Valley Views

valley views Technology evolves

As I helped my 83-year-old grandfather set up his new VR headset recently, I thought about how much technology has changed in the last 30 years alone.

As a ‘90s kid, I was a child of the “Tech Boom,” exposed to constantly and rapidly changing technology at a key time in my development.

My mother got her first cell phone, complete with a pull-out antenna, during a year when my grandparents still had a rotary phone in their kitchen, which I loved to use. All of our movies were on VHS, until the DVD player was introduced to our living room. I was an expert at fixing the loose tape in my cassettes with the end of a pencil when my Walkman caused some trouble. My mom’s CD collection grew as the first MP3 player was brought into our home with its whopping kilobytes of storage. We had a heavy box TV with an antenna in one room and a flatscreen with satellite in another.

Wound watches turned to digital and then evolved to smart. Phone calls moved to emails which progressed to texts. In what felt like the blink of an eye, I suddenly had an advanced computer in my pocket called a phone, far more powerful than the room-sized computers my parents learned to program with cards back in school. With my phone every question I can think of can be asked and answered in seconds flat, even though I never used to Ask Jeeves much of anything. I can read a map, but now GPS can get me where I’m going via the fastest possible route with just a quickly typed address. Somehow, the technology feels like it’s always been there.

I don’t fear changing technology and maybe that’s because it has existed in constant flux in my lifetime. The next new thing has always come along quickly, coexisting with the older without a fuss. I still own DVDs and even VHS tapes, despite spending most of my time streaming movies instead of getting up to put them in the player myself. There’s a map in my car just in case my signal gives out when I’m roaming in unfamiliar backcountry. While I still read books, video games are yet another version of immersive storytelling I enjoy.

I wonder how things will change from here. A member of my family is younger than iPads and has never known a world without constant connectivity. What will emerge in her lifetime that I could never have been imagined? Will it be intimidating? Scary? Or, I wonder as I watch my grandfather enjoy his VR headset and his smart phone full of useful apps, will it feel natural, like it was always meant to be there?

A Taylor’d Approach Taylor Davison Editor, Valley Journal

The best thing since unsliced bread

Ever heard the common superlative that something can be “The best thing since sliced bread?” While, I will admit to using this phrase on occasion, my opinion has begun to change since moving to Europe. Perhaps this commonly held wisdom isn’t so accurate. Let me explain.

Bread is one of the oldest human foods, having been prepared across the world for many thousands of years. While the actual form bread takes varies widely from culture to culture, the basic idea is essentially the same. Wheat or other cultivated grains are milled into flour. That flour is then mixed with water and a couple of other simple ingredients into a dough. The dough then gets cooked over a heat source and the result is bread.

This process is so universal because of its utility. Dried grains, which can be stored well but not eaten plain, are baked into something that can be easily digested. On top of that, the hard exterior crust serves as a natural freshness seal for the softer interior, extending the life span of the bread. The seal of the crust also prevents mold and other harmful bacteria from taking up residency on the inside of the loaf. In a way, the crust is a built-in packaging for the bread. In most of the world, including Europe, bread is made and sold crust intact. However, in the US, the industrialization of food and obsession with convenience led down a totally different path.

An inventor, Otto Frederick Rohwedder created the first industrialized bread slicing machine. One of his first clients, the Chillicothe Baking Company in Missouri would on July 7, 1928, sell the first-ever pre-sliced bread loaves to the public. The convenience and novelty of pre-sliced bread took off like a rocket. By 1930, the Wonder Bread company was selling pre-sliced loaves nation-

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DONE that Ben Stone Media Production, Valley Journal

see page 11

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from page 10

wide. And by 1933, 80% of bread sold in the US was pre-sliced - just 5 years after the first machine became available.

The pre-sliced revolution came with some unexpected effects. First of all, consumption of bread rose significantly and along with it, the sales of jams and other spreads. Secondly, the crust could no longer serve as a layer of protection from mold and bacteria. As a result, the pre-sliced bread was spoiling faster. The solution? Additives. Additives that made the bread last, additives that increased the fluffiness of the interior, additives that made the bread whiter, and the list goes on and on. They raised the increased perceived quality of bread while also making it very uniform. Soon consumers grew accustomed to these standards, making them essential. However, including these in the bread was a bit of a pandora’s box.

For the most part, these chemical additives are seen as generally safe, not something that will kill you on the spot for eating. However, some of these additives are questionable, as evidenced by a number of them being banned in other countries. Take, for example, Potassium bromate and Azodicarbonamide (ACA), which are not allowed in most of Europe, Brazil, and even China. Both of them are artificial leavening agents that increase bread fluffiness and have been linked to cancer and digestive issues in lab animals. ACA is also used as a foaming agent in vinyl plastic products such as yoga mats - yum!

Not only leavening agents are suspect, but growing evidence pinpoints to preservatives that are less than ideal. Two that are heavily regulated in the European Union, BHA & BHT, have been strongly linked to accelerated tumor growth. Additionally, these ingredients make it more difficult for natural bacteria to break down the food. The natural bacteria in our digestive system have more difficulty, too. All of this has me wondering if the added convenience of industrial pre-sliced bread is worth the health risks long term.

While this was the case in the US, Europe didn’t follow down the same path. The culture of bread and bakeries was much more deeply set on this side of the ocean. Most people here visit their small, local bakery every couple of days to buy fresh bread. The various baked goods are all made with relatively simple ingredients and do not come pre-sliced. Bread doesn’t last as long-going bad in several days after being cut- but with a bakery on nearly every corner, fresh bread is easily accessible. In my opinion, fresh bread tastes incredibly wonderful! Sliced bread? Maybe not all it’s cracked up to be!

vj

Get involved with Empowered Programs

News from Ronan Chamber of Commerce

RONAN — The Montana Chamber Foundation completed its second year of The Prospects business pitch competition and awarded Ronan as the winners of the RDO Equipment Co. work-based learning exhibition, a community engagement event showcasing drones and data analysis capabilities and the future of construction technology.

On Sept. 7-8, 2022, we will demonstrate how industry and education partners can support career technical education (CTE) and develop workforce readiness skills that prepare our students for careers in the 21st century.

We are inviting business, education, local government and tribal leaders to engage with us as we create new opportunities through community partnerships and our Empowered programs.

To learn more about this program and how you can get involved, visit the Montana Chamber’s website or contact James Easton, Empowered Workforce Strategist at: James@montanachamber.com.

letters

Play on words

Editor,

When I was a boy back in the 1930s and ‘40s, my brother and my way of responding to the adults telling us what to do or what not to do was to speak in Pig Latin. The words “Pig Latin” become “igpay atinlay.” They would often hear “Easeplay ebay iotquay,” our version of “please be quiet.” A dictionary description of Pig Latin goes like this: “This is a secret language formed from English by transferring the initial consonant or consonant cluster of each word to the end of the word and adding a vocalic syllable (usually /ei/): so, Pig Latin would be igpay atinlay.”

The following is just some fun I had using Pig Latin to share with my friends here at Grizzly Peak. Grizzly Peak is a marvelous ‘Independent Retirement Living’ facility located on American Way in Missoula. So, here’s the short story I made up making “Pizzly Greek” out of our name “Grizzly Peak.”

Most residents here at Pizzly Greek don’t know the history of how this wonderful place got started. Here are the facts:

Dr. Joseph Pizzly, a Greek philosopher and billionaire was a friend of many in our country. Years ago, he donated millions to help get residential facilities like ours started in this nation.

Many of us here often comment on some words used on the daily menu saying, “Sounds like Greek to me.” And that’s because it is Greek. Dr. Pizzly asked that some Greek words be used on the daily menu.

So, eat and enjoy; rest and relax. It’s always good, to learn the facts.

Bob McClellan Missoula

Kudos

Editor,

I want to thank the two gentleman employees of Salish and Kootanai Housing Sewer division for their prompt response to my concern of a drainage problem. I appreciated their professional and friendly manner. They assisted me in locating the problem even though it was not the fault of S&K sewer.

Kudos!

Eileen Hostetler St. Ignatius