disagreements in the American Progressive movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. on political, social and ethical issues.
The acceptance of laissez-faire declined as more Americans supported New Deal policies, and Cold War Liberalism in the 1950s and 1960s. The American Left, in the New Deal order, put more faith in government to protect the freedom and living standards of Americans. Cold-war liberalism was an American attempt to reconcile the founding myth that the United States of America is a beacon of democracy with a mission to the world to the pursuit of money and power in the world by Americans. Cold war liberalism promoted the idea that a person could be a good person even as a citizen of a plutocratic state that used national power for business goals:
This distinct body of liberal thought says that freedom comes first, that the enemies of liberty are the first priority to confront and contain in a dangerous world, and that demanding anything more from liberalism is likely to lead to tyranny.
Samuel Moyn, Liberalism in Mourning, Boston Review. August 10, 2023 (Extract from Liberalism Against Itself: Cold War Intellectuals and the Making of Our Times)
Critical Theory
Critical theory, in philosophy and ideology, refers to:
… a family of theories that aim at a critique and transformation of society by integrating normative perspectives with empirically informed analysis of society’s conflicts, contradictions, and tendencies. In a narrow sense, “Critical Theory” … refers to the work of several generations of philosophers and social theorists in the Western European Marxist tradition known as the Frankfurt School. Beginning in the 1930s at the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt, it is best known for interdisciplinary research that combines philosophy and social science with the practical aim of furthering emancipation. … influential figures of the first generation of the Frankfurt School – Max Horkheimer (1895–1973), Theodor W. Adorno (1903–1969), Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979), and Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) – and the leading figure of the second generation, Jürgen Habermas (b. 1929).
In a broader sense, there are many different strands of critical theory that have emerged as forms of reflective engagement with the emancipatory goals of various social and political movements, such as feminist theory, critical race theory, queer theory, and postcolonial/decolonial theory. In another, third sense, “critical theory” or sometimes just “Theory” is used to refer to work by theorists associated with psychoanalysis and post-structuralism, such as Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida.
Critical theory was developed out of Marxist theories by Frankfurt school theorists in the middle of the 20th century. The 1947 work, Dialectic of Enlightenment is a core text. A Dialectic as understood by the authors was a Hegelian dialectic. The Frankfurt school, like Karl Marx and many 19th and 20th century writers, used Hegel’s analysis. The Frankfurt school criticized both Marxist and 20th century liberal thought as ways of describing society and history in the real world.
Critical theory was the basis of approaches to humanities and social philosophy that attempt to reveal, critique, and challenge power structures:
A critical theory is any approach to social philosophy that focuses on reflective assessment and critique of society and culture to reveal and challenge power structures. With roots in sociology and literary criticism, it argues that social problems stem more from social structures and cultural assumptions than from individuals. It argues that ideology is the principal obstacle to human liberation. Critical theory finds applications in various fields of study, including psychoanalysis, sociology, history, communication theory, philosophy and feminist theory.
The Frankfurt school reframed the idea as a structural feature of the cultural hegemony of the capitalist class, and as a cultural metanarrative. On this basis, the members of the working class who believed in the values of the ruling classes were both deceived by a story, and oppressed. Later Continental philosophers, political scientists, social scientists and literary theorists developed Critical Theory. Critical theory was used to attack theories accepted by many older thinkers, and accepted widely.
The Paradox of Tolerance – that in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must retain the right to be intolerant of intolerance – proposed by Karl Popper in 1945 as criticized by Herbert Marcuse in his 1965 essay “Repressive Tolerance” in A Critique of Pure Tolerance Marcuse argued that tolerance has become a means of repression. He argued that “pure tolerance” should be replaced with “liberating tolerance,” which, he states, “would mean intolerance against movements from the Right, and toleration of movements from the Left.”
Marcuse’s argument proceeded from the assumption that the culture industry, was aligned with “the right,” not because of the political sympathies of those who worked in the industry, but because it ideologically reproduced capitalist relations. The culture industry, from this perspective, cannot challenge the dominant forces of society because it is itself one of those forces. Hence, from Marcuse’s point of view, it is unimaginable that media and technology corporations could under be the vanguard of “liberating tolerance.”
African, Caribbean and South American writers became influential with European thinkers and with writers addressing decoloniality, and “civil rights” and racial issues in the USA. For instance:
Critical theory questioned both Capitalist and Marxist theories. It became a means of attacking everything as a statement explaining an alleged or perceived hegemony.
Critical theory is skeptical of many stories told as knowledge. Critical theory has been used to criticize imperialism and colonialism, which has led to claims that “history must fall” and that monuments to historical figures erected in previous generations must fall. The students of the hard sciences mock postmodernist and students of critical theory who dispute physical facts proved by measurement and observation. The Sokal Hoax was a great prank.
Literary Criticism
Literary criticism is an academic discipline, one of the humanities. Work in the humanities is largely based on recorded text. It was established to study literature to understand it and assess the quality of works of literature. Faced with mass culture, mass reproduction of art, and capitalism, the idea of identifying quality became contentious. The academic field became concerned with understanding:
what a writer meant when a work was written,
the writer’s state of mind, mental health status, relationships, politics and sexuality,
political issues that a writer might be have had opinions on.
In the late 19th century and early 20th century, literary criticism commonly discussed history, psychology, sociology and politics. as well as taste and aesthetics. The historical, Modernist, and New Criticism schools of literary theory) discussed literature as myth, drawing on ideas from anthropology and psychology including the theories of James George Frazer, Carl Jung, Sigmund Freud and Joseph Campbell. Northrup Frye was an influential literary critic, well regarded until the 1970s:
Frye, in his magnum opus, Anatomy of Criticism, had conceived of myth, archetype, ritual, and symbol as forming a cathedral-like structure in which every literary work finds its place, much as every redeemed soul finds its place in the mystical rose at the end of Dante’s Commedia. By linking this symbol in Virgil to that symbol in Percy Shelley, this echo of ancient ritual in Shakespeare to another one in George Eliot, Frye sought to create a taxonomy of the literary imagination—a project satisfying to the tidy-minded and the spiritually hungry alike.
Alan Jacobs, Yesterday’s Men, Harper’s Magazine, July 2024 (gated)
The academic consensus changed; literary criticism changed;reading habits, and literary tasted changed. Postmodern literary theory, informed by critical theory, feminist theory, and queer studies regards any language as a narrative that may communicate ideas about culture, society and politics, and influence or propagandize or indoctrinate:
Today, approaches based in literary theory and continental philosophy largely coexist in university literature departments, while conventional methods, some informed by the New Critics, also remain active. Disagreements over the goals and methods of literary criticism, which characterized both sides taken by critics during the “rise” of theory, have declined. Many critics feel that they now have a great plurality of methods and approaches from which to choose.
Some critics work largely with texts, and theory. Others read traditional literature; interest in the literary canon is still great. Many critics are also interested in nontraditional texts and women’s literature, as elaborated on by certain academic journals such as Contemporary Women’s Writing, while some critics influenced by cultural studies read popular texts like comic books or pulp/genre fiction. Ecocritics have drawn connections between literature and the natural sciences. Darwinian literary studies studies literature in the context of evolutionary influences on human nature. And postcritique has sought to develop new ways of reading and responding to literary texts that go beyond the interpretive methods of critique. Many literary critics also work in film criticism or media studies. Some write intellectual history; others bring the results and methods of social history to bear on reading literature
University education in the humanities is faltering in the USA. Students in American Universities take courses in business, professional education, science, and engineering according to the reports of the US National Center for Education Statistics. Some of the social sciences are popular. Explanations:
For many decades, there has been a growing public perception that a humanities education inadequately prepares graduates for employment. The common belief is that graduates from such programs face underemployment and incomes too low for a humanities education to be worth the investment.
The usual suspects—student debt, postmodern relativism, vanishing jobs—are once again being trotted out. But the data suggest something far more interesting may be at work. The plunge seems not to reflect a sudden decline of interest in the humanities, or any sharp drop in the actual career prospects of humanities majors. Instead, in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, students seem to have shifted their view of what they should be studying—in a largely misguided effort to enhance their chances on the job market. …
The European New Left the 1960s and 70s, was anti-American, and largely socialist:
Some, like the Old Left of the 19th and early 20th centuries, remained firmly Marxist-Leninist, or Stalinist, or Trotskyist about politics, economics, history and metaphysics;
Some followed the modified Marxisms or new movements and ideas of:
Adorno and the Frankfort school,
Gramsci,
Fanon, or
Marcuse;
Some were part of the self-described New Left movements;
Some adopted new ideas about social structure and critical theory.
The American Left encountered European Left beliefs from immigrants, from travelers, from visiting scholars and from Americans who studied European philosophy and social science. Marcuse’s view of tolerance was popular with the American New Left. It can be regarded as foundational to the modern Woke position, having laid the groundwork for the censorious leftism that arose in academia and has become more influential in the broader culture.
The New Left in European, English and American institutions became students and teachers of European critical theory. This was not a uniform or universal process. One instance: the English historian E.P. Thompson was a member of the Communist Party in Britain who left the party in the 1950s. He remained a Marxist who used Marxist ideas about class in his books about about social history including his books about the English Working Class. He disagreed with ideas of the French writer Louis Althuser, and feuded with the writers of the English publication New Left Review, on the use of the European critical theory of post-structuralism in writing history.
Politically, many Americans turned against government over racial segregation and other racial issues, Vietnam, war, oil prices, consumer protection, and environmental issues. Some supported the New Left politics of the American Left, as it was in the 1960s and 70s.
The American New Left, like the “old” American Left in the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, was a term for millions of individuals. Some had liberal beliefs in the American republic, democracy and progress. Some were interested in advancing the interests of workers in better wages and working conditions against business. Some believed that society was divided into classes. Some believed in socialism, Marxism or anarchism. Some had versions of those ideologies 5for instance Afro-centrism and the Black power movements of the 1960s New Left refer to European anti-colonial concepts as well as racialized beliefs. Some had religious views. Religious groups had formed communal organizations for centuries, and continued in the era of the New Left 6Stories of communal movements are studied and discussed by academic writers and by members of modern religious communal movements. For instance, see Macedonia Morning in the Plough Quarterly, August 2023..
Part of the new Left was based on concerns that government institutions failed to properly protect the public by failing to recognize and enforce certain rights and interests. Part of the New Left was inclined to explore ideas about how a society could function without a government with the power to punish and compel. Critics of government on the Left developed new positions that weakened government and allowed business interest to avoid regulation or build monopolies.
In the first decades of the 21st century, progressive millennials were involved in the anti-globalization movement against global capitalist values as recently as the Occupy Wall Street protests. Those protests followed a New Left version of populism. Among other things, they valorized consensus-based decisions in general assemblies. Other leftist or progressive groups reacted to the domination of politics by business interests and the adoption of neo-liberal economic policies by “liberal democratic” governments. Later in the early 21st century, the reaction against conservative movements and national populist movements such as the American MAGA movement led to the idea of an anti-fascist resistance. Advocates of this approach:
argued that the American civil rights movement had been prepared for armed resistance.
took the militant view of the resistance to the Trump administration and to American government policies that privileged capital and oppressed youth and students was justified.
Progressive writers attempt to reconcile woke to socialist principles. Malcolm Harris, the author of a collection of essays called Shit is All Fucked Up and Bullshit (2020). He identifies himself as a Marxist but criticizes “Duplo” Marxists:
Cards on the table: I’m a Marxist. Hi. I believe taking on that label includes a certain amount of respect for the Duplo [i.e. large block, as opposed to small – e.g. – Lego blocks] Marxist story, but that’s not how I learned Marxism … .
To go beyond Duplo Marxism is to see that society isn’t just composed of two blocks, that the owner/wage-laborer relation is not the sole class division. Instead, each of those two blocks are composed of smaller blocks, not individuals, but other class relations. Lego Marxism can handle multiple variables, multiple class relations that are going on at the same time — intersecting even. You could take apart the big blocks and recompose them according to a different social division and still be doing important, useful materialism. …
…. what really inspired me was an essay from the late-70s by French women’s liberation theorist Christine Delphy called “A Materialist Feminism is possible.”…
Delphy’s answer is more direct: Women are exploited by men. There is the capitalist mode of production and there is also a concurrent and interrelated “domestic” or “patriarchal” mode of production, which benefits men (as a class) and exploits women (as a class). She is also careful to note that there are some men exploited by the domestic mode as well, pointing out specifically 307,000 French men who work unwaged on family farms and in family businesses. …
Malcolm Harris, July 2016, Lego Marx, published in Medium online
Social Justice Culture
Culture and Ideology
Woke ideology expressed the social and economic frustrations of millennials, Gen Z and students with their access to resources, opportunities, power and status the same way that the ideologies of the ’60s expressed the frustrations of boomers at that time. In the early decades of the 2000s many millennials, members of Gen Z and university students were reflexively and passionately Woke.
A Culture
Woke has been called “Social Justice Culture” to indicate a belief system which can be a source of meaning, purpose, community, and ritual. This system promises self-actualization, like religion, with personal experiences and personal truth as the ultimate guide for fulfilling one’s potential. Many people who can be identified as “Spiritual but not religious”, and/or as members of alternative religious groups (e.g. Wiccan, Satanic, Jedi, New Age) may be woke. The core belief is:
… racism, sexism, & other forms of bigotry & injustice must be struck down at all costs in order to achieve a better, fairer world …
… “Left Modernism”, or “radical progressivism”, is a pseudo-religious belief system organized around the sacralization of racial, sexual & gender minorities, which prioritises subjectivity/lived experience over empirical evidence.
In December 2022 James O’Malley suggested 6 markers of “wokeness”, including these:
… wokeness does represent a new and distinct set of political ideas, that are anchored by different values and priorities to what would traditionally be characterised as left-leaning, liberal and progressive.
….
What characteristics lie at the heart of this new woke ideology? What makes it different to the small-l liberal political consensus that existed before? How can we decide whether something is deserving of the label “woke” or not? These are my suggestions for The Woke Test. If a thing shares some of these characteristics, then I think it is accurate to label it “woke”
….
[1] “Woke” emphasises identitarian deference
The term “identitarian deference” was coined by the writer Matt Bruenig in 2013 to describe how “privileged individuals should defer to the opinions and views of oppressed individuals, especially on topics relevant to those individuals’ oppression”.
….
… under the new “woke” norms, data alone is not seen as enough – instead, arguments are considered the most compelling when they are made by someone who shares an identity characteristic relevant to the issue at hand.
….
[6] “Woke” prioritises right-side norms over accuracy norms
One essay I keep coming back to is Jesse Singal’s piece on “right-side” norms vs “accuracy” norms, which he uses to explain why arguments on the internet are so toxic. His argument goes that members of different communities follow different rules to remain in good standing with their peers. For example, in some communities, to maintain good standing, it is important to make sure what you say is accurate. A journalist will lose status for inaccurate reporting, say, or a scientist will lose status if they do not accurately publish the results of an experiment.
But other communities may evolve different norms. For example, in a community of political activists or football fans, it may be more important to be on the “right side” of a debate: There is the risk of a social penalty that makes it much harder to concede that the other side made a good point, or the referee’s decision to award the other team a penalty was correct, because it will invite the ire of your friends and colleagues.
Where “woke” vs “non-woke” maps on to this … “woke” communities often value being on “the right side” over accuracy
Less woke Americans and Europeans accepted the neo-classial or neo-liberal economics that American business demanded was true, or scientifically explained existential facts about society, money and resources.
Religion; and Virtue Signaling
Writers, including Ian Buruma, have noted similarities between the Woke phenomenon and Protestant religious theology and practices (as they had been understood by the early 20th century sociologists like Max Weber in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism :
The ritual of public avowals began in Europe with the Reformation. Whereas Jews and Catholics are ceremonially initiated into their religious communities as young children, many Protestants, such as the Anabaptists, declare their faith before their brethren as adults, sometimes in so-called conversion narratives. The idea of public attestation was especially important to Pietism, a seventeenth-century offshoot of Lutheranism. Pietism, in turn, had a great influence on many Christian sects, including the New England Puritans. Puritan churches, as the historian Edmund S. Morgan put it, ensured “the presence of faith in their members by a screening process that included narratives of religious experiences.”
….
Protestants have to find their own way to God’s blessing, through self-examination, public testimony, and the performance of actions that demonstrate impeccable virtue. This has to be a constant process. In his famous book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Max Weber observed that the Protestant ideal is more demanding than the Catholic aim of gradually accumulating individual good deeds to one’s credit. Sins are not forgiven in rituals of private atonement—cleaning the slate, as it were, for one to sin and be absolved. Rather, salvation lies in “a systematic self-control which at every moment stands before the inexorable alternative, chosen or damned.” God helps those who help themselves. For the chosen, the signaling of virtue can never stop. [Emphasis added]
For Weber, it was the “spirit of hard work” that characterized those striving to meet the Protestant goal of ethical perfection. This could be interpreted literally, as the work of accumulating wealth through honest labor. But this labor, and its material fruit, go together with the spiritual work of moral improvement. There are clear contemporary parallels in what theorists of antiracism call “doing the work,” which functions as both a sign of one’s current enlightenment and of his or her commitment to continuous and endless self-improvement.
….
Weber argued that Protestant faiths were so well-suited to capitalist enterprise. To work hard is not just a spiritual duty, but a worldly one: if the hard work results in great wealth—well, that too is a sign that one can be counted among the blessed. Moral zealousness in the Protestant tradition is entirely compatible with a belief in progress combined with material success. The Catholic veneration of saints who lived a life of monastic poverty is alien to this sensibility.
The problem with dogma, whether it concerns original sin, the immortality of the soul, or antiracism, is that it prohibits skepticism. To have reservations about something that is treated as sacrosanct is to be an unbeliever, or worse, a heretic, and thus someone to be cast out.
Some business enterprises have adopted woke capitalism, using Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) training, and marketing messages supporting left-wing values or causes of otherwise portraying organizations as “woke” to exploit the supposed values of a demographic generation to advance business interests. Some conservative critics have said that publishing industry is hiring woke (i.e. young progressive) employees who want to publish progressive books, and silencing conservative voices:
Some speakers and writers govern their language adhere to rules published in an equity language guide or to conform to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (“DEI”) rules or guidelines:
Equity-language guides are proliferating among some of the country’s leading institutions, particularly nonprofits. … most of the guides draw on the same sources from activist organizations: A Progressive’s Style Guide, the Racial Equity Tools glossary, and a couple of others. The guides also cite one another. The total number of people behind this project of linguistic purification is relatively small, but their power is potentially immense. The new language might not stick in broad swaths of American society, but it already influences highly educated precincts, spreading from the authorities that establish it and the organizations that adopt it to mainstream publications … .
Although the guides refer to language “evolving,” these changes are a revolution from above. They haven’t emerged organically from the shifting linguistic habits of large numbers of people. They are handed down in communiqués written by obscure “experts” who purport to speak for vaguely defined “communities,” remaining unanswerable to a public that’s being morally coerced. A new term wins an argument without having to debate.
Woke positions often are based on identity politics. Wikipedia, in September 2022 refers Identity politics as “… a political approach wherein people of a particular race, nationality, religion, gender, sexual orientation, social background, social class, or other identifying factors develop political agendas that are based upon these identities. Identity politics is deeply connected with the idea that some groups in society are oppressed and begins with analysis of that oppression. The term is used primarily to describe political movements in western societies, covering nationalist, multicultural, women’s rights, civil rights, and LGBT movements. It might be better to say that identity politics is a cluster of beliefs held and behaviours of members of a woke culture. Identity politics is intersectional:
[A] person’s social and political identities combine to create different modes of discrimination and privilege. Intersectionality identifies multiple factors of advantage and disadvantage. Examples of these factors include gender, caste, sex, race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, religion, disability, weight, and physical appearance. These intersecting and overlapping social identities may be both empowering and oppressing. Intersectionality broadens the scope of the first and second waves of feminism, which largely focused on the experiences of women who were white, middle-class and cisgender, to include the different experiences of women of color, women who are poor, immigrant women, and other groups. Intersectional feminism aims to separate itself from white feminism by acknowledging women’s different experiences and identities.
Wikipedia has generally used the term Representative in the titles of entries referring to Representative Democracy. Wikipedia uses the term “Representation” mainly in entry titles about philosophy, linguistics and semiotics such as representation in Art. Representation, as modified by modern usage, refers to the desire by members of groups who believe that their groups are being deprived or oppressed by not being recognized enough. Wikipedia uses Representation in its vernacular sense of visibility in the media in entries including Representation of African-Americans in media.
Intersectionality emerged in the U.S.A. from legal doctrines interpreting the meaning of discrimination under American leglislation, and from political movements and statements such as the 1977 Combahee River Collective statement. The concepts were embraced by European Marxist feminists, and by American leftists.
Post-Colonial
In some post-colonial settings, Western science is criticized as an artifact of colonialism, like boundaries, political institutions and religion. In places in Southern Africa, university students react to science by demanding that “science must fall”, and insisting that when science does not respect the intuition and conventional beliefs of colonized peoples, it is suspect.
Initially emerging from a mode of literary criticism, postmodernism developed in the mid-twentieth century as a rejection of modernism and has been observed across many disciplines. Postmodernism is associated with the disciplines deconstruction and post-structuralism.
….
Postmodernism relies on critical theory, which considers the effects of ideology, society, and history on culture. Postmodernism and critical theory commonly criticize universalist ideas of objective reality, morality, truth, human nature, reason, language, and social progress.
… postmodernism was a mode of discourse on literature and literary criticism, commenting on the nature of literary text, meaning, author and reader, writing, and reading. Postmodernism developed in the mid- to late-twentieth century across many scholarly disciplines as a departure or rejection of modernism. As a critical practice, postmodernism employs concepts such as hyperreality, simulacrum, trace, and difference, and rejects abstract principles in favor of direct experience.
Postmodern literary criticism is a method of public argument and persuasive speech – a postmodern form of rhetoric.
Emotional Harm
In the western liberal tradition, freedom of conscience and speech are respected, allowing dissidents to promote their views of facts and values.
The woke claim that disagreement with their views of facts and their beliefs is disrespectful and/or harms them emotionally. Woke arguments are made by persons and groups to advance personal or group claims to resources and power. Several words are prefixed to the term phobia to criticize reluctance or overt opposition to granting resources, power and privileges to persons who claim to be members of historically oppressed or victimized groups, as phobias:
for recognition of marriages between LGB persons “homophobic”,
for cis male persons to be treated as women “transphobic”,
to abolish the State of Israel or reduce its territory and power, and create a Palestinian state “Islamophobic”.
Disavowals of Woke
Fredrik de Boer, the American writer, Marxist and progressive, notes “I’d rather have a friendly forgiving plainspoken big tent civil libertarian socialist mass movement, personally. Trouble is, there is only woke and anti-woke. There is no escape.” and:
“Woke” or “wokeness” refers to a school of social and cultural liberalism that has become the dominant discourse in left-of-center spaces in American intellectual life. It reflects trends and fashions that emerged over time from left activist and academic spaces and became mainstream, indeed hegemonic, among American progressives in the 2010s. “Wokeness” centers “the personal is political” at the heart of all politics and treats political action as inherently a matter of personal moral hygiene – woke isn’t something you do, it’s something you are. Correspondingly all of politics can be decomposed down to the right thoughts and right utterances of enlightened people. Persuasion and compromise are contrary to this vision of moral hygiene and thus are deprecated. Correct thoughts are enforced through a system of mutual surveillance, one which takes advantage of the affordances of internet technology to surveil and then punish. Since politics is not a matter of arriving at the least-bad alternative through an adversarial process but rather a matter of understanding and inhabiting an elevated moral station, there are no crises of conscience or necessary evils.
Woke is defined by several consistent attributes. …
Academic – …
Immaterial – …
Structural in analysis,individual in action – …
Emotionalist – …
Fatalistic – …
Insistent that all political question are easy – …
Possessed of belief in the superior virtue of the oppressed – …
American writer Susan Neiman noted, in an article published at the same time her book Left Is Not Woke was published (March 2023) :
Wokeness emphasises the ways in which particular groups have been denied justice, and seeks to rectify and repair the damage. But in the focus on inequalities of power, the concept of justice is often left by the wayside. Wokeness demands that nations and peoples face up to their criminal histories. But in the process, it often concludes that all history is criminal.
The concept of universalism once defined the Left; international solidarity was its watchword. This was just what distinguished it from the Right, which recognised no deep connections, and few real obligations, to anyone outside its own circle. The Left demanded that the circle encompass the globe. …
The opposite of universalism is often called “identitarianism”, but the word is misleading, for it suggests that our identities can be reduced to, at most, two dimensions. … The reduction of the multiple identities we all possess to race and gender isn’t about physical appearance. It’s a focus on those dimensions which experienced the most generalisable trauma. This embodies a major shift that began in the mid-20th century: the subject of history was no longer the hero but the victim. The impulse to shift our focus to the victims of history began as an act of justice. History was told by the victors, while the victims’ voices went unheard. To turn the tables and insist that the victims’ stories enter the narrative was just a part of righting old wrongs. The movement to recognise the victims of slaughter and slavery began with the best of intentions. It recognised that might and right often fail to coincide, that very bad things happen to all sorts of people, and that even when we cannot change that we are bound to record it. Yet something went wrong when we rewrote the place of the victim; the impulse that began in generosity turned downright perverse.
….
Identity politics not only contract the multiple components of our identities to one: they essentialise that component over which we have the least control. I prefer the word “tribalism”, an idea which is as old as the Hebrew Bible. Tribalism is a description of the civil breakdown that occurs when people, of whatever kind, see the fundamental human difference as that between our kind and everyone else.
Universalism is now under fire on the Left because it is conflated with fake universalism: the attempt to impose certain cultures on others in the name of an abstract humanity that turns out to reflect just a dominant culture’s time, place, and interests. This happens daily in the name of corporate globalism. But let’s consider what a feat it was to make that original abstraction to humanity. Earlier assumptions were inherently particular, as earlier ideas of law were religious. The idea that one law should apply to Protestants and Catholics, Jews and Muslims, lords and peasants, simply in virtue of their common humanity is a relatively recent achievement which now shapes our assumptions so thoroughly we fail to recognise it as an achievement at all.
Susan Neiman’s book Left Is Not Woke was criticized by academics who are more sympathetic to modern progressive movements:
Left Is Not Woke, at its occasional best, is a plea for hope in progress. At times, Neiman does express sympathy for contemporary progressives, recognizing their “best of intentions” and acknowledging shared goals. …
But … Neiman has missed the point of the contemporary Left—a messy grouping of activist movements facing off against the intersectional crises of the present: climate change, gun violence, war, famine, fascism, police violence, carceral violence, transphobia—the list goes on. In fact, by lumping these groups into a monolithic whole, Neiman has imposed order, hierarchy, and coherence where there are, in fact, often little more than complex and overlapping sympathies among an inherently fractured political Left.
What these groups do share is the certainty that if we have any hope of confronting the future—of even surviving into the future—we need new ways of thinking. We need doubt about the structures and ideas that brought us to this point. If we are living in a world that the Enlightenment made, a world that in the centuries since Kant’s first editions has suffered imperialism, genocide, climate change, and more—much of it imposed by “enlightened” Europeans—it is worth asking if the Enlightenment is all its advocates purport it to be.
David Frum criticized “political correctness” by modern American radicals, academics and students but did not use “woke” in his article “Liberals and the Illberal Left” in the Atlantic in 2015. Woke can be used, in American political discussion by classical (i.e. not a progressive or social justice leftist) liberal, a libertarian or by a “silent majority” conservative to criticize “woke” values or behaviors.
The term “woke” used by people who hold right-wing views, can suggest disapproval. In 2020 – 2023 Conservative Republicans seeking some electoral traction within or for their party claimed that “woke” values are wrong. Right-wing commentators accuse leftists of being members of an educated elite that is out of touch with the conditions or the work and life of “ordinary” people.
Some right wing commentators claim unless the left changes rhetorical course, its language and purity-policing will leave it isolated from the masses. Some accuse social justice leftists of being members of a condescending elite which embodies the progressive tendency towards depoliticisation: contests over material conditions give way to therapeutic journeys for those at the top, with working-class people cast as the oafs and bigots in need of being coerced into enlightenment. Some right wing commentators, as of 2023, argue that they have won the culture war against using woke as a positive term:
People on the far right use the term “woke” to trivialize the demands and goals of groups who identify themselves as marginalized or the victims of harms, including the effects of historical injustices.
The libertarian legal academic, Ilya Somin, writing in the modern American conservative publication The Dispatch argues that “communists … install[ed] horrific dictatorships in many countries. But communism isn’t a woke ideology focused on racial and ethnic grievances. It’s a universalist ideology, one that routinely repressed ethnic minorities where it comes to power”:
… concerns about wokeness have distracted many on the center-right from a more serious danger, one far more likely to gain widespread support and cause great harm: nationalism. Terrible woke ideas should be criticized. However, their impact is limited by the smaller numbers of their proponents. Nationalists are far more numerous. And if nationalists acquire the power they seek, they would implement an agenda that does great harm to the lives, freedom, and well-being of millions of people.
….
To be sure, woke ideology disproportionately appeals to the highly educated, which gives wokeists an edge in the media, academia, and various bureaucratic institutions. However, nationalists have enough highly educated personnel of their own to counter. TV networks like Fox News and “national conservative” think tanks like The Heritage Foundation (which is planning a wide-ranging nationalist agenda for Trump’s possible second term) provide nationalists with enough media influence and brainpower to get by. Wokeist influence over regulatory bureaucracies is counterbalanced by greater nationalist influence over law enforcement entities—the government agencies with the greatest power to arrest and detain people—and their potential to once again control the White House, which has great leverage over federal regulatory agencies.
History also shows nationalist movements are a menace to liberal political institutions. Whether in 1930s Germany or present-day Russia, nationalist movements have subverted liberal democracy and installed brutal dictatorships in its place. By contrast, not a single wokeist egalitarian movement has achieved such a result. Racial and ethnic minorities have sometimes managed to impose dictatorships over an ethnic majority (as in apartheid-era South Africa). But in those cases, the minority group relied on military and organizational superiority, not on something like a woke egalitarian ideology. There is no real chance of wokeists achieving such military superiority in the U.S. or any other Western nation.
Americans like other groups of people, respect the wisdom of people who think like them and deplore the ignorance and recklessness of people who do not think like them. For generations, Americans have been:
self-centered:
acquisitive;
ambitious;
individualist:
oriented to individual choices and preferences;
asserting individual morality and authenticity;
emotional or sentimental;
confident in their own judgments, including judgments based on intuition, faith and emotional feelings;
deprecating education and expertise as elitist;
maintaining that they are humble, normal or common
not acknowledging their advantages and privileges but reluctant to give up any political, economic or social advantage or privilege.
But you have there the myth of the essential white America. All the other stuff, the love, the democracy, the floundering into lust, is a sort of by-play. The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic and a killer. It has never yet melted.
D.H. Lawrence, Studies in Classic American Literature, cited by A.O. Scott, paywalled (?) article/essay, New York Times, July 29, 2023
Respect for the competent, hard, individualism of the frontier has continued in American literature and culture.
Several generations of Americans have used some parts of some of the languages of personal growth, psychology, sociology, economics, and other social sciences. Some ideas in those sciences are reported in the media and become part of a cultural awareness. Post traumatic stress disorder 8See Wikipedia entry and see Tell Me Why It Hurts, Danielle Carr, New York Magazine, Intelligencer Section, July 31, 2023 now recognized as a psychiatric disorder, was and is controversial in many ways. However, trauma has become accepted, in many cases, by millions of Americans, as an explanation for unusual thoughts and actions.
In the early 21st century, people of all generations, in many places, use business jargon, and hold beliefs that markets, individualism, and consumerism are unchangeable and irresistible forces of nature. Many accept that markets can resolve all social, political and economic issues and that is possible to do well (succeed financially) by being good (acting ethically). Whether an individual has a “Left” ideology, and regardless of age, the majority share some of the views of older generations about society, history and values:
progress is a historical movement from older values to their values, which will liberate them and would liberate oppressed groups – racial groups, gender groups, etc.,
a sense that if they did not acquire power and resources fast enough, oppressed groups can force the issue.
a sense that their historical time has come, and
Woke American and WEIRD (members of Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic societies) millennials are woke to white privilege, calls for inclusive rights by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) persons and other concerns.
Asian millennials may be more woke to colonialism and imperialism than to white privilege than white WEIRD millennials, but seem to be as focused on career and accumulating wealth. Any millennial may be versed in the language of popular psychology and may be a sensitive snowflake in a social way. More conservative WEIRD millennials may assert an individual sense of justice, morality and authenticity as being “based”.
The US Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service’s FoodData Central (“USDA FDC”) can search 5 data sets. It may be necessary to search in each set. The American government collects or tests samples for the FNDDS Survey Foods data set, but not the others. The government requires tests from accredited services at a manufacturer or distributor’s expense in most instances.
Other countries, including Canada, have data sets on products offered for sale in those countries. The data comes from manufacturers or hired services. Government or independent testing is limited.
The USDA FDC data sets are:
Foundation Foods,
Standard Reference Legacy Foods,
Human Research Center Food and Nutrient database for Dietary Studies (“FNDDS Survey Foods”),
diet guides and cookbooks. The AHA sells a Low-Salt Cookbook, first published in 1990. The 2011 4th edition is the most modern, and is currently for sale on the internet at the AHA website;
The noises of the heartbeat, the flow of blood through blood vessels, and the detectable pulse in blood vessels have been known for a very long time. Medical science, in the 19th and 20th centuries, credited the idea that blood circulated through the body by vessels from and to the heart to William Harvey, in 1628. This theory was accepted as a better idea than the idea of “humours” postulated by classical and medieval Greek, Roman, Arabic, and middle Eastern writers.
Measuring Pressure
The measurement of blood pressure was identified by medical and scientific persons as posssible and desireable in the 18th century. The theory was that all human beings had an ideal objective “normal” blood pressure. By the early decades of the 20th century, measurement of blood pressure was a standard diagnostic procedure. It is still understood that way. The Wikipedia entry for Blood Pressure notes, as of late 2023 “Blood pressure is one of the vital signs … that healthcare professionals use in evaluating a patient’s health.”
The health care professions describe ausculatory and oscillomatric measurement of blood pressure as “non-invasive”, because blood vessels are not pierced or penetrated.
Both methods, as of the late 20th century, have monitored the air pressure in an airtight bladder contained in a cuff. The cuffs are held in a fixed position against the body by the fabric shell of the cuff, which is closed with a fastener. The adhesive hook and loop fastener system, known as Velcro is used in devices built in and after the late 20th century. The airtight inflatable cuff is the inner layer of a cuff assembly. Its outer layer has a fastener sewed the outside.
Ausculatory blood pressure measurement started in the 19th century. The stethoscope and the sphygnomanometer were invented and came into use. The ausculatory method involved (and still involves, when used):
listening to the the artery – ususally the brachial artery, a major artery in the upper arm – with a stethoscope applied to the inside of the limb above the elbow, to detect when blood is flowing,
restricting the flow until the sound was not detected, then releasing it, and
using a sphygnomanometer to measure the pressure in cuff used to restrict the flow in the artery.
The Ausculatory method was administered by trained professionals in medical facilities. Medical doctors and nursed used the method to gather data about “normal”.
Since the early 20th century, for the ausculatory method, the flow in the artery has been been restricted with an inflatable cuff device – at one time a manually inflated pneumatic device. It was wide enough to apply pressure without bruising or injury to the limb, and applied above the elbow. The pressure in the cuff was a measure of the blood pressure.
Systolic pressure is the maximum pressure during one heartbeat. Diastolic pressure is the minimum pressure between two heartbeats. The units of measurement are millimeters of mercury (abbreviated mmHg), derived from the original mercury column sphygnomanometer. In the 20th century medical offices, clinics and hospitals were equipped with aneroid sphygnomanometers. The devices are or were regularly calibrated to the ambient air pressure for proper use.
Oscillations in the circulatory system were noted in medical literature as early as 1876. The oscillometic method was dependent on the development of transducers and monitors by the electronic industry. The idea of using compressed air in hose to trigger a switch had been used commercially to design devices that could monitor traffic in the 20th century. Automobile service stations used devices made up of a hose, a pressure switch and a bell to alert staff that vehicle had entered the lot and was in a position to purchase gasoline. Such devices are still on the market in the early 21st century to monitor entry to some properties.
The first commercial oscillometer blood pressure monitor was patented in the USA in 1976. With an electronic sensor, this kind of monitor could detect oscillations in the cuff. The oscillations could used to measure blood pressure with the oscillometric method. A sensor could detect the pressure applied by the cuff when the oscillations of the artery in the limb to which the cuff was applied had stopped.
Automated oscillometric blood pressure cuffs and meters do not detect the sounds in the artery or correlate sounds to pressure. These devices inflate the cuff, detect when blood flow through the limb has paused, take readings, release the cuff, record and display blood pressure and pulse. They appears to work like a health care worker using a stethocope and an aneroid sphygnomanometer:
shut down at a pressure slightly higher than the pressure when the ocillations stopped,
release pressure gradually,
record the systolic and diastolic pressure, and
release pressure.
The oscillometric method is very accurate. It can be administered without a stethoscope and by automated devices. Its accuracy is subject to the hardware and to electronic and software settings. It has changed the idea of a normal measurement.The standards of normal pressure and unhealthy hypertension are being redefined according to statistical analysis of sample groups of readings among patients with different characteristics.
The oscillometric method is used to measure blood pressure in automated devices used in
most medical care facilities and some diagnostic settings, and
for home use for patients to monitor and report blood pressure.
Automated monitor methods are less expensive and time consuming for health care providers. Automated devices are built to standards. A device is regarded as accurate if the design and the manufacturing process meet standards. In theory, automated device are self-calibrating, and deliver acceptably accurate readings every time they are used, if:
the device is working as the manufacturer says,
the cuff is applied properly,
the patient
is properly seated,
has been inactive, and is warm and comfortable, and
A patient must install the cuff, take the reading and record the result. Many home devices use a flexible internal plastic shell between the inner cuff and the outlayer. The shell curves around the limb where the cuff is applied. This makes the cuff easier to fit on an arm, and easier to fasten. It is possible. perhaps easy, to install the cuff incorrectly, leading to incorrect readings.
The Canadian advocacy entity Hypertension Canada allows manufacturers to use its Gold and Silver marks on product packages based on its review of how the manufacturers have met certain standards1“Those with a Gold rating meet the highest and most current international standards, and those with the Silver ratings meet the highest international standards available prior to their most recent updates. (Both Gold and Silver levels are accepted as accurate)”. The rating makes the devices more marketable. The rating process is not transparent. It does not appear that Hypertension Canada tests devices to verify accuracy. It appears that Hypertension Canada requires manufacturers seeking approval to say that they have processes that meet standards.
The basic home device would has:
a cuff connected by a hose to a
device containing g the pump, the sensor and an LCD display.
An automated home device, sold in 2020-23 might have Bluetooth to upload data to another device, or other data collection and transmission functions.
Manufacturer Training
The manufacturers of home devices do not train home uses directly. They provide detailed instructions to users on attaching the cuff, posture during readings, and the operation of devices. A manual will suggest the cuff be applied to upper part of the left arm at a distance above the elbow, usually with the inflation tube aligned to the inside of the limb. It may suggest a different place and alignment on the right arm.
A manual will advise aking readings in a quiet place, at the same time, keeping warm, avoiding stresss and not taking readins for at least 30 minutes after bathing, consuming alcohol or caffeine, smoking ot excercising. Similiar advice can also be found in resources like the Canadian advocacy entity Hypertension Canada’s pamphlet for professionals. These instructions are actually important to get an accurate reading.
The display area has an area that flashes the systolic pressure as the cuff inflates, and as the cuff deflates. This area gives the systolic reading when the device stops. A separate heartbeat symbol flashes when oscillations are detected as the cuff is inflated, and as the cuff is deflated and the reading is taken. Some devices will display icons for “movement error” and irregular heartbeat”. Irregular heart beat icon can be triggered by movment errors, which may occur when the cuff is not attached properly, as well as when the user moves the limb with the cuff, or coughs or sneezes.
Readings
The normal blood pressure, according to older medical literature and most blood pressure monitor manufacturers, of a healthy adult is 120 mmHg systolic and 80 mmHg diastolic. This is written as 120/80 (spoken as “120 over 80”). “Normal” is more complicated than 120/80:
“… the average blood pressure, age standardized, since 1975 to the present, at approx. 127/79 in men and 122/77 in women, although these average data mask significantly diverging regional trends.”
… in many older people, systolic blood pressure often exceeds the normal adult range”.
….
Blood pressure fluctuates from minute to minute and normally shows a circadian rhythm over a 24-hour period, with highest readings in the early morning and evenings and lowest readings at night. Loss of the normal fall in blood pressure at night is associated with a greater future risk of cardiovascular disease and there is evidence that night-time blood pressure is a stronger predictor of cardiovascular events than day-time blood pressure. Blood pressure varies over longer time periods (months to years) and this variability predicts adverse outcomes. Blood pressure also changes in response to temperature, noise, emotional stress, consumption of food or liquid, dietary factors, physical activity, changes in posture (such as standing-up), drugs, and disease. The variability in blood pressure and the better predictive value of ambulatory blood pressure measurements has led some authorities, such as the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) in the UK, to advocate for the use of ambulatory blood pressure as the preferred method for diagnosis of hypertension
Blood pressure is stable for periods of time. Measurement is complicated by environmental and psychological factors. Health care professionals recognize white coat hypertension which is studied in reference to the effect of being monitored in a clinical setting and labile hypertension.
Some people may have labile hypertension. Labile means changeable and connotes unstable.
Health care professionals generally trust the devices to provide an accurate measurement of blood pressure at a point in time. Readings play a major role in the diagnosis and treatment of hypertension. The AHA’s online pamphlet Understanding Blood Pressure Readings classifies of 5 bands of BP readings. Hypertension can be described(by the AHA stage 2, above) as a medical condition in which the blood pressure in the arteries is persistently elevated – systolic blood pressure is elevated (>140 mmHg) with a normal diastolic blood pressure. Isolated systolic hypertension may present a health concern. This is called elevated or prehypertension in some material. Where elevated readings (>140/>90) appear twice, a medical doctor can diagnose hypertension.
Blood pressure is classified by two measurements, the systolic and diastolic pressures, which are the maximum and minimum pressures, respectively. For most adults, normal blood pressure at rest is within the range of 100–130 millimeters mercury (mmHg) systolic and 60–80 mmHg diastolic. For most adults, high blood pressure is present if the resting blood pressure is persistently at or above 130/80 or 140/90 mmHg. … Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring over a 24-hour period appears more accurate than office-based blood pressure measurement.
Physicians in most places diagnose hypertension on the basis of blood pressure readings, and treat it by prescribing anti-hypertensive medication and testing patients periodically. A few countries cover the cost of prescribed medications under health insurance or drug cost insurance.
Lifestyle changes and medications can lower blood pressure and decrease the risk of health complications. Lifestyle changes include weight loss, physical exercise, decreased salt intake, reducing alcohol intake, and a healthy diet. If lifestyle changes are not sufficient, then blood pressure medications are used. Up to three medications taken concurrently can control blood pressure in 90% of people. The treatment of moderately high arterial blood pressure (defined as >160/100 mmHg) with medications is associated with an improved life expectancy. The effect of treatment of blood pressure between 130/80 mmHg and 160/100 mmHg is less clear …
….
The first line of treatment for hypertension is lifestyle changes, including dietary changes, physical exercise, and weight loss. Though these have all been recommended in scientific advisories, a Cochrane systematic review found no evidence for effects of weight loss diets on death, long-term complications or adverse events in persons with hypertension.The review did find a decrease in body weight and blood pressure.Their potential effectiveness is similar to and at times exceeds a single medication. If hypertension is high enough to justify immediate use of medications, lifestyle changes are still recommended in conjunction with medication.
Dietary changes shown to reduce blood pressure include diets with low sodium, the DASH diet (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension), and plant-based diets. … There is evidence from randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trials that Hibiscus tea consumption significantly reduces systolic blood pressure (-4.71 mmHg, 95% CI [-7.87, -1.55]) and diastolic blood pressure (-4.08 mmHg, 95% CI [-6.48, -1.67]). Beetroot juice consumption also significantly lowers the blood pressure of people with high blood pressure
Increasing dietary potassium has a potential benefit for lowering the risk of hypertension. The 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) stated that potassium is one of the shortfall nutrients which is under-consumed in the United States. However, people who take certain antihypertensive medications (such as ACE-inhibitors or ARBs) should not take potassium supplements or potassium-enriched salts due to the risk of high levels of potassium.
Wikipedia, September 2022, Hypertension
Doctors often prescribe medications to reduce blood pressure to levels under 140/90. Medical care is often dedicated to managing medications and adverse side-effects. The medications have adverse side-effects. ACE inhibitors (e.g.), can cause persistent dry coughing, among other things. Calcium channel blockers (e.g. Amlodypine) often cause peripheral edema.
Diet
Some governments and advocacy groups (e.g. the AHA) have promoted the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (“DASH”), eating plan.
Alcohol
In the short run, drinking alcohol increases blood pressure for a short period after consumption. One drink will raise blood pressure for about two hours. Long term regular drinking contributes to hypertension, The causation is still under discussion. A 2014 paper says:
… the mechanism through which alcohol raises blood pressure remains elusive. Several possible mechanisms have been proposed such as an imbalance of the central nervous system, impairment of the baroreceptors, enhanced sympathetic activity, stimulation of the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system, increased cortisol levels, increased vascular reactivity due to increase in intracellular calcium levels, stimulation of the endothelium to release vasoconstrictors and loss of relaxation due to inflammation and oxidative injury of the endothelium leading to inhibition of endothelium-dependent nitric oxide production. Loss of relaxation due to inflammation and oxidative injury of the endothelium by angiotensin II leading to inhibition of endothelium-dependent nitric oxide production is the major contributors of the alcohol-induced hypertension. For the prevention of alcohol-induced hypertension is to reduce the amount of alcohol intake. Physical conditioning/exercise training is one of the most important strategies to prevent/treat chronic alcohol-induced hypertension on physiological basis. The efficacious pharmacologic treatment includes the angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors or angiotensin II type 1 receptor blockers (ARBs) which have antioxidant activity and calcium channel blockers.
Caffeine can elevate blood pressure temporarily, which will affect blood pressure readings. It is not discussed as a significant lifestyle or dietary factor causing hypertension.
Sodium
Salt
Salt is found as a crystaline solid, or in solution in water. Salt can be mined from mineral deposits, or extracted from seawater by evaporation. Salt was used to preserve, store and prepare food for centuries.
Most salt for cooking is processed to standard sized crystals sold as table salt. It is the standard presentation of the salt sold in grocery stores for household use in cooking and baking. The crystals are small enough to fit the holes in a salt shaker, and dissolve in water including in the amounts used to mix bread dough in industrial bakeries. Table salt is treated with anti-caking agents. Depending on manufacturer and brand, it may be treated with or without iodine and other chemicals.
Kosher salt is a table salt with slightly larger crystals, and normally not treated with chemicals other than anti-caking ingredients. Sea salt may have crystals of varying sizes, some of which may not dissolve and distribute uniformly during cooking and baking.
Humans became habituated to salt. During the industrialization of food processing, the food industry used salt to mask the changes to the taste of food that was processed in canneries, and began to use salt as flavour enhancer to increase the sales of processed foods.
It was not believed to be harmful until medical research was conducted in the 20th century.
Chemistry, Biology
Salt, at the atomic/molecular level has one atom of sodium (symbol Na) bonded to and one atom of chlorine (symbol Cl), and is chemically described as (NaCL) sodium chloride. Salt crystals dissolve in water. NaCl can be separated by electrolysis. Salt molecules consumed by living organisms are used in metabolism in extracellular fluid and interstitial fluid.
Sodium is an element, an alkaline earth metal in Group 1, in the periodic table. In living organisms, salt is separated into sodium cations (positively charged ions) and chlorine anions. Before industrial food processing manufactured other products made with sodium, humans consumed animals and plants, or salt, to acquire sodium. Most plants consume little salt, but animals, including humans, require sodium. Sodium is a vital nutrient:
Sodium ions play a diverse and important role in many physiological processes, acting to regulate blood volume, blood pressure, osmotic equilibrium and pH.
Sodium is the primary cation in extracellular fluids in animals and humans. Sodium ions pass into cellular fluid by the enzyme in the cell walls known as the sodium-potassium pump. I have not found an explanation for whether or how the sodium ions are separated from the chlorine or other anions/atoms. Humans (and other animals) have taste receptors that detect sodium ions or salt. These receptors also detect the ions of other alkali metals as salty.
The sense of taste for salt is not calibrated. Humans can detect that a mouthful of food contains salt but cannot tell how much sodium they consume.
The adequate intake for sodium is 1,200 to 1,500 milligrams per day. On average, people in the United States consume 3,400 milligrams per day, an amount that promotes hypertension. Salt contains about 39.3% sodium by mass; the safe upper limit for sodium is under 1 teaspoon per day. 1 tsp of table salt weighs 5.7 grams, and contains 2,240 mg. of sodium.
The food industry resists reducing the use of sodium in the preparation of packaged foods and restaurant meals. It markets some salty items as traditional foods. Its lobbyists and lawyers disputes the harms of salt. The food industry argues that
consumers make informed decisions (the same argument tobacco companies and drug companies used to defend their profit from the sale of addictive products), and
manufacturers have the right to use salt to sell products profitably.
Manufacturers are required to disclose facts to the USDA in the USA, and to disclose facts to persons purchasing packaged foods with a label on the package headed “Nutrition Facts”. Sodium is listed in the Food/Nutrition facts labels in milligrams; (.001 or 1/1000 of a gram). Sodium is also stated in the Food/Nutrition facts labelsas a % of the national recommended daily allowance (usually the USDA RDA) in a stated amount called a serving, as defined by the manufacturer. It is usually given as a volume and often also as a weight measured in grams.
There are regulations in the USA requiring chain restaurants to disclose sodium content on menus and in some instances tag the content with health risk logo that may alert consumers. These regulations are resisted by restaurants and manufacturers, by lobbying, occasional litigation, obscurity, equivocation and evasion. The Canadian CBC Network covered sodium in restaurant food in Canada in its television/streaming program Marketplace‘s episode “Putting takeout to the test: the shocking amount of sodium in some restaurant meals” (Season 50, Episode aired January 6, 2023) – Text for internet article, with link to YouTube video.
I have put sodium content of several food items in a table at the end of this post.
Salt Free Foods
Salt Substitutes
Salt is essential to the preparation of some foods.
Some mineral compounds interact with the salt sensors in the human mouth. Potassium Choride is one such compound. The food manufacturer French’s began to manufacture and distribute a product called NoSalt, now packaged as the Original Sodium Free Salt Subsitute salt. In 2017 the French’s brands were acquired by McCormick & Company. NoSalt is sold by some retail grocery chains and by some specialized internet vendors. By 2024, I was able to find a potassium chloride product called SaltFree marketed by Windsor Salt in Canadian retail. There are other salt substitute products.
Salt Free Prepared Foods
Some manufacturers have produced salt free foods and brought them to market. Some have been abandoned for unknown reasons. Some salt free processed food products are on the market.
In British Columbia, Canada, the Thrifty’s grocery stores (now part of the retail group that manages the Sobeys stores) sold a store brand of no sodium whole wheat bread. It wasn’t good, but it appeared to sell. The store stopped offering it in about 2020.
Becel (an Upfield brand) packaged a low sodium margerine spread for retail distribution and sale in Canada for several years. It disappeared from retail grocery stores on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada and everywhere Upfield did busness, as far as I can tell, in 2019. Becel’s other margerine spreads generally have about 70 mg. of sodium per 2 tsp. of margerine spread. Becel/Upfield does not post Nutrition Facts on the Web (it complies with the law and has Nutition Facts labels on its product tubs and wrappers. Becel/Upfield promotes Becel margerine spreads as healthy plant based oil products. Becel still manufactures a salt free margerine, sold in blocks. It is not spreadable.
Some zero salt products available before 2020 fell victim to supply chain problems or disappeared for retail stores during the pandemic
Salt Sensitivity
The journal Hypertension published Salt Sensitivity of Blood Pressure; A Scientific Statement From the American Heart Association in Volume 68, No. 3 in September 2016 which argued for the existence of a physiological trait by which the blood pressure of some members of the population exhibits changes parallel to changes in salt intake. Physicians in most places do not diagnose salt sensitivity.
Baking
Salt used in baking yeasted or yeast-leaving bread to flavour bread and to affect the formation of gluten. It is a normal ingredient in recipes and formulas for yeasted bread, as I discuss in my post Sodium in Bread.
Baking Soda
Baking soda, also known as sodium bicarbonate is used in baking as a chemical leaving agent. It is also used as an ingredient in manufacturing baking powder. It is not uncommon for baking recipes to use both baking powder and baking soda. Baking soda has some other uses in cooking, and several other uses.
There is a sodium free baking soda substitute called Ener-G Baking Soda Substitute, manufactured by Ener-G Foods Inc., and available online.
Baking Powder
Baking powder is a chemical leavening agent used in baking, made with baking soda. There is a sodium free baking powder substitute called Featherweight, manufactured by Hain Pure Foods, and available online.
Sodium in Food Table
The table below surveys Food Facts data on product labels for several foods that I encounter in local grocery stores. I have a separate table of food products used in baking, including salt, in my post for baking ingredients.
The column headings for the sodium content table lists the items, in groups. The column headings identify the food product, and
the Food/Nutrition Facts “serving” size, normally set by the manufacturer and details as stated by the mfr., in the Food Facts label:
the weight or mass (in grams) of the Unit and/or
the volume (American Tablespoons (“T”) and teaspoons (“t”) , and/or metric in milliters (“ml”)), ;
for some items, a realistic amount (“RA”) used in a recipe;
the sodium (“Na”) in the RA, by weight, in milligrams. If no RA is given, the Na is per serving.
In the house sauce group, I have chosen the pepper sauces with low sodium, which use 1 teaspoon as a serving size. I have not used the heavily marketed hot sauces (e.g. Frank’s Red Hot) which may use a large serving size.
Food
Serving
RA
Na (mg.)
Condiments & Spreads
Mayonnaise Hellman’s Regular
1 T
98
Mustard (Dijon) Maille
1 t 5 ml
120
Peanut Butter Island Nut Roastery (Sidney BC)
15 g. 1 T
0
Hot Sauce McIlhenny Tabasco
1 t. 5 ml.
35
Hot Sauce Hot Ones Classic
1 t. 5 ml.
20
Salsa (Black Bean & Corn) Fox Valley
28 g. 2 T
35
Salsa (Medium) FrogRanch
32 g. 2 T
40
Salsa (Hot) FrogRanch
32 g. 2 T
40
Salsa Desert Pepper (not available 2024)
2 T 30 ml
4 T
160
Salsa (Medium) Que Pasa
60 g. ¼ cup (4 T)
210
Salsa (hot) Everland Organic
2 T 30 ml
4 T
260
Olives, Spanish Queen (Martini) Mezzeta
2
340
(cucumber) Pickles Bicks Garlic Dill Pickles “50% of the salt …”
60 g. 1 pickle
270
(cucumber) Pickles Bicks Sandwick Slices “tangy dill” slices “50% of the salt …”
30 g. 2 slices
135
“Low Sodium” Tomato Ketchup French’s
1 T. 15 ml.
40
Dry Beans
Cannellini (White Kidney) Everland Organic
28 g.
1 cup 160 g.
14.4
White Kidney Walmart “Great Value”
35 g. ⅕ cup
1 cup 175 g.
0 ?
Romano Walmart “Great Value”
35 g. ⅕ cup
1 cup 175 g.
0 ?
Produce (raw/fresh)
Cabbage, green USDA FoodData Central
100 g.
18
Tomato USDA FoodData Central
123 g. 1 medium
6.2
Tomato, diced USDA FoodData Central
180 g. 1 cup
9
Fruit & Veg, Processed
Tomatoes, Sun-dried Turkish, ready to Eat San Remo
15 g. 3 pieces
314
Tomatoes, Sun-dried in oil Unico
30 g. 5 pieces
300
Tomatoes, canned, diced; no salt added Western Family “Only Goodness”
125 ml 1/2 cup
10
Tomatoes, canned diced, no salt added Unico
125 ml 1/2 cup
5
Soup & Broth
Vegetable Broth No salt added Campbell
250 ml 1 cup
15
Cheese
Velveeta Process Cheez Kraft
30 g. Cube
450
Gouda (Dutch, sold in wedges or wheels) Several brand names
30 g. Cube
320
Emmental (Swiss or French, sold in blocks) Several brand & retailer names
30 g. Cube
varies 30 to 60
Swiss, sliced Castello brand
18 g. 1 slice
60
Swiss, sliced Cracker Barrel brand (a Lactanis brand)
This post was written over a few months from late August 2022 to December 2022, was first published in October, and revised. It follows an earlier post, Covid-19 #1: Covid-19 wanes, Omicron Rises.
Omicron evolved
Omicron, Pango lineage B.1.1.529, was recognized as a variant of concern of Covid-19 by the WHO in November 2021. The illness caused by Omicron and its subvariants is milder than the SARS caused by the original Covid-19 virus. It is severe, or fatal for some people.
By the end of September, 2022, reports and studies of variants in the Omicron lineage that infect vaccinated persons and persons who have been infected were being published: BA.2.75.2, BA.5, BQ.1, BQ.1.1, BA.2.10.4, BA.4.6. (See Papers discussing). In the last months of 2022 there were reports of another Omicron sub-variant line known as XBB. The sub-variants are the most antibody-evasive strains tested.
Links
BC
British Columbia replaced daily reporting of Covid-19 statistics in April 2022. BC reported the weekly reports of the BC Centre for Disease Control (“BCCDC”; an agency of the BC government) every Thursday, and CBC BC reported the reports within a day. I listed the CBC BC News weekly reports April to late August. 2022 in Covid-19 #1: Covid-19 wanes, Omicron Rises.
Stories about a vaccination booster program began to appear in August & September. Some of the weekly articles about the weekly reports were not in RSS feed for CBC BC News or in the BC section pages of CBC News, and had to be backdated.
Public health medicine and policy, lockdowns, supply chains, late 2022 protests about government policy in China, end of mandates in China, and the Omicron surge in China:
The BC government made announcements to the press about boosters in July 2022 and again on September 6. Booster appointments were not offered until after Sept. 14. BC began to offer appointments for boosters to adults, including seniors less than 70 years old, in late September 2022. Vaccines appointments for adults were offered mainly at pharmacies, and not at public temporary clinics. The boosters offered in BC in late 2022 are bivalent Moderna, presented as effective to provide:
protection from infection
with the original Covid-19 virus lineage;
with Omicron variant BA.1 (aka BA-1).
lower risk of serious symptoms when vaccinated persons are infected with the original Covid-19 lineage and some of the virulent variants of concern (including Alpha & Delta).
The thinking of the BCCDC in the first half of 2022 was dominated by the observations that
there were no vaccines for children;
the original viruses and the main variants did not cause serious symptoms in children;
keeping schools closed kept parents from working.
Schools were reopened but the progress in vaccinating children was slow.
Government thinking shifted to the view that children appeared to be the most infected and least vaccinated, while elderly adults were the most vaccinated and least infected. The implied assumption is that elderly adults would not be exposed to the circulating variants in the summer and could be boosted later.
There was some hand-wringing among BC public health figures about the fact that large numbers of adults are declining to vaccinate or boost, or to vaccinate their own children.
In November 2022 the health care crisises in BC, and throughout North America, was a rise in seasonal respiratory illnesses – respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and the latest annual influenza, and short supplies of some medications. Journalists added up numbers at the end of 2022.
No Fear
People began acting as if the SARS disease has vanished and been replaced by a mild flu. People in BC have largely given up wearing masks or paying attention to social distancing.
A large part of the public wants the government and public health professionals to remove mandates. A large part of the public wants to be cared for in the event of illness.
The government treated Covid-19 or Omicron as a minor illness through the spring and summer of 2022.
The government treats the illness as a treatable illness that can be managed by providing health care including hospitalization and intensive care. The public authorities have given the public months of relief from masking, social distancing and other public health measures. Public heath mandates have been dismantled except in health care locations – hospitals, testing and diagnostic services and medical offices.
The government viewed vaccine hesitation as a source of discontent with governance, and has largely tolerated the resistance to mandates.
Health care professionals agree that the illness is treatable in most cases. Health care practitioners are unhappy about working conditions, pay and policy.
The BC Emergency Medical Services Commission, an agency funded and controlled by the Ministry of Health, fired dozens of Ambulance drivers and paramedics who refused to get vaccinated. The workers are demanding reinstatement and other remedies in labour arbitration. They seek public sympathy for immediate reinstatement, reasoning is that “we are on the tail end [of the pandemic] and we’re still not able to work if we’re not vaccinated.”
The number of deaths caused by Covid-19 in BC has increased year by year since the epidemic reached BC. The original virus and several virulent variants have disappeared, but the illness is still fatal.
Year
Public Health measures
Deaths by COVID
2020
Lockdowns, non medical interventions
901
2021
Vaccinations available and widely taken, mandates, mixture of non medical interventions
1,522
2022
Vaccinations + mandates, mixture of non medical interventions, decreasing through the year
2,283* New definition of cause
BC. like the USA, had a period shelter in place (weak lockdown) directives in 2020, followed by a relaxing of measures. BC may have some done somewhat better than the USA but had the same pattern of escalating numbers of deaths as the highly infectious Omicron variants evolved and infected more people. Public policy, in theory, was directed at providing focussed (specialized) protection to the vulnerable but the focussed advice and support was not delivered.
Waste Water
Testing of samples taken from waste water (sewage) was developed in California in 2020. In September 2020 the US Center for Disease Control started a US National Wastewater Surveillance System.
Wastewater samples provided data on active cases as testing of samples in provincial labs declined. The media began to including a few lines on virus detected in wastewater at some treatment plants in reports of the weekly provincial covid numbers. The waste water reports demonstrate that the variants are circulating in the areas served by the plants. Since individual tests are underreported or not reported, public heath analysis is resorting to surveys and questionnaires to gather data about a disease circulating in the community.
It is not clear when Canadian and BC public health authorities started to take and test samples, and began to rely on this method as the main public health tool to dictate policy and advice.
My Zojirushi Virtuoso model BB-PAC20 bread machine stopped working on June 27, 2022. The pan would not even seat on the drive connectors in the machine. One of the drive shafts was seized. The pan was already loaded with unmixed ingredients for a light rye bread. I dumped the ingredients into the bowl of my stand mixer, mixed the loaf, and baked it. I set the oven to 350 ℉. I guessed time, and kept baking until the loaf was done. It had not mixed and risen properly, but it was edible.
Victoria was on the third day of high temperatures although it was not terribly hot in July, like the summer of 2021 had been.
Replacing the Pan
The drive shafts are integral to the pan. I could not see a way to remove the shaft, the bearing and the seals. This is the same with most or all bread machines. The shaft and bearing were not available as repair parts. A user can replace the pan but service for shafts and bearings is labour intensive and requires an inventory of repair parts.
In Canada, Zojirushi sells bread machines through select retailers. On Vancouver Island, the retail distributor is a store in Duncan BC, with an online presence. The retail/online store in Duncan advertised the newer Zojirushi Virtuoso Plus, model BB-PDC20, and a replacement pan for the BB-PDC20. It does not offer to sell a replacement pan for the BB-PAC20.
Zojirushi has a Canadian service/parts agency, Beaver Creek Electronics, in Richmond Hill, Ontario (in the Greater Toronto area). Beaver Creek Electronics was selling both:
8-BBP-P080 pans for the BB-PAC20 Virtuoso and
BX167810A-00 pans for the BB-PDC20 Virtuoso Plus.
It appears there are differences in the pans. I ordered the pan for the BB-PAC20 from Richmond Hill. It arrived July 5.
Warmed ingredients and warmed Dough Rising
The Zojirushi Virtuoso model uses the heating element to bake the ingredients, and also to:
warm the cold ingredients in a period of “rest” before the machine mixes and kneads the dough, and
raise the temperature in the pan to 91-95 °F (33-35 ºC) in the “rise” periods before baking when the leavening agent (yeast or chemical) is active and the dough is being inflated.
The latter can be compared to using a proofing box. a device to keep dough warmer than room temperature (during primary fermentation or proofing)
None of the bread machines on the market surveyed by Beth Hensperger in her Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook (2000) were said to have worked that way. The machines on the market at that time had timers setting the “rest” times. The dough was warm and moist after kneading (the action of kneading makes dough warm). The machine kept the heat and humidity by shelter inside the pan in the machine under a lid. The possibility of heating the unmixed ingredients and dough was not mentioned in that book. The development of a proofing box function involved different control chips and switches. It is a feature on the Zojirushi Virtuoso, the Viruoso Plus, and other modern machines. I think it was a feature on my Panasonic, although it was/is not discussed in the Panasonic material. I don’t know if a heated “rest”has become common or standard. I haven’t researched this.
Timed warm fermentation is a feature when the machine is used to produce a predictable loaf in the set time. Artisan bakers extend and delay fermentation by mixing pre-ferments, and by refrigerating pre-ferments and doughs.
Loading the Bread Machine
The Zojirushi machines take fluids first, at the bottom of the pan. I refined my routine to load ingredients that dissolve in water or suspend in water before the flour: salt, sugar, honey, molasses, maple syrup, milk, milk powder and butter. I began to use table salt instead of kosher salt. As I have been measuring by weight, this has not made a difference in results. Kosher salt has larger crystals and can be used to replace table salt when measured by weight. Both kinds of crystals are small enough that they dissolve in water during the rest and mix/knead phases in a bread machine. I separate the yeast by putting the yeast on top of the flour, so that it is not affected by the salt in water until the machine mixes the ingredients.
Bread machine manuals warn against using a delayed-start timer with milk products, because of the risk of spoilage. I rarely set a delayed-start timer on my bread machine.
Recipes
I stopped trying to put recipes online.
I put my recipes into spread sheets that showed ingredients by weight and volume, and allowed for calculation of Bakers’ ratio, sodium content, and other details. This has allowed me to work on how much salt to use to get acceptable gluten development, and how much yeast and water are necessary to get a dough that flows, rise and springs without ballooning, collapsing or developing a dimpled or cratered top crust.
Mixing/Kneading
Effort and Costs
I haven’t hand mixed and kneaded, or used a stand mixer (or made no-knead bread) much since I began to make bread in a bread machine. The bread machine makes good sandwich bread, if I get the flour, water, salt and yeast right. The bread machine and pan do not require the cleaning that mixing bowls and tools require.
I had, at one time, a home kitchen Kitchen Aid stand mixer with a 7 quart bowl. I did not use it much. It is a specialty appliance, marketed as if all home cooks need one. Its main job is mixing and kneading bread dough.
I have a Bosch Compact stand mixer. Like other Bosch mixers, it is a multi-function device that powers a food processor, a blender and other powered accessories. It is smaller than the machines made by other manufacturers for American consumers. It has a 4 quart bowl, which is supposed to be big enough to mix and knead dough with 8 cups of flour – enough for two 9 inch x 5 inch loaves baked in oven baking pans. The motor is rated at 400 watts. Bosch’s larger (6.5 quart bowl, 18 cups flour capability) Universal stand mixer has been down graded by American Underwriters Laboratory from 800 watts to 500 watts.
Oven baking, summer 2022
The first hot spell ended the day the bread machine broke this happened. I only tried a few oven loaves on cool days. I found the dough rose slowly, and did not rise after I had put dough in bread pans. I wondered what was causing the results:
my low yeast/low salt approach,
my kitchen was just too cool those days,
I was not giving the dough time, and/or
I handle dough roughly.
There were several more hot days in August and early September. I avoided oven baking. I thought I would experiment in the fall and winter.
Vital Wheat Gluten
Before the pandemic, it was possible to buy vital wheat gluten (“VWG”) in grocery stores in Victoria. Some stores stocked a brand milled by Millstream Natural Foods. Others stocked Bob’s Red Mill brand Vital Wheat Gluten. I can’t find Millstream. That supplier may have ceased offering it. The stores in Victoria that used to sell Bob’s VWG no longer offer VWG; Bob’s stopped offering the product under that name and now offers “Gluten Flour” which seems to be a new name for VWG. For a few months neither version of the product was in stores in Victoria. VWG is still being milled and marketed.
Sodium
Less is better
The baked bread sold in stores and bakeries is high in sodium due to the amount of salt used in baking, and due to sodium in some other baking ingredients including baking soda, baking powder, milk and powdered milk. Home baked bread is high in sodium due to the amount of salt in most recipes. Bread machine bread is high in sodium, if baked with standard recipes.
A 1.5 lb. medium bread machine recipe for lean white (“French”) bread or for white sandwich bread may specify 1.5 tsp. salt and 2 tsp. instant yeast (the yeast may be similar to 2.75 tsp of active dry yeast). Both require 417 g. bread flour (3 cups). The water requirements will be different, but in a range from 237 g. (1 cup) to 1.5 cups.
A 1.5 lb. medium bread machine recipe for a multigrain loaf with bread flour and whole wheat flour may also specify 1.5 tsp salt but the yeast may be higher than 2 tsp. instant yeast and the water and water based fluid will be higher.
A 1.5 lb medium recipe for a pure whole wheat loaf may specify 1.5 tsp. salt and 3 tsp. (1 Tbsp.) instant yeast. It may specify more than 3 cups of flour and 1.5 cups of water.
Each recipe may require or suggest a different program, and the mixing/kneading programs vary between machine brands and models. The set time for mixing/kneading, primary fermentation, bench rise and baking vary.
1.5 tsp of salt is 8.5 g. This amount will contribute 3,360 mg. of sodium to a loaf. Assuming 20 slices per loaf and 2 slices per sandwich, a sandwich will contain 336 mg. of sodium. While 336 mg. sounds ok, 4 sandwiches in a day means 1,344 mg. before counting any sodium from any other food. This makes it hard to restrict sodium consumption to
I have made bread with 50%, 33% and 25% of the salt in a standard recipe bread a few changes in crumb and the taste of the bread.
There are a few recipes for no-salt bread and no-salt bread machine bread online and in specialized recipe books.
I tried recipes for
a medium bread machine loaf (for a modern Zojirushi Virtuoso Plus model) that uses equal portions of whole wheat flower and bread flour with less than 1¼ tsp. active dry yeast for a 2 lb. large loaf 1converted to instant yeast, scaled to a medium loaf, and converted to metric weight 3 g., zero salt, and 1 Tbsp. of vinegar;
a low salt medium bread machine loaf that uses 313 g. of bread flour and rye flour, with 1/2 tsp salt and 1.5 tsp. instant yeast
a zero-salt medium bread machine loaf that uses bread flour and 2.16 g. (75 tsp.) instant yeast.
The zero-salt loaves worked.
The results contradict the rule of thumb I have been following for reducing salt and yeast.
I prefer low-salt bread to zero-salt.
Instant yeast
I used SAF Red instant yeast until I had used up a 454 g. (1 lb.) bag in 2021. I had tried to weigh and average 1 tsp. samples. I thought 1 tsp. SAF Red instant yeast weighed 2.8 g., but sources said the standard for instant yeast was 3.12 or 3.15 g. I purchased a small bag of instant yeast (a store brand) locally. It appeared to weigh 3.2 g. per tsp. I ordered another bag of SAF Red and tried to verify what 1 tsp. weighed to check on my recipes.
Reduction formula
The rule suggested by Beth Hensperger in the Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook (“BLBMC”), derived from a Bakers’ percentage weight based calculation, is to reduce salt and yeast proportionately by weight is a rule of thumb. It works with bread flour loaves, although there must be some yeast to make leavened bread. The BLBMC rule starts to produce loaves that do not flow and rise enough – the dough is not fermenting enough or is losing gas – when whole wheat flour or rye flour are used with bread flour.
I reconsidered my approach to how much yeast and water to use to balance medium loaves. It is matter of a few tenths of a gram.
None of the essays in How to Read Now (2022) appear to have been previously published in print elsewhere. The author, Elaine Castillo, is the author of the novel America is Not the Heart (2018) 1No Wikipedia entry as of September 2022; for plot summary see 2018 review in the Guardian..
Author
The millennial writer Elaine Castillo, was born in 1984 and finished high school at the end of the millennium. Castillo is a member of the Creative class who has achieved some esteem for her writing. She is not a tenured academic or a member of a profession. She is a member or descendent of the diaspora of inhabitants of the Philippine archipelago. Her parents settled in Milpitas, a suburb of San José, in the San Francisco Bay area of California.
Her life experiences and views are different than those of other women of Philippine ancestry raised and schooled in the USA, such as the journalist Maria Ressa or the writer Jenny Odell. She describes herself as a bisexual cis (cisgender) woman and identifies as Filipinx.
The Essays
White Readers
In the essay, “How to Write Now”, Ms. Castillo writes:
Bad reading isn’t a question of people undereducated in a more equitable and progressive understanding of what it means to be a person among other people. Most people are vastly overeducated: overeducated in white supremacy, in patriarchy, in heternormativity. Most people are in fact highly advanced in these economies, economies that say, very plainly, that cis straight white lives are inherently more valuable, interesting and noble than the lives of everyone else … It’s not a question of bring people out of their ignorance – if only someone had told me Filipinos were human, I wouldn’t have massacred all of them!
White supremacy is a comprehensive cultural education whose primary function is to prevent people from reading – engaging with, understanding – the lives of people outside its scope. … The unfortunate influence of this style of reading has dictated that we go to writers of color for the gooey heart-porn of the ethnographic: to learn about the forgotten history, harrowing tragedy, community-destroying political upheaval, genocide, trauma; that we expect those writers to provide these intellectual commodities …
….
I have no desire to write yet another instruction manual for the sociocultural betterment of white readers. … Equally, I don’t see a sustainable way to continue in my industry without reckoning with the rot at is core, which is that, by and large, the English language publishing industry centers the perspective and comfort of its overwhelminly white employee base and audience, leaving writers of color to be positioned along that … structure: as flavors of the month …
… Writers of color often find themselves doing the second, unspoken and unsalaried job of not just being a professional writer but a Professional Person of Color, in the most performative sense …
….
Pride is not always one of the best qualities to be abundant in … ; if you’re proud but treated a little or lot like shit by … boys … , or lighter skinned wealthier Filipinx friends, or white teachers, you have a tendency to … start rumbling the first person who blinks at you funny.
In the essay “Reading Teaches Us Empathy, and Other Fictions”, Ms. Castillo suggests that most writers do not write for unexpected readers:
… someone who not remotely imagined … by the creator of that artwork or anyone in its scope; someone who was not included as the people of a certain book or certain author. … I’m always reminded of it when I read a book or watch a television program and someone … mentions “Filipino houseboys”; … there’s always the sense that those people and their expected reader or viewer are talking among themselves, that I am walking in on a conversation that I wasn’t meant to witness …
… The fact that I am an unexpected reader … meant that I was very rarely in any assumed complicity with a writer or the world she created. … It meant I never felt comfortable in anyone’s dialogue or descriptions; no one ever wrote about the California I lived in, even … the … California chroniclers like Steinbeck and Didion.
….
… a white supremacist reading culture means that we are conditioned to accept that some of our work is … expected to comfort; that the work of writers of color must often in some ways console, educate, provide new definitions … Whereas white writers must be free to offend, transgress, be exempt, be beyond politics …
How to Read Now
Speaking Her Truth
The title of the essay “Reality is All We Have to Love” is explained in a quote from the English art critic John Berger’s essay on the films of Pier Paolo Pasolini, “The Chorus in our Heads” in the 2007 collection Hold Everything Dear. She discusses, first, her disagreement with an unnamed literary magazine that asked her to write an introduction to a collection of photographs, rejected her work and “killed” the project. She included her draft article in the essay. The draft essay begins with her history of the American military installation Clark field near Angeles City on Luzon, northwest of Manila, and the children of Filipina women, who were abandoned by Americans who worked at the base. Her draft said:
… the object of Dad is Gone’s melancholy gaze is named in the title. The two Bangkok-based white Swiss photographers have come to Angeles City to document and mourn .. where dad went … Angeles City’s residents are decentered, reduced to tragic ellipsis, or obscured from view altogether.
How to Read Now
The essay suggests that the American military is still operating bases in the Republic of the Philippines. The USA recognized Philippine independence in 1946. The USA operated Clark Field and Subic Bay until 1991. Clark Air Base has been a Philippine Air Force facility since November 1991. Ms. Castillo does not appear to have been involved in the history and politics of the Republic of the Phillipines.
The essay also relates stories from her time as a student in a graduate writing program at Goldsmiths College, University of London about her views of Henry James’s works Daisy Miller and The Turn of the Screw, and her response to an assignment involving what she dismissively calls “a tragedy fluff-porn piece” by British journalist James Fenton. Castillo criticizes the students, the curriculum and the faculty of Goldsmiths for “the intellectual inattention that permeated the writing program … especially when it came to stories about marginalized people, and in particular victims of sexual assault”. She says that “any pointed discussion of politics interwoven with aesthetics [got her] branded as the Angry Brown Girl … “. She says she spent an unhappy, unremarkable year “… in an institutionally racist and intellectually incurious program” and “I am not the only student of color to have been underserved …”. She suggests that she was working on her first novel, but took care not to share any of it in her courses- for fear that the school might take credit for her ideas or influence her writing.
She discusses Berger’s writing, mainly a short story “Woven, Sir”, which she reads as a story told elliptically by an adult survivor of sexual abuse. She discusses some comments by male writers who did not think the story was a story to by an adult survivor of sexual abuse.
In another essay “The Children of Polyphemus” the 1849 Spanish colonial Claveria decree that required that all Filipinx families adopt Spanish surnames. The Spanish sought to simplify some adminstrative and reporting tasks by ordering people to identify themselves. Her complaint about this event is not expressed clearly. She seems to say that it was a genocidal attack on indigenous culture, and contributed to a social stratification. She also cites this as evidence of one of the ways that white Europeans historically oppressed Filipinx people.
Art is Political
The essay, “Reading Teaches Us Empathy, and Other Fictions” is largely about whether the Austrian writer Peter Handke (awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in Literature) should be respected as a writer. Ms. Castillo writes:
… The idea that fiction build empathy is one of incomplete politics, left hanging by probably good intentions. … usually readers are encouraged … to read writers of a demographic minority in order to learn things …
… empathy is not a one-stop destination; it … it requires work. … Not just when a … gifted author has managed to make a community’s story come alive for a quick zoo visit …
Ms. Castillo does not discuss the reaction of other critics who said Handke was a fascist defender of the white racist Serbians who committed war crimes against Albanians during the Kosovo War. Her judgment on Handke is that his “art” is based on his empathy for white male Europeans. A protagonist in a Handke novel witnesses an act of vandalism by a neo-Nazi, becomes angry, murders the vandal and dumps the body. Castillo says this is part of:
… [the character’s] easily trackable pattern of impulsive self-justified acts of violence …
How to Read Now
Ms. Castillo goes on:
For [the character], violence is a quasi-metaphysical force of nature … – not something that he commits …
….
Foreigners [in white Austria] … appear as symbolic figures … without any real agency or sustance of their own.
….
[The character] thinks of himself as the lone man against the world, the vigilante meting out justice on impulse … [The character is] the white suburban Austrian, who despairs of his country, its noisy foreigners …
….
… he’s angered by what the swastika signifies to him about Austria … He’s … ashamed by what … it digs up in him, what it doesn’t let him forget.
….
Handke writes … the white man blues with a goose-step beat.
How to Read Now
Ms. Castillo writes, in an aside in “Reading Teaches Us Empathy, and Other Fictions”, that Jane Austen could be read, in spite of her silence on race and on the reliance of the English upper and middle classes on the slave trade in the 18th century, because there is a way to read Austen as one of a number of white middle class women who probably were against slavery.
Ms. Castillo criticized several modern English-speaking female writers. She wrote about Joan Didion in the essay “Main Character Syndrome”, mainly that Ms. Didion had not written as if she had expected to address readers like Ms. Castillo, and Ms. Didion’s approves of the “crackpot realism” of Americans turned loose on on other parts of the world. Ms. Castillo’s main criticism of J.K. Rowling in “The Limits of White Fantasy” is that Ms. Rowling is a transphobe. Ms. Castillo criticizes Rowling, and Margaret Atwood in “The Limits of White Fantasy” as writers whose “narrative universes overwhelmingly center[s] white protagonists”. Also, Castillo says that Atwood employs flagrant Orientalism and dodgy portrayal of Asian women.
American Myths
In the essay “Reading Teaches Us Empathy, and Other Fictions”, Ms. Castillo says:
… the fantasy of American freedom has always been … a dream of … pioneer individualism. built on the back of slave labor and the theft in indigenous land …
How to Read Now
She maintains that the USA in its wars with Spain, and in defense of business interests, occupied and colonized territory in the Caribbean, Central America and the South Pacific including the Philippine archipelago.
She notes the tendency of Americans, in telling their own history, to say that America is an experiment in freedom and an exception in world history, and to gloss over American actions in other essays, including “Honor the Treaty”, which is based on her visit to Australia and New Zealand to attend the Sydney and Auckland writers’ event in 2019, and in her discussion of the HBO series broadcast version of the graphic SF novel The Watchmen. The HBO version, with
its storyline of vigilantes aiding the police against a white supremacist “7th Kavalry” – run by a Klan-like organization called the Cyclops – waging war on the police to challenge US reparation grants to Black persons and other govenment efforts to combat white privilege;
its storyline of white supremacists blaming Blacks and liberals for eroding white settler privileges;
The 2019 HBO Watchmen series is almost political enough for Ms. Castillo, but she finds it weak in episodes with Asian characters or referring to Vietnam.
Representation
Ms. Castillo uses “representation” in the sense of visibility in the media.
Her essay “The Children of Polyphemus” has a passage about her childhood fascination with the 1997 television production of Cinderella. That show, with Brandy, Whitney Houston, Whoopi Goldberg was Disney’s first live action movie version of Disney’s 1950 animated version of the French folk tale, and had a racially diverse cast. Ms. Castillo notes the role played by Paolo Montalban in that production. Castillo discusses to the original Cinderella story written in French in 1697, and the history of pumpkins (and other squashes) as North American plants cultivated by indigenous people, including Caribbean islanders. Castillo writes about negative representation or lack of representation of Filipinx, Asian, and gay and bisexual people in Western media, and the lack of roles for Filipinx people in visual media.
Her essay “Autobiography in Asian Film; or What we Talk about When When We Talk About Representation” discusses movies with Filipinx characters and movies made by Asian filmmakers. Ms. Castillo is critical of the 2004 movie The Life Aquatic, written, directed and produced by Wes Anderson. She is concerned about the role of Filipinx characters as “pirates”. Ms. Castillo has a fond recollection of the 2001 movie Monsoon Wedding. Ms. Castillo praises movies directed by Wong Kar-Wai (Kong Kong), Hou Hsiao-Hsien (Taiwan), and Park Chan-Wook (Korea).
Ms. Castillo says she supports “liberation politics” but criticizes what she calls “Representation Matters Art”. She says the latter “relies us mistaking visibility for things it is not – liberation, privilege, justice” and “loves for all of us to be uniformly and heroically oppressed …”. She says that Liberation Matters Art does not parse out “how intra-Asian racism and the desperate income inequality between Asian ethnic groups that make up the chimera …’the Asian American community’ “. She argues that Representation Matters Art is a “wing of the attritive arts of white supremacy: it’s the kind of art you make when someone has told you to prove you’re a human …”.
Folklore and White Supremacy
In Greek mythology the Cyclopes are giant one-eyed creatures who live on Sicily and islands north of Sicily. Three Cyclopes, each a descendent of a Greek god, are mentioned in Greek literature. The Cyclopes had not invented ships and were not said to have been sea travellers. The Odyssey is ” … is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. It follows the Greek hero Odysseus, king of Ithaca, and his journey home after the Trojan War. After the war, which lasted ten years, his journey lasted for ten additional years, during which time he encountered many perils and all his crew mates were killed.” In Book 9 of the Odyssey, the Cyclopes are described as:
… an overweening and lawless folk, who, trusting in the immortal gods, plant nothing with their hands nor plough; but all these things spring up for them without sowing or ploughing, wheat, and barley, and vines, which bear the rich clusters of wine, and the rain of Zeus gives them increase. Neither assemblies or council have they, nor appointed laws, but they dwell on the peaks of lofty mountains in hollow caves, and each one is lawgiver to his children and his wives, and they reck nothing one of another.
Wikipedia, The Odyssey
Odysseus and his men landed on an island near the land of the Cyclopes. “Godlike” Polyphemus, the “greatest among all the Cyclopes” lived as a shepherd on the island. Odysseus and his men slaughtered wild goats on the island. The men entered the cave of Polyphemus, where they found all the cheeses he had made and stored there. Polyphemus sealed the entrance of the cave with a massive boulder killed and ate two of Odysseus’s men. Odysseus devised an escape plan in which he, identifying himself as “Nobody,” plied Polyphemus with wine and blinded him with a wooden stake. When Polyphemus cried out, his neighbors left after Polyphemus claimed that “Nobody” had attacked him. Odysseus and his men escaped the cave by hiding on the underbellies of the sheep as they were let out of the cave and sailed off.
Some mythology claimed that Polyphemus had a female lover and 3 children, who are the ancesters of the Celts, Illyrians and Gauls. None of any children of Polyphemus are mentioned in the Odyssey.
Ms. Castillo begins the essay “The Children of Polyphemus” with a quote fromPlaying in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination, the 1992 work by Toni Morrison in which Ms. Morrison said that as a writer she trusted her ability “to imagine others and [her] willingness to project consciously into the danger zones such others may represent for me” and was drawn to the ways all writers do this: the way Homer renders a heart eating cyclops so that our hearts are wrenching with pity”.
… Our mainstream literary discourse continues to read writers of color ethnographically … and white writers universally … Not least of all because the primary literary gaze in American literature is still presumed to be white. … even the … idea that fiction build empathy is an inheritor of this colonial practice …
….
We know that the stories we inherit and erase … are never neutral of ahistorical …
How to Read Now
She sees Odysseus and the Greeks as the invaders of the island occupied by an indigenous person who justifiably captured the invaders and killed some of them. She compares Odysseus to Christopher Columbus, who wrote to the monarchs of Spain, of the inhabitants of the Caribbean islands:
… the people are ingenious, and would become good servants and I am of opinion that they would readily become Christians … I intend at return to carry home six of them … that they may learn our language.
How to Read Now
Impressions
Identity and Story
Elaine Castillo uses language familiar to digital natives and users of social media, and the idiomatic language of the social media sites she uses. She uses jargon familiar to persons educated in the language of literary criticism. Elaine Castillo identifies as part of intersecting oppressed groups. She is a modern university educated person whose attitudes are clearly expressed or signalled:
Enthusiasm for left-wing socially liberal “progressive” political discussion;
She asserts the right of persons who recall abuse or assert a history of trauma to identify their harms and blame their oppressors; and
She implies that she is specially talented and sensitive and maintains she has been oppressed by men, heterosexuals and white people.
How to Read Now will appeal mainly to readers who “dare to dream”, and readers who want to be seen to be being open to new ideas. Her expressed sense of victimhood and grievance will please readers who share her views.
Historical Harm
Ms. Castillo blames European or American imperialism and colonialism for the last few centuries of the history of South-East Asia and the island archipelogoes, and for injustice against Filipinx people including inter-Asian injustice and inter-Filipinx injustice.
Her essays say that white people caused harm to colonized people, for centuries. Many, perhaps most, modern historians would agree that she has summarized the facts of history correctly. The history of the United States of America was dominated by English settlers, and latter by white immigrants from Europe who managed to assimilate and were eventually recognized. American cultural practices accorded status, until the early 20th century, to English and a few other West European settlers (Dutch, German, Scots?, Irish?) and their descendants. Some later immigrants as were accepted in white American society. Many people of conscience, who are not woke, agree that Americans were aggressive, used force to support American economic and business elite interests, and harmed other nations, as national policy, in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. The policy was implemented by elites but was popular and was democratically supported. Her views of American history are sound. The Europeans who settled in America displaced indigenous people, imported labour and extracted or exploited the resources of North, Central and South America, South Asia, South-East Asia, East Asia and the island archipelagoes of the southern oceans.
The United States recognized the rights of the inhabitants to the Philippine islands to form their own government. America has ceased to govern. The governments of the Philippines have been elitist, autocratic, populist and confused. Americans have been interested in natural disasters and events along the edges of the South China Sea to the extent that such events are reported in the news published by American media.
Ms. Castillo does not address centuries of territorial conflicts and Chinese influence in South-East Asia, the 20th century activities of Japanese imperialism, or the injustices of the Marcos and Duterte regimes in the Republic of the Phillipines.
Her view that America does not understand its history of oppression of enslaved, indigenous and colonized people, is correct. Americans have maintained optimistic ideas that America:
has an exceptional morality and system of government,
is making progress towards becoming a perfect society, and
at any given time in history, provided opportunities for everyone to live the American dream.
Representation & White Privilege
Ms. Castillo says that western literature is unfair to indigenous people and their descendants. Her position on the race of characters in literature is similiar to the positions of many BIPOC writers in the late 20th century. Rosalie Harrison, in an interview of the SF writer Octavia E. Butler, noted:
White writers … have tended to include black characters in science fiction only to illustrate a problem or to advertise the writer’s distaste for racism; black people in much science fiction are represented as “other”.
Rosalie Harrison, 8 Equal Opportunity Forum Magazine 30 (1980) “Sci-Fi Visions: An Interview with Octavia Butler”, reproduced in Conversations with Octavia Butler, University of Mississippi Press (2010)
Her discussion of “Representation Matters Art” fails to add to discussions of Tokenism or Queerbaiting, or other complaints about authenticity, cultural appropriation, woke capitalism and posing in the production of books, the performance arts, business and popular culture in the U.S.A, in late 20th century.
She also says that western literature is unfair to
women,
to persons who are not heterosexual and
persons who are not white.
She maintains all white people have white privilege, and that while people who do not acknowledge it are systemic racists, fragile, and defensive. Essentially, she argues that white privilege is white supremacy. This was a theme in the 2019 television version of the SF graphic novel, The Watchmen.
Her publisher is selling her book as a a diversity training book by presenting her as as an angry, proud young BIPOC woman fighting racism and the patriarchy.
She tries to distinguish her views from those of the popular diversity training books, and criticizes the lip service the media pays to diversity and inclusion.
An artist cannot be recognized unless someone is able to buy the work and sell reproductions to a paying audience. Publishers, collectively, have a monopsomy. They can buy what she creates because they have the money (capital to invest) and a business of selling published works to a market of booksellers. They get a return by selling copies of published works to paying buyers. She had some choice among publishers but no choice about having to sell to a publisher. Are the pies of opportunity, visibility, and reward big enough to keep every member of every identified group visible in a positive way under any economic system? It is unfair to talented writers, but …
She appears to want to see more diverse actors in better roles to representing diverse people positively on screen. She does not say what she want to see in movie characters. More empowered bisexual Oriental and Filipinx women?
Bread has some sodium without salt, but the main source of sodium is salt. Humans can taste salt but cannot know how, by taste, much salt is in their food, or how much sodium they are consuming. The reasons that
Too much salt makes food taste bad but
A small amount improves flavour.
have not been explained by anatomical research on the human sensory organs. (“salt … enhances the taste of other foods … making them more palatable and relatively sweeter”, Salt enhances flavour by suppressing bitterness, Nature, Vol. 387, Issue 6633, pp. 563 (1997)).
Salt contains 39.3% sodium by mass. 1 tsp. of table salt weighs 5.7 grams, and contains 2,240 mg. of sodium.
1,200 to 1,500 milligrams per day intake for sodium is adequate. The minimum physiological requirement for sodium is between 115 and 500 milligrams per day depending on sweating due to physical activity, and whether the person is adapted to the climate” according to the papers cited in the Wikipedia article Sodium in Biology.
On average, people in the USA consume 3,400 milligrams of sodium per day, an amount that promotes hypertension. The American government has advised that the average adult person should not consume more that 2,300 milligrams of sodium per day. The American Heart Association recommends the USDA recommendation should be 1,500 mg. per day. The World Health Organization sets the level of 1,500 mg. per day.
Bread baked with salt or a high sodium chemical leavening agent cannot be purchased in a grocery store or even a small bakery. Commercial bakers may have departed from the industrial standard of adding salt to dough in the amount of 1.8 to 2 % of the flour, by weight, but will not explain the process to wholesale buyers or retail consumers. The amount of sodium in a “serving” may be on a Nutrition Facts label if the bread is packaged for retail sale.
The BC chain Thrifty’s (a branch of the Canadian national chain Sobeys) had a sodium free whole wheat loaf before 2019, but it disappeared from the stores.
Sodium Sources – Bread Ingredients
Minor
Wheat flour, yeast, vital wheat gluten and cider vinegar contain small amounts of sodium, according to samples in the USDA FoodData Central database:
Wheat flour has 3 mg. sodium per 100 grams – 3 cups of flour in a typical medium loaf weighs over 400 g. and has 10-12 mg. sodium;
Instant Yeast has 75 mg. sodium per 100 grams – 3 grams of instant yeast has 2 mg. sodium;
Vital Wheat gluten has 8 mg. in 1 Tbsp. (8 grams);
Cider Vinegar has .77 mg. sodium per tablespoon.
Milk, buttermilk, cheese, eggs and other ingredients used in baking bread have sodium. The yeast used to leaven bread (or the coatings used to preserve yeast) has sodium.
Food consumed with bread contributes sodium – e.g. butter, margerine, mayonnaise, mustard, prepared meat, pickles, mustard, spreads, jams etc. Nutrition Facts labels, required to be accurate to nearest gram, will claim 0 sodium. USDA FoodData Central tables may show as little as 1 mg. in 100 gram units.
Salt
Salt is an element of most yeasted bread, including bread baked in bread machines. Salt is often used in recipes made with a chemical leavening agent composed of sodium. Doughs made with a chemical leavening agent are mixed but not kneaded; salt is not added to make such dough easier to kneaded.
Salt is the major source of sodium in bread. The accepted standard for yeasted bread, in industrial baking and for recipe writers in the late 19th century, the 20th century, and the early 21st century has been salt in the ratio 2% of the flour by weight. The reasons for this ratio may have been explained somewhere. The ratio was established as industrial and home baking evolved, before scientific experiments on the role of sodium were performed, and scientific theories were published. The ratio was established when salt become an affordable commodity, at a time when the health effects of sodium were not known.
Bread recipes for home bakers can be assumed to be refer to table salt with standard crystal size and to refer to manufactured marked measuring spoons, levelled off.
Salt in a bread recipe for home bakers is frequently (almost always):
1½ tsp. – i.e. 8.6 g. in a 3 cup recipe for a 1½ lb. medium loaf. Few medium loaf recipes exceed 8.6 grams of salt per loaf;
2 tsp. in a 4 cup recipe for a 2 lb. large loaf.
This ratio became established when industrially produced bread became the standard by which people recognized palatable bread.
For volume measurement for small batches, ½ tsp. (2.85 grams) of table salt for 1 cup of wheat flour – whether bread flour, all-purpose flour or whole wheat flour is standard. Converting to weight, this matches the commercial practice. (Weight is not usually used in setting the amount in a bread recipe for home use).
The sodium in a loaf, or a slice, can estimated, assuming 1 loaf yields 18 slices. The daily sodium intake by eating 8 slices (4 sandwiches) a day, made with bread made with salt in the ratio of salt in amount stated in a medium loaf, without taking other sodium sources into account:
Salt tsp.
Salt grams
Sodium per medium loaf milligrams (mg.)
Sodium per slice, mg.
Sodium mg. 8 slices daily
½
2.9
1,120
62.2
498
¾
4.3
1,680
93.3
746
1
5.7
2,240
124.4
996
1¼
7.1
2,800
155.6
1,245
1½
8.6
3,360
186.7
1,493
1¾
10
3,920
217.8
1,742
2
11.4
4,480
248.8
1,992
Baking Soda & Baking Powder
Baking soda, also known as sodium bicarbonate, is used in baking as a chemical leaving agent. Baking soda has some other uses in cooking, and several other uses. It is also used as an ingredient in manufacturing baking powder. Some nonyeasted baking recipes use both baking powder and baking soda. 1 tsp. of baking soda has 1,246 mg. of sodium. A medium loaf of a typical soda bread will have at least 1 tsp. of baking soda.
Baking powder is a chemical leavening agent used in baking. It has less sodium than baking soda, but is still a significant source.
There are sodium-free substitutes for the chemical leavening agents, available for sale online through outlets such as Healthy Heart Market:
a baking soda substitute called Energ-G, manufactured by Energ-G Foods Inc., Seattle, Washington, USA. It is made with calcium carbonate. It is
a baking powder substitute called Featherweight manufactured by Hain Pure Foods, Boulder, Colorado, USA. It is made with calcium carbonate.
Avoiding sodium means eating less bread or eating bread made with less sodium. Low sodium yeast bread involves using less salt.
Calculating sodium in bread
The sodium in a loaf of bread can be determined by measurement and calculation. Weigh salt, baking soda, baking powder, milk, milk powder, eggs and other ingedients that contain sodium – even consider flour and yeast – and apply standard factors to get sodium content. I have been adding notes on the amount of sodium in baking ingredients to my baking ingredient table, appended at the end of this post. I refer to those notes and calculate the amount of sodium in the ingredients of a loaf of bread.
A loaf baked in a pan 9 inches long high can be sliced into 18 slices, each ½ inch thick. The amount of bread in a slice will depend on the area of the slice, which is dependent on its dimensions in the plane at a right angle to the length of the loaf. A large (2 lb.) loaf baked in a large pan (oven or long horizontal bread machine pan) will be 9 inches long, but differ in its other dimensions. A medium (1.5 lb.) loaf baked a large pan will weigh less, and have less salt, than a large loaf.
It is possible to estimate the amount of sodium in a slice of bread by dividing a loaf 9 inches long into 18 slices and counting slices. A person might eat 8 slices cut from a medium loaf 9 inches long per day, but less slices cut from a large loaf 9 inches long.
I have columns in spreadsheets for my regular bread recipes, with columns for the ingredients for medium loaves, for quantities, and for calculation (e.g. B%).
I have a column of cells for:
the Na mg. (sodium, in milligrams) in each ingredient in a medium loaf, and
calculation cells for
total Na mg. per medium loaf,
Na mg. per slice (loaf ∕18) and
daily consumption (slice x8).
Bread
Flour & water
Flour, water, salt and yeast are normal ingredients in bread, regardless of how it is mixed, kneaded and baked. Once yeast or salt has been mixed with water, a baker cannot go back. When dough is worked in bakery, the baker can add water or flour during kneading to get the dough wetter or drier and affect texture. A baker has some control of time and and the conditions where the dough is held as it ferments and rises.
Yeast
Breads (except some unyeasted flatbreads and crackers) require flour, water and a leavening agent – usually bakers yeast. Yeast affects rising time, loaf shape and size, crumb structure (regular with small spaces or large irregular spaces), flavor, loaf spring, and the amount of time it takes to prepare and bake a loaf. Yeast can be controlled by measurement and choice of yeast, and by taking time. Dough rises faster with more yeast. The additional yeast costs more and affects the taste of the bread. The right amount of yeast is vital knowledge for any baker.
During the 20th century, wet yeast cakes were manufactured, but superceded by dry yeasts. First, there were active dry yeasts. Then active dry yeast became more active, and the coating changed. Late in the 20th century dry yeast was improved and evolved into instant yeast and other very similar products with new names – Rapid-Rise, Quick Rise, Bread Machine. It is all dried, coated, bakers’ yeast. Active Dry yeast measurement for recipes that call for active dry yeast have to be converted for instant yeast if a user wants to substitute an instant yeast.
Salt
Zero Salt
Leaving salt out can reduce some of the expense, time and effort of making bread. Flavour can be ignored if the bread simply provides bulk and starch. This can depend. The absence of salt it less noticed in the context of a highly flavoured meal.
Salt is not required in roti or equivalent unyeasted flatbreads in South Asia, many other flatbreads.
Salt has been observed to affect dough and bread for centuries. Bakers, millers and other industrial actors involved in bread making developed recipes and processes, and developed industrial science. In the 19th and 20th centuries industrial baking scientists and academic food scientists pursued questions that concerned them. Some of their research has been published publicly, and become known. Bakers used salt to improve their products when salt mines began to produce inexpensive salt for the markets in Europe.
Salt is an ingredient in most recipes for leavened bread. Italian Pane Toscano (Tuscan Bread). Pane Toscano is a rare exception. It is known by a nickname that translates to “tasteless bread”.
Food Writing
Food writing for bakers and for the general public has tended to focus on cooking methods, recipes and taste. This informationcan be vague about scientific detail.
Some academic science affected baking and food processing – the modern science of microbiology was started by Louis Pasteur’s 19th century work. The science explaining the chemistry and biochemistry of baking did exist until the 19th and 20th centuries, and has changed.
The cooking/baking writer Beth Hensperger wrote, explaining the role of salt in bread baking for home bakers and bread machine users at the end of the 20th century:
Salt is a flavor enhancer and plays a role in controlling the activity of yeast. … salt is optional in bread but a lack is very noticeable in the finished flavor. Too much salt, on the other hand, leaves a bitter taste and can inhibit yeast activity. Too little salt leaves a flat taste and can cause the dough to feel slightly slack in the kneading. …
Beth Hensperger, The Bread Bible, 1999
… the little bit [of salt] that most recipes call for acts as a stabiliser so that the yeast does not overferment. It helps to condition and toughen the protein strands so that they do not break easily during the rising process and the dough expands smoothly.
….
Without the right amount of salt, the dough will rise too fast. This especially true in the enviroment of the bread machine, which is warm and very hospitable to the yeast.
Beth Hensperger, The Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook, 2000
Daniel DiMuzio, discussing artisanal baking, said:
Salt … strengthens the gluten bonds, … extending the amount of time necessary to develop gluten in dough. It also functions as an antioxidant, effectively reducing reducing the loss of caroten pigments and … flavor components during mixing.
Daniel T. DiMuzio, Bread Baking (2010), p. 51
Bakers, baking teachers and cookbooks warn that reducing salt changes bread, and downplay the health effects:
Salt is added to bread dough at approximately 1.8 to 2% of the weight of flour. Sticking to this percentage ensures there is enough salt present in the dough to do its very important job. Once you start to decrease that amount, the quality of your bread starts to decline as well.
Generally, we advise bakers to not leave out salt entirely when making bread. Not only will your dough be slack and difficult to work with (the worst!), but the baked loaf will turn out bland and flavorless. The good news is, the amount of salt in the average slice of bread is actually very small, so it’s generally worth it to stick to the measurement called for in a recipe. …
….
Salt has four important functions in bread, all the way from kneading to eating. Most crucially, it:
Some bakers’ folk knowledge is contradictory. Does salt kill mold and opportunistic micro-organisms and make bread last longer? Does salt keep bread moist? Does salt promote the conditions under which mold and opportunisitic micro-organisms will infest and spoil bread?
Science
Dough
Emily Buhler addressed science and the hands-on experience of kneading dough in her practical and concise book in Bread Baking (2006, revised 2021). She explained what happens to wheat flour and water when they are mixed, with yeast (and salt) kneaded and baked.
Wheat flour, milled from ripe seed kernels, is mainly starch, containing complex sugar molecules and protein molecules. When flour is mixed with water, yeast and salt, the water molecules do not bond with the flour. Water, a polar solvent, surrounds and suspends rather than dissolving protein molecules. Bread dough is a colloid of proteins in water (this kind of colloid is a “sol”). Electrical attraction between positive charged atoms in the proteins and negatively charged oxygen atoms in water molecules holds the water molecules in a polar orientation.
Fermentation
Bakers have known for centuries that salt inhibits the rising of the dough (the fermention of the glucose by the yeast and the release of gas by the yeast). In the last couple of centuries, when industrial yeast was cultivated and processed into wet yeast cakes, the effect of salt was seen in a problem in handling wet yeast cakes; when a wet yeast cake is exposed to salt for enough time, the salt (salt is hygroscopic) can suck water molecules from the wet yeast. The yeast cake breaks down and many cells die; the diminished cake is too small to mix and ferment the dough effectively. The traditional view (in the 19th and 20th century sense of tradition) was that:
Dry (active or instant) yeast cells are invisibly tiny living single-celled fungi, dormant after being grown in a factory, processed and dried, A visible “grain” of dry yeast is a clump of dormant cells, mixed with nutrient and coating. The water in dough dissolves the clumps of instant yeast (also active dry yeast. The practice of putting active dry yeast in warm water before adding it to dough is still followed and recommended by many for home baking and bread machines).
The yeast releases enzymes that break down complex sugars in the starch to glucose, a simple sugar, which the yeast consume. The proteins bond to each other in water and form gluten. In anerobic fermentation the yeast produces alcohol and CO₂ (carbon dioxide), a gas. The gas is trapped in gluten,which makes the dough inflate and rise.
salt kills yeast, and
should be kept separate from yeast.
Salt kills yeast when there is an error in storage of ingredients of the timing of the mixing process. When dough is mixed, the salt is distributed and diluted in water.
Emily Buhler in Bread Baking (2006, revised 2021) addressed:
Yeast and Bacteria in sub-chapter 2.2 of the Bread Chemistry Basics chapter;
Fermentation in sub-chapter 2.3 of the Bread Chemistry Basics chapter;
Taste and Colour in sub-chapter 2.4 of the Bread Chemistry Basics chapter; and
What Happens to Bread in the Oven in sub-chapter 7.2 of the Proofing and Baking chapter.
The strains of bakers’ yeast grown by the corporate employees of the companies that make processed dry yeast – active or instant – break down enough of the starch in the flour to a simple sugar that yeast consumes. When yeast consumes simple sugar, it produces CO₂ gas that is trapped in the gluten, causing the dough to rise. The yeast, in anaerobic fermentation, also produces alcohol – the flavour effects of the alcohol produced by industrial bakers’ yeast are minor. Some other microorganisms break down alchohol and produce flavours but this often doesn’t happen within the time dough is kneaded and baked.
Salt inhibits yeast, wet or dry, according to several studies. Emily Buhler addressed Salt and fermentation in sub-chapter 2.9 of the bread science chapter of Bread Baking (2006, revised 2021). Salt dissolved in water releases ions (charged atoms) that affect the movement of water molecules through yeast cellular walls so that the net osmosis is that the cells shrink, crenating the yeast cell walls.
Gluten
When salt is left out, the bread will develop gluten “naturally” from the biochemical actions of the proteins in the flour in water (autolyze). Without salt, the gluten does not stretch as much.
Emily Buhler addressed Salt and Gluten in sub-chapter 2.10 of the bread science chapter of Bread Baking (2006, revised 2021) . She cites:
early 20th century work correlating salt to measured and observed characteristics of gluten,
mid 20th century work on the polarity (electrical charges) of amino acids,
work in the ’60s on proteins in solution, and
a 1977 paper on the effect of salt in proteins in solution.
Emily Buhler did not discuss vinegar, as such, in Bread Baking (2006, revised 2021).
A neutral, as opposed to a low pH (high acidity), or high pH (high basicity) solution affects “conformation” – unfolds or unpacks a twisted string of the molecules – of the gluten proteins. Pure water, pH 7, is neutral. Sea water, pH 7.5, is mildly basic. Salt in solution changes the conformation – a charged solution (with salt ions) shields charged sites on the protein and “tightens” the gluten. The salt affects the way the proteins respond to the mechanics of mixing and kneading.
Vinegar, with pH as low as 2.5, is acidic.
Crust Colour
The heat of the oven affects the production of gas by the yeast, and the escape of gas. In the first 10 minutes, the expansion of the heated gas, before the gas escapes, makes the loaf springs. Then the heat diffuses in the gas inside the loaf and bakes the interior of the loaf – the crumb. The yeast dies when the bread is baked, which does not harm the flavour of bread. Most of the starch in the flour becomes the crumb of the loaf.
The heat of the oven or bread machine dries the crust into the chewier or crisper crust. The colour is created by Maillard reactions which typically proceed rapidly from around 140 to 165 °C (280 to 330 °F). Many recipes call for a temperature high enough to ensure that a Maillard reaction occurs. At the crust, sugars and amino acids also react in the heat of the oven to form flavour molecules. The crust is not airtight. It lets C0₂ escape as the loaf bakes, and eventually lets water vapour escape from a baked loaf.
Reducing Salt
Baking
General
Dough needs to be leavened lift to rise. A zero-salt bread needs as much yeast as a loaf with the normal amount of salt. For instance:
Beth Hensperger’s bread machine recipes for Tuscan Peasant Bread (or Pane Toscana) mix and knead a sponge. It seems to be a workable method of baking a rustic no-salt loaf. Her yeast measurement for this loaf is lower than her many conventionally salted bread machine loaves. This should be checked and and tested, depending on the machine used.
The American Heart Association’s Low Salt Cookbook (4th ed.) has a no-salt recipe for a Whole Wheat bread, mixed and baked in a bread machine. It is a multigrain with whole Wheat and bread flour (for a medium loaf, 1½ cups whole wheat flour, 1½ cups bread flour), milk and yeast. For a medium loaf, it prescribes 2½ tsp. (7 grams) active dry yeast. The conversion to instant yeast is 6 grams, which is too much for some bread machines.
A yeasted bread without salt often needs more yeast than a low salt loaf.
AHA & other
Some cookbooks and web sites offer bread recipes for persons with hypertension or health concerns. Some are by survivors or family. Some are sponsored by health care reformers. Some of these recipes are truly zero salt. Some have a pinch or as much as ½ teaspoon ( 2.8 grams) of salt.
The American Heart Association’s Low Salt Cookbook (4th ed.) has a zero salt recipe for a Whole Wheat bread, mixed and baked in a bread machine. It is a multigrain loaf (for a medium loaf, 1½ cups whole wheat flour, 1½ cups bread flour), milk and yeast. For a medium loaf, it prescribes 2½ tsp. (7 grams) active dry yeast. (It may take less yeast. Bread machines and programs very.) The crumb of this loaf is a bit irregular, and the absence of salt affects the taste
Tuscan Bread
Salt is not required in Italian Pane Toscano (Tuscan Bread), a lean bread made with flour, water, and yeast. It is mainly a white flour recipe (bread flour, high protein All-purpose, or All-purpose). There a recipes in different sizes with various methods and loaf sizes. Example: King Arthur Tuscan Bread. Beth Hensperger included a recipe for this bread in her baking cookbooks:
Tuscan Peasant Bread, The Bread Bible (1999) both
mixed with a mixer or by hand, and oven baked, and
a bread machine version;
Pane Toscana, The Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook (2000).
Beth Hensperger’s recipes have this bread made with a sponge to delay fermentation. She makes it more rustic by using some whole wheat flour, and enriches it slightly with a pinch of sugar.
Vinegar
Vinegar, like salt, inhibits microorganisms – such as yeast! It makes a solution acidic, which affects the “conformation” of the proteins that form the gluten. Vinegar is a mildly acetic aqueous solution of acetic acid. Adding vinegar to pure water dilutes the acid and produce a slightly acidic fluid. I don’t understand what happens when a small amount of mild acid is added to water containing salt. Salt dissolves in water. Salt water is a high pH fluid. It is “basic’.
Vinegar is produced by fermentation of fluids:
produced by crushing the fruits of grape vines, apple trees and other fruiting plants, or by soaking barley malt and other products of the grain of grasses;
wines and ciders that have been produced by fermentation of plants; and
fluids produced with alchohol distilled from fermented plants.
Slow methods are used in traditional vinegars; fermentation proceeds over a few months to a year. Slow fermentation allows for the accumulation of a nontoxic slime composed of acetic acid bacteria and their cellulose biofilm, known as mother of vinegar. Fast methods add mother of vinegar as a bacterial culture to the source liquid before adding air to oxygenate and promote the fastest fermentation. In fast production processes, vinegar may be produced in 1-3 days.
Fruit vinegars are made from fruit wines, usually without any additional flavoring. Apple cider vinegar is made from cider or apple must.
Wine vinegar is made from red or white wine, and is the most commonly used vinegar in Southern and Central Europe
Distilled vinegar (spirit vinegar in the UK, white vinegar in Canada) is produced by fermentation of distilled alcohol. The fermentate is diluted to produce a colorless solution of 5 to 8% acetic acid in water, with a pH of about 2.6. This is known as distilled spirit, “virgin” vinegar, or white vinegar, and is used in cooking, baking, meat preservation, and pickling, as well as for medicinal, laboratory, and cleaning purposes.
A cup (US volume unit) of vinegar weighs 240 grams. (A cup of pure water weighs 237 grams.) Vinegar is 5% acid and over 90% water. Cider vinegar and distilled (white) vinegar have little sodium according to USDA.
Type
Weight 1 Tbsp.
Water, 1 Tbsp.
Sodium mg.
Distilled
14.9 g.
14.1 g.
.298
Cider
14.9 g.
14 g.
.745
Web sites about baking have comments on vinegar, as of late 2022:
“Vinegar breaks down the proteins in bread dough, causing the gluten to tenderize. .. new – and … stronger – gluten networks form. This results in … a … rise in a shorter amount of time.
“Vinegar cuts down on flour oxidation, resulting in … moist crumb and a lightweight texture. …
“Vinegar is an organic acid … by adding vinegar to your dough, you can create impressive flavors in a shorter amount of time.
Vinegar reduces the pH level in your bread dough. … this fends off mold formation…”
“… it can make the dough more elastic, which can help it rise better and create a more consistent texture. It can also help to retard the growth of yeast, meaning that the bread will take a bit longer to rise but will be less likely to collapse after it’s been baked. Finally, the vinegar can help to create a slightly crisper crust.”
There is no history of hydrating dough with vinegar (using vinegar instead of water or other fluids). Some web material, published to pages, or posted to forums, attributes some effects, actions and results to the addition of a small amount of vinegar to the other ingredients of bread.
Someone started using vinegar to make the water acidic, and leaving out salt. I have not found material on the web to explain when this started or whether it was tested at scale in industrial bakeries.
The bread machine maker Zojirushi started to sell a bread machine with a “no-salt” program in 2018. Zojirushi uses cider vinegar in a recipe for a white sandwich bread for use in a “No Salt” program on its current Virtuoso Plus (a large loaf (2 lb. pan) model and its BB-SSC10 (small, 1 lb.) model.
A tablespoon (14.7 ml.) of cider vinegar has the same effect as 2 tsp. of salt in white sandwich bread on gluten, crumb and crust, in my Zojirushi Virtuoso BB-PAC20. 2¼ tsp. (11.1 ml.) of cider vinegar has the same effect as 1½ tsp. salt.
A tablespoon of vinegar adds only 1 Tbsp of water to a dough, and only adds tiny amount of acetic acid and biochemically significant elements, but it affects gluten and fermentation. It is powerful.
It is possible to measure with enough accuracy with measuring spoons. It is possible to measure vinegar by weight. Scales may go to the nearest gram; some go to the nearest .1 gram. Conversions:
Vinegar, Volume
1 cup
1 Tbsp.
2¼ tsp.
1 tsp.
Vinegar, Weight
239 g.
14.9 g.
11.2 g.
5 g.
Cider vinegar does not impart a bitter taste to bread. Vinegar lacks the flavour impact of salt.
Adjustments
Salt
A leading blog for home bakers observes:
… If you’re still looking to reduce the salt in your bread, however, it’s possible to do so successfully (to an extent).
Generally, you can reduce the salt by half without having any very noticeable changes to texture and browning.
If your bread tastes a bit bland, you can use herbs or spices to increase the flavor. Fresh chopped rosemary or caraway seeds are both very traditional ways to add flavor, but the options are really endless! Try experimenting with blends like Herbes De Provence or even Pizza Seasoning to jazz things up.
King Arthur Flour, Blog, Tips & Techniques, July 2020, Why is salt important in yeast bread?
A 50% reduction of salt works when the recipe, following the conventions of home baking, specifies 2 tsp. of salt for a large loaf or 1½ tsp. for a medium loaf. A medium loaf, baked with 1½ tsp. of salt, has at least 3,360 mg. of sodium. Reducing the salt by 50% reduces the sodium in a loaf to about 1,680 mg. of sodium. This is tolerable in terms of the gluten and the taste of the bread. If the recipe said 8.6 g. (1½ tsp.), I will reduce salt by 50% by weight. I aim to reduce salt to 4.3 grams.(¾ tsp.) for a medium loaf, or less. 4.3 grams.(¾ tsp.) gets good gluten development to bake a medium loaf in a Zojirushi bread machine. It should be enough salt for a medium loaf under any other baking method if the dough is mixed and kneaded
It is necessary to consider how much sodium is being avoided when salt is taken out of a recipe. Where a recipe uses 1 tsp. (5.7 g.) of salt for 3 cups of flour, I can reduce use 75% of the recipe amount of salt to get the same amount of sodium per loaf/slice/serving as by reducing 1½ tsp. of salt by 50%. If a recipe required less salt than 1½ tsp. for a medium loaf, I may reduce salt by a low amount. I have tried reduction from 1 tsp. (5.7 g.) to ¾ tsp. (4.3 g.) or ⅝ tsp. (3.6 g.). Many medium loaves made with ⅝ tsp. (3.6 g.) salt and a suitable adjusted amount of instant yeast knead and bake well in a Zojirushi Virtuoso using the Basic Bake and Bake whole wheat programs, and in the Home made program for European bread
Yeast
Salt slows dows fermentation. As salt also makes gluten strands longer, salt assists a dough to rise. The reduction, if any, in gas production is outweighed by more extensible gluten. Reductions of yeast affect the production of the gas which stretches the dough. Yeast is required to leaven any yeasted bread. Yeast can be reduced in from the levels stated in recipes when salt is reduced. The right amount of yeast varies according to the recipe and other factors:
The machine;
The program;
The salt and other sodium in the dough.
Dough needs to be hydrated and leavened to rise and flow.
Bread Machines
Machines
While many bread machine recipes seem to be for “any” bread machine, there are no generic recipes. Machines have significant differences in
pan size,
pan shape, mixing action,
programs, and
features.
Features, such as heating the baking chamber and pan while a mixed dough is rising (i.e. fermenting), are not found in all machines, and affect the amount of yeast a user should use.
Bread machines run in fixed time intervals set in the programs written by the manufacturer’s engineers. A closed device is not subject to interventions when the program is running. Techniques used in conventional baking are not easily used with bread machines. Bread machines are convenience appliances. They make palatable bread. A machine user can make some kinds of changes in attempting to make a recipe again: setting the device to use a different program, or adjust the recipe.
A late 20th century bread machine recipe book said:
… In the presence of salt the dough rises at a slower rate and the salt strengthens the gluten. Loaves with no salt collapse easily.
If you are on a salt-resticted diet and wish to reduce the salt in a recipe, be sure to reduce the yeast proportionately, or use the recipe amount of lite salt. Without the right amount of salt, the dough will rise too fast. This is especially true in the environment of the bread machine …
Beth Hensperger, The Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook, 2000, p. 15, p. 290
The suggestion of using “lite” salt may be a dead end. There is no “lite” salt or any known substitute for real salt with sodium. There are salt substitutes made with calcium chloride or potassium chloride that can be added to some foods. These can to leave soups or stews tasting ok to human senses. There is no basis for saying that salt substitutes affect the activity of yeast or gluten formation in bread dough, or the taste of baked bread. No one has published test results or evidence.
The suggestion of reducing salt and yeast proportionately (by weight) provides a rule of thumb that works, to a point.
Beth Hensperger introduced the topic of “What Can Go Wrong, and How to Fix It” at pp. 38-40 of The Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook. Unfortunately, many things can go wrong and the answers are not obvious,
Salt & Yeast
Salt
Salt can be reduced in bread machine recipes for 1½ lb. loaves that specify 1½ tsp. of salt to 4.3 g. (¾ tsp.), 3.6 g. (⅝ tsp.) or as little as 2.8 g. (½tsp). This reduction has a minor effect on gluten which affects the texture of the crumb. It affects taste. The change is less noticeable in multigrain loaves, and loaves flavoured in some way. Salt in recipes with 3 cups of flour (for 1½ lb. loaves) can be reduced with little or no effect on gluten and the final baked crumb and crust.
Yeast
Yeast choice and measurement are important in bread machines. The yeast specified in any given generic recipe may be too much for some bread machines. A dough or loaf that balloons is messy, and can endanger the machine, the kitchen and the cook. Bread machine recipes are also determined by whether they can produce acceptable bread in a time frame that consumers/machine buyers will tolerate. If a recipe requires active dry yeast and a user wants to substitute an instant yeast, the yeast measurement should be converted for instant yeast.
If a recipe for a medium loaf says 8.6 g. (1½ tsp.) salt, and if the proportionate reduction rule was an exact rule, I would expect to reduce yeast by 50% by weight, but it isn’t that simple. Yeast can be reduced with low salt loaves. The rule of proportional reduction leads to bad results if the amount of yeast is not calculated correctly and measured correctly. That leaves a problem – how much more should yeast be reduced if salt it reduced.
Yeast measurement has to be adjusted for a machine’s mix/knead and rise phases. These vary. Some machines have a proofing box function – the pan is heated during rise phases. The length of the rise phases varies between machines and programs.
Recipes should have enough yeast to leaven the dough and rise in a specific machine without ballooning or overflowing a bread pan. For many machines or progams more than 1 tsp. of instant yeast for a 1½ lb. loaf is too much, regardless of salt and regardless of other ingredients that may inhibit fermentation. For any machine, set to a “Quick-Rise” program, more yeast is required that for a Regular or Basic Program. Too much yeast for a machine and a program will result in the dough or loaf ballooning or collapsing. Those problems can be fixed by adjusting yeast in a recipe leaving flour, water, salt and other ingredients unchanged.
The relevant features affecting hydration, gluten formation, yeast activity, fermentation, and rise are:
the protein in wheat flour,
the protein in other flour, such as rye flour,
the amount of high protein wheat flour and any vital wheat gluten,
the length of the mix/knead phase,
the mix/knead action,
the length of the Rise phases, and
warmed pan proofing box action in the Rise phases.
Vinegar
Zojirushi’s recipe for No-Salt bread (large loaf and small loaf), is nearly identical to Zojirushi’s Basic White Bread (large loaf or small loaf). It has no salt, and has some cider vinegar – ½ to 1 tablespoon, depending on the recipe size. Zojirushi’s recipe for No-Salt bread works in a basic or regular baking program – the program used for enriched sandwich bread, made with bread flour, sugar, milk or milk powder and butter. In 2021, Marsha Perry, writing as the Bread Machine Diva said that the large (2 lb.) loaf version turned out well in a Zojirushi Virtuoso BB-PAC20 machine using the Basic Program (the BB-PAC20 does not have a No Salt program). The photos at the Bread Machine Diva site suggest the crumb is slightly different when the recipe is baked in two different Zojirushi machines.
I tried the recipe, scaled for a medium loaf; the medium loaf works in a Zojirushi Virtuoso BB-PAC20. This recipe should work in any Zojirushi model with a large pan – Supreme, Virtuoso, etc. The recipe will work in other machines in a regular or basic baking program, but may require a little less or more yeast than a Zojirushi machine. The recipe is sensitive to measurement of the ingredients, including the vinegar.
Zojirushi Bread Machines
General
In working out a recipe that will not balloon or collapse pay attention to : the type of flour, the amount of salt, the bread machine course (program) and the amount of yeast.
It is often necessary to try out some variations, changing some quantities by small measured amounts to see if a change makes the bread better by some parameter.
Many recipes for medium loaves baked in bread machines may require 1½ tsp. of salt for 3 cups of wheat flour, but recipes vary. Some of Zojirushi’s recipes for medium loaves baked in the BB-PAC20, in its machine manual and on the web accept that ratio. Generic recipes for similar breads may use 2 tsp. (6.2 grams) of instant yeast for a medium loaf. Other Zojirushi recipes use less salt – noted in the table below. The yeast in recipes in the manual for the salt stated in the recipe. (The web links lead to large loaves. I am using the medium loaf recipe in the printed manual.) I am converting yeast from Active Dry, used by Zojirushi in it recipes for the BB-PAC20 to instant yeast:
*The “home made” course, given in the recipe in the Zojirushi BB-PAC20 Virtuoso manual, is identical to the European course (i.e. program) of the Zojirushi BB-CDC20 Viruoso Plus. It has 2 rise phases, like a Quick course but the rises are long – 35 minutes and 50 minutes. The Crusty French recipe involves programming a “Home-made” program in a BB-PAC-20 Virtuoso or a BB-CEC20 Home Bakery.
Zojirushi also publishes recipes for 2 lb. “large” loaves with 1½ tsp of salt. These scale to 1⅛ tsp. (6.4 g.) salt for 1.5 lb. loaves.
In working out a recipe that will not balloon or collapse pay attention to:
the type of flour,
the amount of salt,
the bread machine course (program) and
the amount of yeast.
It is often necessary to try out some variations, changing some quantities by small measured amounts to see if a change makes the bread better by some parameter.
Yeast
Initial General Rule
The Zojirushi BB-PAC20 requires less yeast for a recipe that uses a regular yeasted baking program, (i.e. the Regular Basic course or the Regular Wheat course) than is used in a recipe from Bread Lover’s Bread Machine Cookbook, or most generic bread machine recipes. These courses have a Rise period (programmed as 3 consecutive periods) in a heated pan. A Zojirushi BB-PAC20 needs about 65% of the instant yeast in a generic recipe used in these courses. This is a target for the amount of yeast to raise a fully salted loaf. I make this initial adjustment for all recipes in those categories except recipes from Zojirushi for my Zojirushi BB-PAC20.
Zero Salt and/or Vinegar
For the Zojirushi Virtuoso BB-PAC20:
3.8 grams of instant yeast, used to make a sponge for Tuscan Bread, will raise a zero salt dough for a 1.5 lb. medium loaf;
4.0 grams of instant yeast will raise a no-salt dough for a 1.5 lb. medium loaf, in the American Heart Association whole wheat recipe.
The Zojirushi “No Salt” bread, made with vinegar, sugar and milk powder is a soft sweet sandwich bread. The crumb is fluffy. It is similiar to other sandwich breads – a bit softer.
The yeast requirement for this sandwich loaf, made with vinegar instead of salt, is about 3.1 grams of instant yeast (1 tsp.)
The recipe is sensitive to measurement of the ingredients, including the vinegar.
I will try to bake other recipes with vinegar instead of salt. I will check this method with other enriched sandwich breads, experimenting with changing the enrichments – sugar, milk powder etc. It will take time.
Lean Breads – 50% Salt
A Zojirushi BB-PAC20 will bake a crusty French style white loaf – a lean bread – with 3.1 g. instant yeast for 3 cups of bread flour, and ¾ tsp. (4.3 g.) salt, instead of 1 tsp. (5.7 g.) salt, for a medium loaf in a “home made” (custom) program for that style of bread. For this lower salt version, I use 2.1 g. instant yeast instead of the manufacturer’s specified 1½ tsp. (4.2 g.) active dry yeast
I have used the Zojirushi BB-PAC20 to bake medium loaves of Beth Hensperger’s (of the BLBMC) recipe for Chuck Williams Country French Bread, a lean bread. The BLBMC recipe (full salt) uses 8.6 g. I make it with 3.6 g. of salt in the Regular Bake program. Yeast depends on what course/program I use:
Regular Basic course, with 2.0 g. of instant yeast;
Home made course for crusty lean bread. This bread, in the shorter Home made program, needs about 3.1 g. or 3.2 g. of instant yeast for a loaf with 50% salt (4.3 g.). It develops a dimple (which might be called a crater) with 3.6 g. of instant yeast, but not with 3.2 g. of instant yeast.
50% Salt – Regular Basic and Regular Wheat
I will reduce yeast below the Zojirushi target when I make a salt reduction for a generic recipe. It may be 50% of the yeast that remains after the initial adjustment (not the yeast in the recipe), but it depends on the amount of salt.
Where a recipe recipes only ½ tsp. of salt for a medium loaf (e.g. the AHA low salt recipe for a medium size light rye loaf) I use the recipe amount of salt and 2.7 or 2.8 g. of instant yeast.
When salt has been reduced to 4.3 grams (¾ tsp.) for a medium loaf, 2.1 to 2.4 grams of instant yeast will leaven the dough to get good rise and flow without collapse or “crater” in the Regular Basic and Basic Wheat programs. Using less yeast can produce collapse or “crater”, or issues of size and shape. Using more yeast may produce a loaf that ruptures.
A Zojirushi BB-PAC20 (or another modern Zojirushi model with a 2 lb. pan) can make an acceptable medium loaf of bread with 4.3 g. of salt and 30-35% of the instant yeast in a generic recipe with bread flour and with bread flour and whole wheat flour.
100% whole wheat flour bread is close, but not exactly the same.
Putting rye flour in the mix changes the yeast requirements.
Other Adjustments
Some generic (any machine – e.g. BLBMC) bread machine recipes have problems that show up with a Zojirushi machine, but not in other machines. It may be as little as a few tablespoons of water. These problems can be fixed by comparing a problem recipe with successful recipes.
Baking Ingredients
I find it convenient to have baking ingredients in a spreadsheet saved on a device in my possession – a desktop in a room near the kitchen. I have access when the device is on, without relying on Internet connections and the cloud.
The book Spoon-Fed by British physician and writer Tim Spector discusses the diets of people in developed countries. Spoon-Fed puts a great deal of information into a short book. It discusses a number of “myths” about food and nutrition. A myth is a story that many people have learned to believe, but not a scientifically proved factual story. The myths are the foundation of public health rules, dietary recommendations and beliefs about food. The myths are the foundation of public health rules, dietary recommendations and beliefs about food. Spoon-Fed treats eating and digestion as complex biological processes that cannot be explained by instinct, culture, culinary tradition, common sense or known science. It fails to reconcile some inconsistencies.
There is a chapter pointing out that there is no component in the education of medical doctors addressing nutrition, implying that medical doctors, unless they work on the problems, are not experts on nutrition, food and diets. There is a chapter which reviews some of the arguments of The Diet Myth, points out that digestion, and weight gain are individual, and cautions against believing that there are rules that apply to all people and all foods. In The Diet Myth, Dr. Spector explained why weight loss through calorie restriction and exercise is difficult by the data of weight loss in twin studies, and to the science of calories, based on the 1944-1945 Minnesota Starvation Experiment. Like The Diet Myth, Spoon-Fed suggests that food science has not absorbed the presence of an active microbiome in the human digestive tract.
Some chapters talk about how food is collected, processed, and sold.
The chapter on the myths of fish addresses the marketing of fish raised in fish farms, the standards for farmed fish, the marketing of wild fish harvested recklessly, and outright fraud in the way fish is misdescribed in some restaurants.
There are chapters on the myths of avoiding animal fat, reducing calory consumption or exercising to reduce weight, avoiding gluten, avoiding nuts, sports drinks, fruit flavoured drinks, and the quality, safety and convenience of bottled water. Some involve the factors affecting purchasing and processing food, including sports drinks, flavoured water, bottled water, candy, snacks and fast food.
Spoon-fed notes that the food industry, dominated by financial interests, and focussed on reducing foods into packaged commodities, fabricated with processed ingredients, and processed to taste good, package well, and sell. The food industry has convinced people try to make up for “missing” ingredients by taking supplements and seeking following diet fads, to combat obesity by restricting calories and by exercise. This has made the food industry financially successful in selling flavoured junk. Dr. Spector suggests that individuals might eat more vegetables, recommend diversity of diet, endorses Michael Pollan’s advice in his books In Defence of Food (2008) and The Omnivore’s Dilemma (2006), and suggests avoiding consuming highly processed foods. He also endorses the public health advocacy of Marion Nestle and others on measures against sugary, artificially sweetened and carbonated beverages and disposable containers.
Other chapters discuss the rise and fall of beliefs about fat, calories, weight loss theories, supplements and diets. These are generally informative. Some chapters invite readers to consider changing what they eat, and are more controversial.
Spoon-Fed favours eating fermented foods because they contain nutrients produced by microorganisms and may contain beneficial and viable microorgamisms (unless the microorganisms have been killed off in the processing). Spoon-Fed favours food with some microflora or microfauna, although Dr. Spector is largely dismissive of the probiotic yogurt and the marketing claims made by the manufacturers of other highly processed food products. He is in favour of consuming fermented foods, including saurkraut and kimchi on the basis that fermentation can introduce health probiotic microorganisms. His views on probiotics may be more controversial than he implies. Fermented food with microorganisms is prepared in salted water (brine) as opposed to pickled in acidic vinegar. It is therefore salty.
Dr. Spector states that public health measures involving salt have not prevented the wide use of salt in food processing. The food industries have increased the consumption of salt, while concealing the amount of salt in processed food. He refers to studies suggesting that studies have failed to demonstrate adverse effects of high sodium levels in food on health. He explains that industrialized countries favour treating people with high blood pressure with medication to reducing salt use. He disagrees with the low sodium approach of the DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet, without a discussion of the issue.
Spoon-Fed carefully precise in supporting restrictions on alcohol consumption, while defending moderate alcohol consumption.
While it is dismissive of diet fads, it tends to be speculative about the benefits of some foods. It dismisses some public health information based on poor sampling and other statistical errors, and appears to encourage disrespect for all public health recommendations.
This is Part 4 of a series of 9 posts organized as a single work, collectively “endless”. There are 8 parts, individually published as posts on this blog, and a table of contents of the series in the 9th post. The series is organized into sections, numbered for reference, in the series table of contents and in the table of contents for each post. From March to August 2024 I reorganized and revised the article. This post has been most recently updated August 20, 2024.
Scope
This part discusses:
fluid lubricants, including motor oil:
bicycle “drip lube” lubricants, with notes on pricing;
in sections:
people and projects,
testing chains and lubricants for efficiency and wear, and
innovations in lubricants.
This part mentions products that will be discussed in Part 7:
paraffin wax applied by immersion of a chain in melted paraffin wax, and
wax based chain coating fluid products applied to a chain wet, that dry to wax-like states.
Some sections of this part refer to subjects and persons discussed in Part 2 in this series, on Roller Chain, and Part 6 on durability.
7. Lubricating Fluids
Motor Oil
Motor oil, the lubricating oil refined/processed and sold for use in 4 stroke internal combustion engines, was sold in quart containers for most of the 20th century. For decades the containers were cardboard cylinders with metal end caps. Automotive service centers (garages) issued workers spouts that could both puncture a metal end cap, and pour oil into the filler tube of an automobile engine. By the end of 1990s
motor oil was sold in plastic bottles by the quart or gallon;
most motor oil is formulated with “detergent” additives to chemically affect the productions of combustion left in the cylinders of internal combustion engines.
Some motor oils made for automobiles have been tested for efficiency (power lost to friction; see below) as bicycle chain lubricants, and have done reasonably well. Motor oil has tradeoffs:
Viscous friction – it takes slightly more energy to move a chain lubricated with a viscous oil than a “thinner” oil
Additives – modern additives have changed the lubrication properties of motor oil. There are
Adhesion – dirt sticks to motor oil, and oil sticks to clothing and skin when the rider contacts the chain or the chain flings lube. Motor oil can only be removed from a chain with detergents or mineral spirits. Cleaning an oily chain can involve removing the chain from the bike frame.
Additives in motor oil can be avoided by purchasing additive-free oils if available; some bike lube manufacturers use high quality motor oil as a base stock for bike lube. For instance Silca Velo uses a synthetic motor oil, without “detergent”. Other disadvantages of purchasing from the automotive section of the market:
having to buy a whole quart (or litre, if that is the standard container), and store it for years,
disposing of waste material in an environmentally sound and legal way.
A quart (946 ml.) of high quality Mobil 1 synthetic motor oil cost about $15 (Canadian) at Canadian Tire and other retail outlets in British Columbia in February 2022. Half a cup, valued at about 50 cents per ounce, would be worth $2. Canadian Tire sells other automotive motor oils in 5 liter (one gallon) sizes. It sells its house brand MotoMaster (distilled by Shell) non detergent engine oil in a 1 quart size for about $6. It sells MotoMaster motorcycle 4 stroke engine oil at $11 per quart. Conversions:
Lubricant manufacturers and bike shops began to sell bicycle chain lubrication fluids, often labeled “wet” or “dry”, in small applicator bottles in the 1970s and 80s. Other lubrication products are sold in applicator bottles.
The online magazine Road Bike Rider made a list of manufacturers or brands of drip lubes in 2019, updated in 2021. It includes:
Dupont, a brand mow held by the successor of Dupont DeMours and Dow, both chemical manufacturers,
the automotive lubricant brand Dumonde Tech,
the solvent and household lubricant brand WD-40 (which owns the venerable brand and intellectual propery (“IP”) of 3-in-One), and
several bike drip chain lubes sold in bicycle shops and online including:
Ceramic Speed,
Finish Line,
MSpeedwax (Molten Speed Wax),
Muc-Off,
Park Tool,
Pro-Gold,
Pedros,
Rock and Roll,
Squirt, and
Tri-Flow.
The list does not include manufacturers new to bike lubricant market since 2019, including Silca Velo, Tru-Tension, Rex. None of the drip lubes in the list above did well in Friction Facts efficiency testing or Zero Friction testing for chain durability.
The article, like most printed and online magazine articles, does not discuss the ingredients, the manufacturing processes or the way the lubricants are supposed to work – are they oils, or delivery vehicles for polymers believed to reduce friction in the moving parts of the chain? No manufacturers or vendors disclose it, and few journalists, mechanics and riders know.
Prices
None of the independent bike shops in Victoria post lube prices online (as of early 2022). Chain stores in Victoria BC with web sites include:
Trek store;
Mountain Equipment Coop (a Canadian retail chain selling “outdoor” products);
Canadian Tire (a Canadian retail chain selling “outdoor” products);
Walmart (retail chain selling “outdoor” products) has a confusing and overheated online market.
Prices in 2022 ($ Canadian except $US in US stores noted) for a 118 or 120 ml. (4 oz.) bottle of common bike lubes. I have not updated prices after inflation in the period 2022-24:
Trek Store
MEC
Cdn. Tire
ProGold Prolink
14.95
ProGold Extreme
18.95
Muc-Off Wet or Dry
14.95
Muc-Off C3 Ceramic Wet or Dry
23.95
Squirt Long Lasting Dry
19.95
Squirt Low Temperature
23.95
Bontrager (Trek store house brand)
11.99 9.50 (US)
Park Tool CL-1
13.99
White Lightning Clean Ride Dry
8.99 (US)
White Lightning Wet Ride
8.99 (US)
White Lightning Epic Ride
9.99 (US)
Finish Line, Wet or Dry
9.99 (US)
WD-40 Bike Chain Lubricant Wet or Dry
12.99 (US)
9.99
Silca Velo’s oil based wet lubes: Synergetic and Synerg-e (e-bike lube) are available from Silca by mail order. The price of Synergetic, as of April 2022, was $33.95 ($US) for a 59 ml. (2 oz.) drip bottle. Shipping is free on orders over $99 ($US). Synergetic is available in some bike shops in Victoria – e.g. Fort Street – I have not checked prices.
Drip lubes are more expensive than motor oil. Drip lube prices do not seems to be based on the cost of base stocks. The cost of making, filling and handling dozens of bottles for each quart of product may be a factor. Prices are set by manufacturers and vendors based on supply and demand, and the perceived marginal utility of the product. Cycling lube is often a small product line for chemical processing enterprises or conglomerate enterprises, although a profitable revenue stream.
Efficiencies and Wear
Among the drip lubes tested for chain wear by Zero Friction Cycling (“ZFC”), there were bad results for
several Muc-Off products,
White Lightning products,
some Finish Line products and
several other wet and dry drip lubes.
Finish Line Dry with Teflon, a favourite with online reviewers, was assessed by ZFC in 2023 as “not terrible”.
ZFC found that Silca Velo’s Synergetic, a wet oil-based lube, was reasonably good when applied while the chain was run under low contamination conditions, and under moderate contamination for a reasonable time.
Manufacturing and Marketing
The cycling lubricant field is influenced by the engineering and manufacturing practices of the automotive lubricant industry. Drip lubes are made with base fluids, carrier fluids and additives. Manufacturers acquire fluids distilled from petroleum – solvents or oils (respectively, mineral spirits or mineral oils), mix them with additives, package the product in small plastic drip/squeeze bottles or aerosol or spray vessels, sell to bike shops and department stores, and market. The bottles do not have:
detailed ingredient lists,
use instructions, or
warnings about the product’s durability.
“Dry” drip lubes made of volatile carrier fluids are popular. One selling point of dry drip lubes is avoiding entanglement of clothing in or contact with the dirty, oily chain, and avoiding the fling or spray of oil droplets from the chain without using devices (e.g. pant clips) to restrain clothing, metal or plastic chain covers or chain guards.
Pedro’s Ice Wax, marketed as an “advanced natural dry lube” was a drip lubricant. Pedro’s describes its history as a lubricant maker:
In 1989, roommates Bruce Fina and Andrew Herrick founded the Pedro’s brand around a revolutionary chain lube called Syn Lube developed by Bruce’s tribologist brother. Friends of Bruce and Andrew were living and racing mountain bikes in the Pacific Northwest and couldn’t find a lube that would last an entire race in the muddy conditions. The other Teflon-based chain lubes couldn’t handle the mud. Formulated with extreme pressure additives, corrosion inhibitors, and tackifiers to provide incredible wear protection, lubrication, and staying power in extreme wet and muddy conditions, Syn Lube quickly became the lube of choice. Once mountain bikers tried Syn Lube and experienced its performance, word spread, demand skyrocketed, and the Pedro’s brand was officially off to the races!
The wax is/was probably paraffin. The original formulation of Pedro’s Ice Wax, as tested by Friction Facts in 2013 (below) was relatively inefficient. Pedro’s introduced Ice Wax 2.0 and “Slack Lube” later. There are several other drip lubes with wax. It is useful to distinguish drip lubes marketed as wax from wax emulsions. Wax emulsions are fluids, and applied with drippers but differ from most drip lubes.
Bicycle lube manufacturers often claim that drip lubes clean while lubricating. These claims are never supported by evidence or test results. Few manufacturers even venture to explain how a lubricant can contain or coexist with detergents and solvents. Riders can hear an unlubed chain, a dry chain, or a corroded chain and may notice dirt sticking to a chain or caking on the chainwheels, cassette cogs or derailleur pulleys. Riders may apply large amount of lube to “flush” out dirt. Lube can work on a chain that has dried out after being exposed to large volumes or flows of water (water can break down oils. The chain flings off water but lacks lubricant and behaves poorly after drying). Fresh lube may help to dissolve surface corrosion on a lightly oxidized chain. Flushing out dirt contamination “in” the chain with lube is a theoretical possibility but has not been demonstrated.
Lube manufacturers claim that their products are superior. A few make explicit efficiency claims based on proprietary/confidential test reports. Such behavior by established brands tends to conceal or discredit claims that these are inferior lubricants.
Consumers know, as matter of principle, we can not rely on and should not trust marketing claims. The law in most of the industrialized world – and particularly in the UK and USA makes it hard for consumers to hold manufacturers liable for misleading claims of quality. The leading legal principle is caveat emptor (buyer beware). Courts traditionally brush marketing claims off as puffery. While most consumers think they can detect bullshit, most are overconfident about their capability. Consumers rely on misleading indicators of quality – e.g. brand, packaging, price? Often consumers buy because they need something, and will accept whatever they can find.
Teflon – Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) – has been a drip lube additive. Rock ‘n Roll and other drip lubes with Teflon did well in Friction Facts efficiency tests (below). Finish Line USA markets itself as a firm specializing in cycling, and markets its Finish Line dry lube for coating chain parts with Teflon. Teflon is a Dupont brand and trademark, and the common name for PTFE. Finish Line USA is the manufacturer of the Dupont brand of bike lube. Finish Line USA states in its marketing that it was founded by an engineer who had worked for Mobil, the automotive lubricant distiller/manufacturer. PTFE is a fluorocarbon. Some lubricant manufacturers, in the 21st century, disparage competitors for using fluorocarbons, which are greenhouse gases.
Some additives promoted by manufacturers have not been proved to decease wear:
“ceramic” additives;
carbon tubes or particles or nano additives;
micro-sized tungsten spheres.
The marketing-driven model that microscopic particles act like bearings is theoretically flawed. Indeed the empirical evidence suggests that such particles, like dust and grit, contaminate the oil and contribute to chain wear.
8. People and Projects
Introduction
This section touches on scientific and industrial testing of materials. Mainly, it discusses sources that have been mentioned in this series, and this post. The inventions are cleaning and lubrication products. While useful products have come to market, maintenance and cleaning of drive trains is not well known.
The inventions, plans and goals had economic factors. I mention the economic factors to understanding how manufactured items operate, and which ones were sold and distributed. Some of the people challenged the consensus narratives of the lubrication industries and bicycle component manufacturing and sales industries by
testing bicycle chains and lubricants;
publishing the results of testing in journals, magazines, web pages and social media, and
developing, producing and marketing durable chains and lubricants that provable reduced chain wear.
The persons discussed had a combination of curiosity and economic interests or hopes. Many of the projects and publications discuss new products that mechanics and rider might use. My interest was how they increased knowledge and awareness of chain maintenance and effected changes in the bicycle markets.
Testing Materials
Standards for materials and testing materials and testing devices to measure the properties of materials were developed by individuals and by industrial entities, often by commercial entities.
The Rockwell scales of hardness, typically used in engineering and metallurgy, were named for its inventors, the Rockwell brothers who worked for a company that made ball bearings.
1.1 This test method covers laboratory procedures for determining the resistance of materials to sliding wear. The test utilizes a block-on-ring friction and wear testing machine to rank pairs of materials according to their sliding wear characteristics under various conditions. 1.2 An important attribute of this test is that it is very flexible. Any material that can be fabricated into, or applied to, blocks and rings can be tested. Thus, the potential materials combinations are endless. However, the interlaboratory testing has been limited to metals. In addition, the test can be run with various lubricants, liquids, or gaseous atmospheres, as desired, to simulate service conditions. Rotational speed and load can also be varied to better correspond to service requirements. 1.3 The values stated in SI units are to be regarded as standard. The values given in parentheses are for information only. Wear test results are reported as the volume loss in cubic millimetres for both the block and ring. Materials of higher wear resistance will have lower volume loss. 1.4 This standard does not purport to address all of the safety concerns, if any, associated with its use. It is the responsibility of the user of this standard to establish appropriate safety, health, and environmental practices and determine the applicability of regulatory limitations prior to use. 1.5 This international standard was developed in accordance with internationally recognized principles on standardization established in the Decision on Principles for the Development of International Standards, Guides and Recommendations issued by the World Trade Organization Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) Committee.
The ASTM G77 standard is used in machines like the ones use by Josh Poertner of Silca Velo, discussed below. In those videos a metal sample “pin” or block (not a pin from a chain) is held against the ring of the device.
BTI Site and Writers
The Bicycle Technical Information pages written and published by Sheldon Brown were noted in Part 1 in this series. The pages on that site were written by Sheldon Brown and other authors including John S. Allen. I cited papers by the late Jobst Brandt on lubrication and cleaning. Brandt is the author of a published and well regarded book on bicycle wheels, and was involved in many ventures including the Avocet cycling computer, one of the first cycling computers.
Journalists, Cycling Publications
VeloNews was a printed magazine about cycling, and at of 2024 is an online publication. It covered technical issues seriously at one time. In 2018 it was folded into the Outside magazine brand which treats cycling as a consumer lifestyle choice.
CyclingTips was an online cycling publication that was folded into the Outside magazine brand in 2022 and effectively closed by the new owners of the company.
Notable writers:
Caley Fretz, once a technical writer and editor at VeloNews became an editor in chief at CyclingTips, and later at Escape Collective;
James Huang, once a technical writer, was an editor at CyclingTips, and later at Escape Collective until May 2024;
Dave Rome, once a technical writer, became an editor at CyclingTips, and later at Escape Collective;
Brad Copeland, a mechanic who has worked for mountain bike racing teams (Specialized, Scott-SRAM) and worked with broadcast media joined Escape Collective in June 2024
Jason Smith, Friction Facts, Ceramic Speed
Jason Smith, an engineer in Boulder, Colorado, USA ran Friction Facts (“FF”) from 2012 to 2015. I have not read material that explains the business model for FF. FF followed up on the idea of testing the efficiency of bicycle chains lubricated with various products, that emerged from academic engineering theory. Jason Smith became an expert of testing methods and drive train friction. He disposed of FF 2016. A search engine may direct a reader to a site in a domain called Friction Facts. That domain, as of 2022, contained puff reviews of cycling products. It may have been acquired by a cybersquatter.
Jason Smith became an associated with the lubrication and cycling accessory firm Ceramic Speed, which manufactures and sells bearings, drive train products, the UFO brand of bicycle lubricants and several automotive products.
While Jason Smith was running FF, some of the test results were published. The main FF test results can be accessed on a Ceramic Speed web page. Ceramic Speed continued to test lubricants, and components for chain efficiency, but does not publish them. It has shared some results, and some results have become available.
Ceramic Speed launched a wax emulsion fluid chain lubricant product, UFO Drip, in 2017. It was and is made with emulsified paraffin or similar compounds that are applied to chains on the bike, like drip lubes, and left to dry before the chain is properly lubricated and ready for riding.
John Thompson & Molten Speed Wax
John Thompson is a businessman in St. Paul, Minnesota USA. He established Molten Speed Wax to manufacture a commercial paraffin wax blend that could be applied to a bike chain, off the bike, immersed in molten wax. Molten Speed Wax’s story:
The hot wax technique has likely been around since “Mile-A-Minute Murphy’s” era [about 1899?], so why did we wait until 2013 to try it?
Our family’s history racing bicycles dates back to the early 70’s when waxing was somewhat common; we certainly were aware of the technique. To add insult to injury, we’ve sold cross-country ski wax in our winter business for over a decade. We know wax like the back of our hands, including all the eclectic additives and myriad application techniques. You’d think we could put two and two together.It took a clever engineer named Jason Smith to put us on the right path. Jason figured out that a waxed chain rivals the efficiency of a perpetual motion machine. He added a little PTFE (the non-stick coating on your frying pan) and molybdenum disulfide / MoS₂ (dry lube that’s hard to pronounce) to paraffin and published the info for everyone to see. Before we knew it we were “cooking chains” in our basement and experimenting with our own additives and techniques. Now our wax is made in large batches with high tech industrial machines the size of small cars.
Everyone has a Eureka moment in life. For us, it was realizing that we could virtually end chainring tattoos on cyclists’ calves. Seriously, we saw an opportunity to help DIY folks by premixing the ingredients into an easy to use, packaged product. Waxing for top performance is simple if you don’t have to source and mix your own PTFE and MoS₂. We also created in-depth, step-by-step directions with helpful tips so it’s nearly impossible to mess up. If you can make instant pudding, waxing a chain is child’s play.
Molten Speed Wax (web site), About page (quote taken 2023-10-08)
The history of paraffin as a bicycle chain lubricant musthave been recorded in newspapers, magazines, journals, fanzines, letters and correspondence and other sources but little such material is available in a internet/web search program.
Adam Kerin, Zero Friction Cycling
Adam Kerin was and is a cyclist interested in road riding, cyclo-cross, and mountain bikes racing. At one point in his life he was a law enforcement officer.
He started Zero Friction Cycling (“ZFC”), a firm in the bicycle maintenance business in Adelaide, Australia, in 2017/18. It specializes in maintaining and selling bike chains and lubricants. He developed test devices and methods to run different chains with different lubricants for thousands of kilometers with electric motors in his test machines. In 2021, ZFC launched a YouTube channel which is a tool and platform for Adam Kerin to report on his research and explain his ideas. Adam Kerin was and is an advocate of paraffin lubrication. He also presents his finding in reports and other documents published on the ZFC web pages. His style is discursive.
Adam Kerin was interviewed by the Australian mechanic and cycling tech writer Dave Rome for CyclingTips in March 2018. The new owners of CyclingTips repackaged ontent within other Outside magazine branded cycling content. The interview has disappeared.
ZFC tests chains and lubricants. Adam Kerin makes an argument about for the economic advantages of using quality chain and lubricants, and investing time and effort in chain cleaning and maintenance. He has compared the marketing of most drip lubes, wet and dry, to the marketing of “snake oil” in 19th century patent medicines, but has not claimed the marketing is illegal or fraudulent. 1American law banned false medical claims about drugs in 1906. There is no effective consumer protection law against vague claims about automotive, household or bicycle lubricants.
Episode 11 of the Zero Friction Cycling (“ZFC”) YouTube series complains that some lube manufacturers market lubes with claims mainly based in efficiency testing done by those manufacturers or private labs. In some instances manufacturers imply that their product performs better, or that competing products performed poorly in the manufacturers’ tests. ZFC YouTube Episode 12 criticizes most cycling journalists for reporting on lubes based on short observations of whether a bike chain appears to run quietly and shift smoothly.
ZFC has identified the manufacturer of the Muc-Off products – which have not fared well in ZFC tests – as using its own efficiency tests to disparage competitors. ZFC’s post or page Muc-Off Files Part 1 (notes of its discussions with Muc-Off in March 2022) and ZFC YouTube channel Episode 16 and Muc-Off files Part 2 (Cycling Most Dishonest Marketing?), ZFC YouTube channel Episode 20 explains Adam Kerin’s doubts about Muc-Off’s efficiency claims.
His videos mention his collection of bike tools, and his interest in maintaining his own bikes, including cleaning and repacking the bearings on his bikes! He has views on maintenance, cleaning and lubrication.
Josh Poertner, Silca Velo
Josh Poertner is an American engineer and cycling consultant. He was employed by the component manufacturer Zipp (it made wheels; it was acquired by SRAM and is now a SRAM subsidiary). His role was in part to supporting Zipp products in use by professional cycling teams. He set up a Aeromind LLC (Limited Liability Company) in Indiana which acquired the Italian Silca brand in 2013 after he left Zipp. Silca was known for pumps, tools and components. Silca Velo became a manufacturing, wholesale and retail business in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. Silca has improved the pumps and tools under Josh Poertner’s leadership and started new product lines. For instance it fabricates titanium parts – shoe cleats, bottle cages, a computer mounts.
Much of the material published by Silca is informative about cycling and technology. Silca sponsors the Marginal Gains Podcast, and publishes the Silca Velo YouTube channel. Jason Smith, James Huang and Adam Kerin have been guests on the Marginal Gains Podcast. Marginal Gains has done several episodes on chain lubrication (and The Pipeline Problem in June 2021 on the supply chain/logistics backlogs in cycling parts and supplies).
As a guest or host of a technical or industry podcast, including Marginal Gains, Josh Poertner can be well informed, engaged, focused on issues, and often avoids promoting Silca’s products. In that mode, he is nerdy, well-informed about science, engineering and manufacturing, keen, sincere and helpful In that persona, he has also published many useful videos about bicycle chains on the Silca Velo YouTube channel, including:
April 2024: Stop Wasting Your CHAIN LUBE! Know the BEST Way to Apply It, correcting an earlier video about the use of Silca’s Super Secret (wax compatible chain protection fluid lube), and showing how fluid moves into a bushingless chain in a segment about 8 minutes long, starting about 7 minutes after the beginning.
Silca started to sell lubricants, including Silca NFS (the Silca branded and labelled version of the Nix Frix Shun drip lube, which was well regarded by ZFC in 2017-2018). Silca released several lubricants and cleaning products 2020-2024.
In broadcast audio and video Josh Poertner has said that the drip lubricant category is full of snake oil claims – by other manufacturers. I agree.
Josh Poertner told an anecdote about how a professional cycling team decided that red Zipp hubs were faster in the Marginal Gains podcast The Placebo Effect and Marginal Gains (Dec. 16, 2019). The placebo effect can also explain a way that a con man or a saleman sells a deal. His commercial comments can make him look and sound like a character like those played by the late Robert Preston in The Music Man and The Last Starfighter, or Ray Stohler (played by Paul Dooley), the father of the cycling-struck teen in the 1979 movie Breaking Away, a used car dealer.
Josh Poertner promotes Silca products, and makes a case for the value of those products. Silca sells high tech products or improved modern versions of cycling tools and accessories – usually high-priced stuff. Silca emphasizes that some products facilitate “marginal” gains in performance. Silva claims that its products are superior to other products. Silca justifies its prices based on its brand name, and selling the products to demanding cyclists.
When he talks about Silca chain lubrication products he finds it hard not to promote Silca. Silca behaves like other brands in talking about Silca products that it has tested without disclosing how the tests were done.
Lennard Zinn
Lennard Zinn is a mechanic and journalist who has been writing on cycling tech and repair for decades, for print and online publications including VeloNews. He has written books (old fashioned printed books) on maintenance and repair.
Lennard Zinn published an article “We went to Germany to test the most popular bicycle chains” in VeloNews in January 2020 about a visit to the Wippermann/Connex chain factory in Hagen, Germany, a chain breakage test and the company’s continuous chain-durability tests. The tests ran chains until chains were elongated 13.6 mm, which is 1% of the average chain length (calculated as 108 links on a road bike with 50/34 chainrings and an 11-29 cassette, at 12.7mm per link = 1371.6 mm. Removing the master link, 107 links x 12.7 = 1358.9 mm).
9. Efficiency Tests (Friction Facts)
Most chain and lubricant testing was private. Chain lubricant testing was rarely mentioned in academic or professional literature before Professor Spicer’s (Johns Hopkins University) paper in 2001, discussed in the Bike Chains, Part 3, (section 5 of the endless article).
Friction Facts (“FF”), began to test lubricants for efficiency in or before 2012. Friction Facts used test machines, to measure friction losses in a chain moving under load, by the methods of Professor Spicer’s team, with a lower range of error.
An overview of FF testing:
the chains were new, cleaned with warm mineral spirits in an ultrasonic cleaner for 5 minutes, and dried,
lubed by dripping fluid (i.e. drip) lubes,
tested on a machine that
puts out 250 watts at the chain wheel for a test interval of 5 minutes,
measures the power at the chain wheel
measures the power at the cog on the drive hub;
The loss of power, due to friction in the chain parts, is reported as watts.
For more, at the Ceramic Speed site, follow the link “Why Ceramic Speed” to Test Data Reports/Chain Lube Efficiency Reports.
FF’s testing did not confirm the idea that lubrication did not contribute to chain efficiency. Efficiency testing did not generate information on which lubricants extended the durability of chains. FF did not test, directly or indirectly, the “factory grease” that chain manufacturers apply to bike chains.
The FF chain testing protocol was addressed a post published by Ceramic Speed called Chain Efficiency Testing. Also, Adam Kerin of Zero Friction Cycling (“ZFC”, below) summarized the Friction Facts methods:
Full Tension Test … has a chain ring, a cog, a weight pulling back cog to tension chain equivalent to 250w “load”. There is a drive motor and a braking motor. A $6k usd torque sensor is mounted on shaft driving chain ring and braking the cog.
This test method is extremely precise if you have the right equipment (ie the quality of the motors, the power supplies, the torque sensors – the calibration protocol that has all components up to temp and stable, and all tests are conducted at same ambient temp and humidity).
… the measure is taken between two extremely precise torque sensors mounted on the shaft driving the chain ring and the cog. The difference between what goes in and what comes out – that’s your loss from the chain. If you are using the same calibrated control chain, then you have the loss figure for your lubricant efficiency.
… Friction Facts found that many lubricants exhibited a sudden and very high jump in loss if kept running for long periods on an FTT machine as both the top and bottom span of chain are under tension (due to tension being by way of a weight pulling cog to introduce tension).
As such for longer test runs (ie to see how lubricant performs over hundreds of kms. Possibly with contamination introduced etc at certain points) the chain – after a short (few mins) efficiency test on FTT machine would be moved to Full Load Test Machine (basically just set up as a bicycle drivetrain to allow slackening time through bottom span of drive train for lubricant to re align and reset). Long run intervals done on Full load test, then moved back to FTT for periodic outright efficiency measure.
Several FF tests were reported by Caley Fretz in VeloNews in March 2013 and February 2014. The VeloNews articles have pictures of the test machines and many details. VeloNews reported that FF:
compared lubricants on viscosity by letting some lube run along an inclined metal surface;
commented on “longevity” which meant how quickly lubricant wore off or dried up. FF said that some lubricants wore off fast. The methodology of measurement is not clear.
The VeloNews articles appear to be the only accessible reports of the efficiency tests. The articles and test results can be tracked down:
VeloNews – in print; Web copy of the relevant issues were paywalled after VeloNews was acquired by Outside;
by Ceramic Speed with Ceramic Speed’s proprietary test results on its UFO Drip v1 by Ceramic Speed. Ceramic Speed published the VeloNews/FF bar graphs of the 2014 FF results interpolating Ceramic Speed’s wax emulsion UFO Drip Chain lubes as the most efficient lubricant.
Lubricant manufacturers make claims about efficiency to market their products . Some have interpolated their products into copies of the 2013/14 FF/VeloNews bar graphs.
The best lubricants in the FF/VeloNews articles are those that show the lowest “watts expended”. A lube that tests as losing 4.5 of 250 watts is 98% efficient. According to some reports, some chains with some lubes lose may lose as little as 3 watts – i.e. are 99% efficient. These reports are anomalous, or reflect some improvements since 2014. FF tested, among others:
Article
Type
Substance/Brand
Watts lost
VeloNews 2013
immersive wax
Paraffin (ordinary retail) synthetic wax.
≅ 4.8
VeloNews 2013
motor oil
3-in-One
≅ 6.3
VeloNews 2013
“household” lubricant
3-in-One General Purpose
≅ 6.6
VeloNews 2013
bicycle chain dry lube with Teflon
Rock ‘n Roll Gold
≅5
VeloNews 2013
bicycle chain dry lube with Teflon
Finish Line Teflon dry
≅ 5.8
VeloNews 2013
bicycle chain dry lube
Pedro’s Ice Lube
≥6
VeloNews 2013
bicycle chain wet lube
ProGold ProLink
≅ 7.2
VeloNews 2014
immersive wax
Molten Speed Wax
≅ 4.6
VeloNews 2014
wax liquid
Squirt slack wax a byproduct of processing oil into paraffin
Ceramic Speed released some of its later efficiency test results to CyclingTips as above and in 2019:
Ceramic Speed was willing to share some of its recent and typically-secret data about which chains perform best with the UFO V2 race treatment process. The process for applying the secret-formula wax-based submersion lubricant (after a multi-stage cleaning process) is the same across all chain models, and so it provides a clear and precise indication of the most efficient chains.
CeramicSpeed also released some test results to ZFC,
10. Chain Wear testing (ZFC)
ZFC Method
ZFC began testing chains and lubricants for “longevity” or “durability” by testing for elongation wear in 2016. ZFC tested chains and lubricants with an industrial electric motor attached to a stationary bike trainer to measure the wear on chains run under standard conditions:
on reference chains that have been cleaned and treated with tested lubricants, or
on tested chains lubricated with a reference lubricant product.
ZFC produces data on tested lubricants in spreadsheets, reports and comparative charts. ZFC projects the cost of replacing chains into “cost to run” calculations for some chains and a couple dozen lubricants. ZFC has published a few dozen narrative reports about lubricant results as of June 2024. ZFC’s work on the effect of lubricants on longevity (wear) was featured in CyclingTips articles. The links here do not take you to the articles. The new owners of CyclingTips redirect sites to the Velo online magazine, which is on the brands held by the publishers of Outside Magazine. The articles:
The ZFC measurement methods for tests of chain and lubricant are explained in the CyclingTips article How to Check for Chain Wear and the ZFC Test Brief statement. ZFC measures chain elongation with a KMC digital caliper chain checker device that measures to .01 mm. Adam Kerin starts with a new, clean (factory grease removed with solvents), lubed chain and adds lube at intervals. The tests are run on reference test chains. These test run the chains in fixed intervals adding up to 5 x 1000 km test blocks, unless the chain fails before reaching the last blocks. The failure point is .5 mm elongation wear over an 8 link span, which is close to the standard .5% chain replacement recommended by chain and drive train component manufacturers and bike shops. The test machines and the way dirt and water are applied to chain are demonstrated in Episode 9 of the ZFC YouTube series:
Using an industrially motorised Tacx neo smart trainer to control interval load and distance, plus specific intervals that include either no added contamination, dry contamination, and wet contamination – lubricants can be properly assessed over thousands of km’s of controlled testing. Not only can we determine a lubricant’s overall performance – but we can get a break down as to how a lubricant handles different types of conditions, as well as how it stacks up vs the manufacturers claims.
Flat vs Hill Simulations – The chains will be run on a calibrated smart trainer (Tacx Flux) at alternating intervals to simulate flat riding and hill km’s. If just run on flat all the time the km’s clockup too quickly. Most riders ride up hills to some degree so having intervals where the chain is still subjected to 250w load but km’s clocking up slowly delivers an overall average speed for the test of around 29kmh (depending on what block test finishes). It also allows me to rotate through more cogs on cassette and between small and big chain rings for longer wear rates on test components. Flat sim intervals will be on cogs 4, 5 and 6 on large chain ring and be 400km long, Hill sim will be on cogs 1,2 and 3 on small chain ring and be 200 km long. The interval lengths are halved during contamination blocks to 200/100 km.
ZFC measures chain elongation after each test block:
Purpose
1
Lube
lubricant penetration into spaces where metal bears on metal
2
Dirt
performance after chain has been contaminated
3
does lube abate dirt contamination effects
4
Water
effect of water on chain already contaminated by dirt
5
does lube abate contamination effects
ZFC adds lube at fixed intervals. Lube intervals:
Re lube intervals will be every 400 km on Flat simulation intervals, and 200 km on hill simulation intervals UNLESS this rate of re-lubrication would be detrimental according to manufacturer instructions with regards to if re lubing too frequently risks gathering too high a level of contamination. If an adjustment to re lube intervals vs base levels is made this will be noted accordingly in test.
During contamination blocks, the rate of re lubrication is doubled – every 200 km of flat simulation and 100 km hill simulation – as it would be normal behaviour that riders re lubricate more often if riding in harsh conditions, as well as giving lubricants more of chance to “clean as they lube” etc. Again this will be adjusted if manufacturer instructions are clear that this rate would be detrimental and noted accordingly.
ZFC also test lubricants for single application longevity by testing lubricants on reference chains without periodic relubrication.
Adam’s Analysis
Adam Kerin discussed:
what features of a chain resist wear, and
which lubricants resist wear.
and identified:
lubricants that perform well in reducing chain wear, and
some durable chains.
ZFC regards paraffin wax, applied immersively, to be the best lubricant for protecting bike chains from wear. ZFC also regards some liquids, “chain coating” fluids (mainly paraffin emulsions or fluid paraffin precursor petroleum distillate, to be effective. Adam Kerin supports paraffin lubrication as an efficient use of time and money to apply a lubricant that that blocks dirt and water, keeping the chain clean and avoiding the effects of using oil on modern chains.
In Episode 2 of the Zero Friction Cycling YouTube series (published June 2021) Adam Kerin categorized lubricants:
“Dry” drip lubes. These use “carrier” fluids which dissipate or evaporate leaving some kind of material on the chain. Most of these lubes test poorly in wear testing;
Oily “wet” lubes. All of them lose effectiveness because they trap dirt. All of them work for a while under wet conditions but lose effectiveness as they wash out in wet conditions. A few modern products are effective for a long time under adverse conditions;
Immersion (hot) waxes. These are applied when wax is heated to liquid and penetrates the load bearing spaces where it accumulates; the wax cools to the waxy semi-solid state. The wax fills the space, which protects against contamination. The wax is the lubricant. These lubricants work for hundreds of hours but need to be redone or refreshed. Applying these takes some tools (including a slow cooker or Instant Pot), knowledge and time.
ZFC has consistently reported immersive waxes – paraffin with additives – to be the best lubricants in protecting against chain wear. Video Episode 4, Wax Part 1 provides a narrative explanation. Adam Kerin suggests that plain paraffin, in blocks or in the form of manufactured products (melting down candles) is inferior due the low manufacturing standards. He recommended modern immersively applied paraffin wax products – MSW and Silca Secret Chain Blend (and a few others). However he tested some generic paraffin in 2023-24(there are many variants on paraffin, an product of refining and chemical engineering) Paraffin is discussed in Bike Chains Part 7 in this series.
ZFC also recorded good results with some modern fluid products which he describes as wax emulsions or chain coatings. Mr. Kerin initially differentiated between “traditional” “dry” drip wax lubes and some chain coating such as Squirt & Smoove. ZFC tests showed Squirt & Smoove work well, for a time. He had reservations about Squirt and Smoove – they may not penetrate depending on conditions, and can make it hard to clean or reset a contaminated chain. ZFC tested the wax based paraffin emulsion fluids Silca Super Secret Chain Coating and Ceramic Speed UFO (new formula)(March 2021).
In an interview with Dave Rome and James Huang of CyclingTips in the CyclingTips NerdAlert podcast released March 16, 2022 “Finding the best chain lube for your needs” Adam Kerin discussed his experience with modern liquid wax products including products by Ceramic Speed UFO, Silca and Rex Black Diamond, and updated his assessment of drip lubes. He suggested that traditional dry drip lubes had large amounts of carrier and too little lubricant material to coat the chain parts properly, while modern wax-compatible chain coating products coat the chain better. Some of the chain coating liquids dry into a solid wax or paste.
ZFC largely regarded most “traditional” drip lubes, wet or dry, including the wax drips, and most oily lubes, as inferior.
Factory Grease; Cleaning; Waxing
ZFC tested chains treated with Shimano “factory grease‘ by testing Shimano chains without removing the factory grease (see lubricant spreadsheet). ZFC favours removing factory grease before the chain has been contaminated with dirt and water before putting any lubricant on a chain. ZFC says it is worth cleaning a new chain to remove factory grease. His usual routine involves a chain that is not on a bike, and includes rinsing a chain by immersing it in “mineral terps” (mineral spirits) to dissolve the grease, and agitating (shaking). (In Canada, mineral spirits are sold as such, and also available in a more refined and less odorous formulation sold as paint thinner under the Varsol brand). Adam Kerin also does a further rinse in methylated spirits (denatured alcohol) to remove the residue of the mineral spirits. The rationale and method are discussed in Episode 6 “Chain Preparation FAQ” of the ZFC YouTube series from 2 minutes 15 seconds to 10 minutes.
It the spreadsheets, which are complex:
ZFC calculates the of cost to run a lube, $ per 10,000 Km on assumptions about replacing chains and groupsets. ZFC refers to Shimano 11 speed road chains and components – Ultegra and Dura-Ace, as well as GRX. There are sheets for different conditions. I think the currency in the material from the ZFC site is $ Australian and the prices are in Australia;
The wear refers the replacement standard of .5 mm. across 8 links. Wear in Blocks 2 and 5 is cumulative;
Chain life is a calculation assuming the correct use and periodic reuse of the lubricant;
Some “Immersive” lubricants – e.g. MSW were wax pellets; in 2022 MSW changed to selling cakes of wax; – the wax is melted and the chain is immersed in hot melted wax.
ZFC reviewed several “traditional” drip lubes in 2023, including Finish Line Dry (with Teflon), Finish Line Ceramic, PrestaCycle One, Wolf Tooth WT1. In 2023-24 ZFC reviewed a light generic (sewing) machine oil.
ZFC has published videos commenting on manufacturer/retail product claims and the quality of advice from the staff at bicycle shops.
Chain Durability
ZFC has measured chain wear on new chains to test the chains for durability. As of February 2022, 31 chains had been tested. These tests are similar to the lubricant durability tests. ZFC runs the test machine(s) on chains lubricated with White Lightning Epic Ride, a low viscosity dry-drip lube. The tests are explained:
ZFC graphed the results in bar graphs showing the Km before the wear reaches the accepted replacement point of .5%. The actual total wear, over the length of the chain will vary. An ANSI 40 pitch chain has links 1/2 inch (12.7 mm.) long. A chain will normally be more that 100 links long. A road chain may have 108 links or several more; a gravel or mountain bike chain could be longer. It depends on the length of the chain stays and the diameters of the largest chain rings and cogs. A chain of 108 links is 1371.6 mm long. The replacement elongation of .5% of that chain is a fraction more than 6.8 mm. Most drop-in chain checkers measure a span of 8 to 14 links. ZFC measures a span of 8 (half) links, with a precise KMC micrometer chain checker, at two points along the chain. ZFC defines or calculates the .5% replacement point based on wear on an 8 link span as .5 mm. ZFC reports elongation in a graph “km’s to 0.5% wear – Digital Chain Wear Checker (0.5mm across 8 links)”. The Km to .5% wear graph identified a few chains that last 3,000 Km. with the test lube. The average of the 11 speed chains was just over 2,000 Km. The KMC X11 SL (the semi-premium Super Light model) was above average at about 2,500 Km. [My factory chain had been an X11, but not the Super Light model]. The KMC X11 E-bike chain reached the replacement point at about 1,700 Km. [My new chain in spring 2021 was a SRAM 1170, which tested at about 2,700 Km to .5%.
In the test brief ZFC discusses chain material, surface hardening and surface coating. On the chain testing page ZFC says:
Budget chains … will be made of lower grade steel, and will likely have no surface hardening or low friction treatments or coatings applied (or limited parts receive treatment – i.e inner plates are treated but not pins or rollers.) Premium chains you can expect will be made of higher grade of steel, manufactured to tighter tolerances, and may have numerous treatments such as chromium carbide hardened pins and/or rollers, nickel plating or titanium nitride plating on inner/ outer plates, and again a variety of low friction coatings applied to some or all working parts of the chain.
It is expected that premium chains will be lower friction due to a number of factors (design, manufacturing, low friction coatings), and if have had surface hardening treatments, should be longer lasting.
Adam Kerin makes observations of chains during ZFC’s businesses of preparing chains, and testing – e.g. whether lube is expelled from the chain, and the sounds the chain makes as the test blocks proceed. Some observations are based on measurements. He consults with engineers in the cycling lubricant and the chain manufacturing businesses and mechanics and riders. He employs a model or idea of what happens in a moving chain. He says chain wear is not linear and does not proceed at a uniform pace – a chain has tipping points. He is concerned with whether a lubricant penetrates the spaces where lubricant is need, how well it is distributed, and with when and how contamination becomes distributed. The observations are in the narrative reports and web material, or in occasional cumulative “key learnings” papers (May 2019 paper; and updated v. 2.3a paper). His 2022 summary starts with these points:
Do not use wet lubricants if you ride off road.
Remove factory grease before installing or using a chain.
Immersive waxing is the lowest wear option
If you ride in wet weather, you must reset contamination in chain.
We now have some amazingly long lasting lubricants.
Do not underestimate the drivetrain cost to run difference between lubricants.
Adam Kerin recorded a YouTube Video Episode 18 Key Learnings from Lubricant Testing published on the ZFC channel May 8, 2022. It is nearly an hour long. He also consolidated his updates in update 2.3a, including notes on e-bike requirements.
Chain strength
ZFC uses a load cell device by LoadCell Supplies to test chains for tensile strength. As of February 2022 ZFC has published results on 16 chains. The machine broke down and the tests were paused.
For a few years, MSW was manufacturer of the principal paraffin bike chain lubrication product. Competitors innovated in engineering, manufacturing and marketing lubricants and chain cleaning products 2017-2023, inspiring innovation by MSW:
Ceramic Speed launched its UFO fluid chain lubricant product in 2017;
Silca Velo released a hot wax, a wax chain coating, and Synergetic, an oil based (wet) drip lubricant in 2020 and 2021;
Ceramic Speed released an new version of UFO Drip in 2021;
In 2021-22, Molten Speed Wax began to market and sell a new formula;
In 2023 Silca released a new version of its hot wax;
Rex released Black Diamond chain lubricant fluid and race powder in 2022;
Other manufacturers launched other immersive wax products and appliances;
Silca Velo and Ceramic Speed released chain cleaning fluid chemicals
Silca
Immersive Wax, and Chain Coating Fluid
Silca Velo’s immersive wax product, Silca Secret Chain Blend, became a top lubricant in ZFC lubricant wear tests. Its chain coating drip fluid wax Silca Super Secret Chain Coating, is superior. Its prices are higher than the prices of competing lubes but less expensive than several lubes sold as professional grade (racing) lubes.
Josh Poertner said in videos that Silca had been making paraffin wax pellets for a professional cycling team(s) for a few years, and that Silca put the product into production for retail sale as Silca Secret Chain Blend, released in June 2020. Hot Wax X was released in 2022. Silca followed up with advice videos and promotional videos. Silca did not claim, at first, advantages over other immersive waxes. The first mover in modern immersive wax production had been Molten Speed Wax. MSW and Silca Secret Blend paraffin wax products have to be melted. Each has some additives. Immersive wax was seen as a difficult way of lubricating chains when Silca brought its Secret Chain Blend to market. Silca’s entry to the market inspired MSW to improve its formula and change its presentation from pellets to solid pucks or disks. The sales of wax products have not been reported or published.
Silca Super Secret Chain chain coating fluid lube was announced in April 2020. In some ways, it competes with Ceramic Speed UFO Drip and with a few liquids made from paraffin precursor oils, or natural oils:
Squirt,
Smoove,
Effetto Mariposa Flower Power.
Silca says its Super Secret Chain chain coating fluid lube uses the the same paraffin as its hot wax Secret Chain Blend, with water and alcohol to make the product a low viscosity fluid; the fluid it is supposed to dry out and remain in place as a lubricant wax. The marketing is that this is as good as hot wax, and easier to apply. The label on the containers advises the product should be use on an “ultra clean” chain, new or used. This means, after reviewing Silca’s videos and podcasts, a chain with factory grease and residues of old lubricant and dirt removed – deep cleaned with solvents with the chain off the bike. The reviewer at Road.cc noted this, and some problems with the application of this lube in a review posted in October 2020. It is runny – most of it runs off the chain at the moment of application. I found this to be true.
Silca Velo suggests Super Secret Chain Coating be left for 24 hours after application to let the lube penetrate and dry into a wax chain coating. Silca’s product release information about Super Secret Chain Coating did not discuss the conditions limiting the use of this product – although more information was published by Silca.
Josh Poertner answered questions comparing Silca Secret Chain Blend, Super Secret Chain coating and Synergetic in March 2021 in the Marginal Gains channel video “Choosing the Best Chain Lube“. He said that Super Secret Chain coating had to be left for 12 to 24 hours after application, before use. Mr. Poertner said that a user planning a long ride in dirty or wet conditions would choose, among the Silca products, the wet lube Synergetic. (Further discussion of using Super Secret Chain Coating as a wax-compatible drip lube to refresh or top up immersion wax on a chain in Bike Chains 7 in this series).
Josh Poertner has not, as of August 18, 2024, directly attacked the new Finish Line hot waxes with their microspheres, although his discussions of lubrication of circular surfaces seem to criticize the idea that such particles can do what the Finish Line marketing says they do.
However, in a video published August 16, 2024 promoting more Silca custom wax “chips” he claimed that Silca’s Super Secret (Hot) Wax was the best lubricant in a ZFC test when ZFC has not made that call.
Synergetic drip lube
Silca announced Synergetic wet lube in November 2020. Synergetic superceded Silca NFS, which had been on the market as Silca’s wet drip in 2018. (Silca NFS had been endorsed by Adam Kerin of Zero Friction Cycling in his discussions with Dave Rome of CyclingTips for the March 2018 Seeking the Holy Grail article). Mr. Poertner said that Silca Velo had been unable to obain some ingredients and decided to drop Silca NFS and offer a new product.
Silca’s Synergetic wet lube was discussed in the a 22 minute Silca Velo YouTube video November 17, 2020 Announcing Synergetic Web Lube. The video shows the use of an abrasion testing machine with Synergetic and with Silca’s previous web lube, NFS. Silca has done other videos with the device to claim the superiority of Synergetic to Pro-Gold drip lubes and the superiority of Silca’s Synerg-E (e-bike) wet lube. The development of Synergetic was discussed in the Silca Marginal Gains podcast Lubes & Chains & Marginal Gains, November 30, 2020. The dominant theory has been that there must be enough oil on/in the chain to form a durable liquid barrier film on the surfaces where metal bears on metal and can cause wear. The video shows the wear that occurs where the oil does does not adequately coat the metal. For bicycle chain and other roller chains, this is generally believed to be due to the failure of the lubricant to penetrate or the displacement or dissipation of the lubricant.
In the podcast, Mr. Poertner referred to:
racing car motor oils, Polyalphaolefin (“PAO”) and other “synthetic” base stocks,
high quality type 5 (100% PAO) – the original Mobil 1 synthetic lubricating oil,
the invention of hydro-cracked synthetic oil,
litigation between Mobil and Castrol and
changes in the motor oil industry.
He mentions Silca’s testing and comparison of Mobil 1 with Silca’s NFS wet lube product and the new Synergetic wet lube. The podcast discusses the additives that Silca uses. Wear testing establishes that Silca wet lubes with zinc dialkyldithiophosphates and tungsten disulfide are better than other wet bike chain lubes. Mr. Poertner said that Synergetic is formulated with a high quality synthetic motor oil as a base oil. Silca contends this product coats the chain parts with lubricating tribofilm(s). The application of this product requires a film of oil to supply more additives to maintain the tribofilm, and as lubricant.
Silca initially used dripper bottles with pharmaceutical dripper tips to dispense small drops on rollers, for Synergetic. This is useful in aiming the drops at the edge of the rollers, and limiting the flow to a few drops,with little waste . Silca later dropped that feature and started to use conventional dripper bottles.
In November 2021 Silca released its Synerg-E e-bike lube which is like Synergetic, with an additional “tackifier” additive and/or calcium sulfate to enhance adhesion to the chain.
Marketing
Silca’s marketing has some features:
Silca, like Ceramic Speed, has used a bar graph that looks like the Friction Facts or VeloNews friction efficiency graphs, with its products interpolated;
The Marginal Gains episode on the Silca Secret Chain Blend immersive wax pellets show an Instant Pot, the Silca sous vide bag package, and a non-contact infrared thermometer. These will interest consumers with spare cash and a yen for conspicuous consumption.
Silca’s material about Synergetic emphasized the ease of use and minimizes the time and effort of cleaning chains lubed with the product. Josh Poertner, in the 22 minute Silca Velo channel (YouTube) video November 17, 2020 Announcing Synergetic Web Lube used a blue machine that he calles a Timken machine, an ASTM machine and an ASTM G77 machine. The manufacturer is not named; it may have been made by the American Timken Company.
The videos shows the use of the blue machine with Silca products and with some other drip lubes:
Lubricant Showdown #2 between Silca Synergetic and ProGold Prolink and Xtreme lubes;
Lubricant Showdown 3 between Silca Synergetic and White Lightning Clean Ride and Epic Ride .
The machine is not said to be used to test bike chain components on the ASTM G77 standard. The machine is used for product demonstrations to criticize other drip lubricants. Based on FF and ZFC tests, the drip lubricants were not efficient or efficatious to reduce chain wear:
ProGold
FF had showed around 7 watts
ZFC does not show any testing of ProGold products;
White Lightning
Clean Ride – FF had showed around 6 watts, and
Epic Ride – FF had showed 9 watts; it had failed ZFC testing.
The videos shows the wear that occurs where or when lubricant film does does not adequately coat. The amount of lubricant applied or “flung” is not measured; no time is allowed for distributing or settling the lubricant. The ring and pin arrangement is different than the interior spaces of bike chains. A surface area of the machine ring is much larger than the surface area of bike chain pin or the interior surface of roller. The discussion of lubricant being flung seems to be a distraction, given a ring powered by an electric motor at speed will fling any liquid on the surface.
The length of the wear marks are noted and in the videos is measured. The wear marks left by the machine on pins lubricated by Synergetic were small compared to the wear marks made by other products,. In the ProGold/Synergetic video, Mr. Poertner says that he surprized by how small the wear marks left on pin after the ProGold sessions are, implying he expected larger marks. In the White Lightning/Synergetic video, Mr. Poertner showed how rapidly and badly the sample wore when the ring and the sample pin were wetted with the White Lightning products.A failure of a lubricant to form a film on on the moving or load-bearing surfaces in a roller chain can be due to the failure of the lubricant to penetrate into the chain between the moving metal surfaces, or the displacement or dissipation of the lubricant. Some products – e.g. Silca Velo’s Synergetic- use an automotive motor oil base oil and additives that coat the chain parts with metal lubricating tribofilm(s). Mr. Poertner said that the lubricating ingredients in White Lightning and Finish Line products were diluted in a carrier fluid and did not lubricate effectively, which is are fair points for discussion and comment.
In the White Lightning video Mr. Poertner said the White Lighting products and some Finish Line products contained small amount of PFAS “forever chemical” additives. The environmental accusation apparently is that the products contain Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, and persistant organic pollutants. White Lightning markets Clean Ride as a wax lube, and Epic Ride as made of “non-petroleum based synthetic oils”. White Lightning does not use the Teflon™ or claim that its product contains Teflon. It does not appear that White Lightning says it contains PFTE.
When ZFC tested White Lightning products, the company did not respond to ZFC questions about its marketing claims for its products or about its testing processes.
I did not believe that the White Lightning and Finish Line products were good or good value before I saw these videos. In those videos, I saw the the marketing persona of Josh Poertner, more than his engineer persona.
More Innovation
Silca released”Ultimate Chain Stripper + Wax Prep.” in 2023, which competes with Ceramic Speed UFO Drivetrain Clean. Both are innovative, and different than mineral spirit solvents. Both are supposed to be biodegradaable, perhaps avoiding the enviromental and regulatory problems of disposing of used solvents and petroleum products. Both are expensive.
Other manufacturers entered the immersive paraffin wax market in 2022 & 2023:
Rex wax lubes;
CycloWax in Belgium introduced CycloWax, an immersive wax, and dedicated wax pot.
In early 2024 Silca released:
an additive wax to mix with other hot waxes to strip factory grease on a new chain in a one-step process, and
a dedicated wax pot with high temperature settings to melt the new additive wax and remove factory grease and wax a new chain in a single operation.
In August 2024 Silva began to market “chips” of waxes to alter the efficiency and durability of its hot melt wax products, and began to claim that its wax products had been the best tested by ZFC. ZFC had not published review of Hot Wax X, and listed the Silca immersive Waxes near the top of its tested and partially tested products but not at the top of the list.
There were announcements in early 2024 that major manufacturers in the drip lube industry were planning to release immersive waxes, chain coating fluids, and improved drip lubes. By July 2024 Finish Line had launched an immersive paraffin product called Halo. It was reported to have been failing in the first block of ZFC wear tests – to be as bad as Muc-Off and Finish Line drip lubes, relying on marketing and economic dominance of the relevant channels of distribution and sale of products.
Prepared chains
Shops including MSpeedwax, and ZFC sell and ship new chains, with factory grease removed, waxed with a branded immersion wax, ready for use. A buyer can test the riding a waxed chain. The chains will have to regularly reset by users by successive immersions. If the rider is not happy with the paraffin routine, the paraffin washes out and the user can dry the chain and use it with the user’s lube of choice.
Some vendors, e.g. Silca Velo, offered to provide a chain that has been prepared and polished. The theory is that a shop can polish or treat the metal on the inside of a chain that has been rivetted together by suspending diamond fragments in a lubricant to create a paste or slurry – which is removed by throrough cleaning before the chain is lubricated.
12. Choices
Many or most modern chains are not durable.
A few lubricants have been shown to help make chains last longer. The main options for a user or rider, involve recurring effort and costs:
Monitor chain wear and
replace the chain every few thousand Km., or
buy and use a better chain to replace the chain supplied by the manufacturer;
Keep the chain clean and lubricated; and
Use better lubricant.
Bicycle chain lubricants are chemically engineered petroleum products. Cleaning a chain involves other chemically engineered products, often solvents. Most lubricants and solvents are chemically engineered petroleum products. The main lubricant choices:
immersive paraffin waxes:
Manufactured pucks or blocks of processed paraffin and additives, including:
Molten Speed Wax,
Silca Secret Chain Blend,
other products developed by competing manufacturers – e.g. Rex, and
paraffin that some consumers have access to (blocks, candles etc.);
drip (including “wet” and “dry”) lubes,
Most are not very good:
expensive products from vendors that market widely and aggressively e.g. Muc-Off;
apprarently inexpensive products by brands including White Lightning, Finish Line, WD-40, Muc-Off, etc. ;
A few are effecive but fairly expensive e.g. Silca Synergetic;
chain coating or “wax-compatible” fluid waxes,
Ceramic Speed UFO;
Silca Super Secret Chain Coating;
Tru-Tension Tungsten All-Weather;
Smoove;
Squirt;
other innovators;
A few other fluid lubricants – e.g. Effeto Mariposa Flower Power.
Immersive waxing involves deep cleaning a chain to remove factory grease, and regular immersions in heated (“hot”) wax. Deep cleaning is discussed in Bike Chains 5. The repeated immersions involve a minor amount of time. The proprietary paraffin waxes are available from the manufacturers and from some bicycle supply companies:
MSpeedwax in Shoreview (St. Paul) Minnesota ships its Molten Speed Wax (“MSW”). MSpeedwax also is the American distributor of YBN chains and master links. MSW has been available from online retailers in the USA, although online retailers had product shortages in 2022;
Silca Velo in Indianapolis, Indiana in the USA, ships its Secret Chain Blend and other lubricants;
As of April 2023, Rex Black Diamond immersive wax was on the market .
Zero Friction Cycling, in Adelaide Australia sells Molten Speed Wax, Silca Secret Chain Blend and other lubricants. ZFC encourages consumers outside Australia to order lubricants from the manufacturers or local vendors where feasible to avoid the shipping costs for orders that involve shipping product from Australia. MSW and ZFC sell chain, including YBN chains and some other merchandise.
Drip lubes are easy to apply. The chain has to be cleaned often, and the chain wears in spite of cleaning and lubrication.
Chain coating fluids are also applied by dripping but require extra effort and time:
Some (Silca Super Secret Chain Coating, Ceramic Speed UFO Drip), perhaps all these fluids, require deep cleaning the chain to remove factory grease. The grease occupies the spaces that should be lubricated, and affects the operation of the lubricant.
These fluids have to be refreshed, and the chains have to be cleaned.
Chain coating fluid waxes require a a period of at least a few hours after application(the chain has to have time to dry).
