I never ate much Wonderbread.
Even when I was a kid, I preferred bread that couldn’t be ripped to shreds by chunky-style Skippy, butter, looking at it funny, etc. My mom never bought it either. Her theory was that they manufactured all the goodness out of Wonderbread, then “fortified” it with vitamins after they had turned it into absolute crap. She viewed this process with a great deal of skepticism.
But I must have had Wonderbread at least a few times, because I remember being fascinated by how small you could compress it. I vividly remember taking a slice and rolling it in my hands until it turned into the size of a chickpea.
This is where our journey begins.
While looking for a new Badmouth experiment, I remembered that my friend Shawn, a former football player for the University of California at Davis, had once told me that a fellow player ate an entire loaf of Wonderbread in a single bite by compressing it down into a little ball. Like any other red-blooded American, I was excited by this news. This would make an excellent experiment. There was only one small problem: Shawn had no idea what I was talking about.
He didn’t remember any such story about someone eating a loaf of bread in a single bite. It seems this idea must have come from the fevered recesses of my overworked brain. But, in the interest of science, Shawn was willing to help me out.
He would try to eat an entire loaf of Wonderbread in a single bite, to make my dream a reality.
The first thing to do was to procure a loaf of Wonderbread. I went to the local Safeway and found three varieties: Small, Big and Thin.
I dismissed Thin immediately. It was as large as the Big loaf, but the slices were cut thinner. I didn’t think there was any benefit with associating the word thin with the Herculean task that Shawn was prepared to undertake. I didn’t want to cheapen his effort.
I bought both a Small and a Big loaf. I thought Shawn could handle a Big loaf, but I wanted to have a back-up plan just in case.
Then we hit the moment of truth. I assembled both loaves of bread and Shawn in the same room. And although Shawn has 200 pounds on the bread easy, there were definite signs of intimidation.
“Let’s start with the Small.”
Okay, he was scared. Who could blame him? With all the fortified vitamins from an entire loaf coarsing through his veins, it was entirely possible that the very clothes would burst from his body, Hulk-style, as his muscles grew to enormous proportions. Small was safer.
The first trick was to squash the bread down to a more managable size. Reading the side of the label, I discovered that the Small loaf had 18 slices, or enough for approximately nine peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches with the crusts cut off. The loaf also weighed a full English pound.
I began to have my doubts.
At first the compression technique was working great. The bread was flattened in no time, but it also spread out. Shawn picked up his white-bread pancake and squashed it into a small ball — incredibly small. It it were compressed any further, chances were high that individual Wonderbread atoms would attain fusion, releasing all the energy that makes you grow in 12 different ways in one blinding flash that would level 40 city blocks. Yes, we had pushed the envelope in bread-compression technology. The loaf was as small as we could make it — but not small enough.
The loaf was now approximately the size of a softball. Shawn gamely tried to insert it into his mouth, but it was too large. As for me, I haven’t had anything that big in my mouth since college, and in my defense, I was really drunk at the time.
Although we didn’t prove our theory, I considered this experiment a success. We furthered the realm of bread-related science. Plus we had another entire loaf left. So we decided on phase 2 of the experiment:
How many slices of Wonderbread can Shawn eat in a single bite?
We cracked open the Big loaf.
We decided to roll the slices into little ready-to-eat balls and stacked them on a plate. Despite my vivid childhood memories, they ended up closer to the size of golf balls than chickpeas.
(For more information about popping balls in your mouth, be sure to read my aborted attempts at exchanging recipes with my Nigerian friend Moshood.)
Shawn surveyed the plate and then began to work in earnest. The first few Wonder-balls went in easily enough. And we were both confident that we would make a good showing.
By ball four, room was becoming scarce in Shawn’s mouth. Communication was limited to hand signals, grunts and controlled drooling.
We pressed on.
Balls five and six went in the cheek areas. Giving Shawn a look that could be favorably compared to Marlon Brando in The Godfather or Roeanne Barr in an all-you-can-eat buffet.
To this day I still can’t explain how we got the seventh slice in there. Unless Shawn posesses the ability to unhinge his bottom jaw to swallow gazelles whole like a giant anaconda, the seventh slice should have been impossible. But somehow, through perserverence of will, Shawn got it in there. And that was all he could fit.
At this point, a small flaw in our plan reared its ugly head. With all that dough in his mouth, Shawn could barely breath, much less, y’know, chew. He gave it a try.
Veins bulged like leeches trapped under the skin of his neck. Sweat poured from his forhead like summer rains off a tar-thatched porch. His eyes bulged. His jaw made cracked and popped like a too green log thrown on a campfire. But it was no use. He had bit off more than he could chew.
But Shawn’s loss was our gain as we got some lovely photographs as he regurgitated the pulpy mass that once was seven slices of bread. The final picture has been saved at 800 x 600 resolution and makes a lovely desktop wallpaper.
After resetting Shawn’s jaw, we did some math:
A slice weighed 0.96 ounces, so Shawn had managed to cram almost half a pound of bread in his mouth. That was pretty impressive. 7 slices was more than we thought. But how many slices of the Small loaf would that be? More math revealed that since the Small loaf was slightly smaller, it would have taken 7.56 slices of Small Wonderbread to equal the same amount. Due to my shortsightedness we may never know how many Thin slices that would equate to.
So there you have it. Another chapter in our continuing endeavors to further the boundries of junk-food based science. Your thoughts are appreciated.
July 16th, 2003 at 6:03 pm
YUM!
July 16th, 2003 at 6:44 pm
I think Shawn could do a whole loaf if you used a mechanical press.
July 17th, 2003 at 9:10 am
Maybe if we’d have cut off the crust. Oh well, thanks for lunch John!
July 17th, 2003 at 9:17 pm
I was thinking one of those large vices would of worked better for compression. Possibly a trash compactor or a car cruncher would work too.
July 19th, 2003 at 11:11 pm
I am Shawn’s mother and I see Shawn has the same inquiring mind as when he was just a little guy.
July 27th, 2003 at 4:23 am
I am always appreciative of the badmouth’s efforts to further the junk-food sciences. You really should apply for a government job… because 10 years ago I remember watching the 10 o’clock news and they actually *pay* scientists to study the flow of ketchup. Apparently Heinz doesn’t flow very well… I’m not sure if that’s supposed to be a good or bad thing… But still, you could totally rake in the big bucks for modern science and get out of the summoning game.
July 27th, 2003 at 5:14 am
Someone call Rob Cockerham! His shtick has been stolen!
July 27th, 2003 at 5:46 am
I know Rob pretty well (fellow Sacramento native). His schtick is safe. I was doing this stuff in college before the WWW existed. So was he, I’m sure.
August 2nd, 2003 at 4:31 am
Don’t stop the experimentation there! Here are a couple of food challenges I tried back in my college days, long long ago (early 90s):
- Try to eat two slices of white, untoasted bread in one minute or less, with nothing on them and nothing to drink. Can’t do it! You can get one down, but that will dry out your mouth so much that you won’t be able to get the other one down in time.
- Drink a gallon of milk in one hour or less (and keep it down). The human body can’t handle that much lactic acid in that short a period of time.
We had a looooooot of fun with these two, especially the milk one. One day, we ran into a freshman friend of ours in the cafeteria, and challenged him to the bread thing. After trying to convince him for a minute, he said, “Nah, I’d better not, man; I got sick last night trying to drink a gallon of milk in an hour.” I died laughing!
August 2nd, 2003 at 7:32 am
UM, YOU HAVE PROBLEMS
August 10th, 2003 at 6:45 pm
You rule.
You may however be able to eat an entire “can” of cheese balls in one bite. Is it Planters? I think so.
I once succumbed to the jar of habanero peppers challenge.
August 19th, 2003 at 2:22 am
i want to know what happened to regular wonder bread. all my life i ate regular bread. i don’t like big or sandwich or buttermilk bread. where is the regular bread sold. we live in sandston, va.
September 5th, 2003 at 4:26 pm
Dude! Don’t steal my wonder bread schtick! You’re allowed Country Pride Butter Top, Roman Meal, and Orowheat, but the Sacramento webmaster pact of 2002 clearly gives Wonder Bread exclusivity to retroCRUSH! I’ll see you in court, wiseguy!
September 5th, 2003 at 4:46 pm
Curses, foiled again! As I remember we did these almost simultaniously, but you put yours up first. I sat on this for months as a restult. If I remember correctly, I even sent you a picture from my Wonderbread experiment the day you put yours up.
So there!
Anyways, if anyone wants more Wonderbread-based entertainment go see the story at Retrocrush,an awesome Web site, at http://www.retrocrush.com/archive2003/wonder/index.html.
September 6th, 2003 at 6:37 am
It’s cool, bro…there’s enough wonder bread lovin to go around.
March 21st, 2004 at 10:37 pm
I’m getting wet.
March 22nd, 2004 at 5:50 am
Gay++
March 22nd, 2004 at 5:54 am
your site got farked
March 22nd, 2004 at 6:41 am
oooh Cola U R so hot!!!
March 22nd, 2004 at 6:51 am
I’d be willing to bet that if you put the bread in a vacuum (lack of air, low pressure – not a vacuum cleaner) the air that keeps the bread fluffy would be expelled, collapsing the voids where air used to be in the bread, effectively shrinking it. Worth a shot anyways.
March 22nd, 2004 at 6:59 am
You have way too much time on your hands.
March 22nd, 2004 at 7:15 am
Wow we have alot in common. I once blew up Garfield, sent crazy things to a Nigerian (princess though), but I have yet to do this.
March 22nd, 2004 at 7:25 am
Milk Challenge is definitely doable. Though it is tough, a whole gallon of whole milk in an hour, kept down, has definitely been done. Witnessed with mine own eyes.
March 22nd, 2004 at 8:04 am
Well tried that 2 slices of bread in 1 minute thing….almost, took 1:30…. rolled em in balls first too…i think that just made it harder..ima try again after dinner.
March 22nd, 2004 at 8:10 am
perhaps if they made extra-small space bags[1] one might compress the loaf to a manageable size?
[1]http://www.spacebag.com/
March 22nd, 2004 at 8:29 am
Your devotion to science is remarkable!
March 22nd, 2004 at 11:42 am
I have a feeling your childhood chickpea sized ball of bread was without the crusts. Try again without the crusts. And Shawn is obviously not up to the task of compressing the bread, you need someone with massive strength to get it really small. Or try a mechanical press, like a vise.
March 22nd, 2004 at 1:14 pm
soak it with beer and it will get a little smaller.
March 22nd, 2004 at 1:40 pm
This is exactly what caused the first “Big Bang”!
Stop it before you kill us all!!!
March 22nd, 2004 at 4:17 pm
We tried cutting the crusts off of one. If you look at the plate of balls, you’ll notice one is lily white. It was a little smaller, but not enough to make a difference, really.
March 22nd, 2004 at 5:25 pm
I think a whole loaf in one bite is pretty much impossible, however, if you squashed each slice “pita”flat and then piled them up and re-sqished them, then rolled them, you’d have a long tube of bread…… lubricating it with something like corn oil might be enough to let it slide in one long tube down the throat. I saw someone in college do something similar in eating a whole banana bread…… he held it down for almost 10 minutes before barfing…. the danger is it swelling after it starts absorbing liquid in the stomach.
March 22nd, 2004 at 6:04 pm
2 slices can also be done in a minute, I’ve done it. The ball of bread is your enemy. fold the slice in half, eat the middle, leaving the crust. choke down the crust on its own…. For some reason separating the crust from the middle part makes it easier with cheap white bread. the middle of the bread melts in your mouth. The crust is actually the harder part to get down. But on it’s own it’s doable.
But my most meaningful bread moment was when I was 15, I once ate 13 grilled cheese sandwiches at one sitting. That’s 26 slices of bread and 26 slices of cheese in one sitting w/o puking.
March 22nd, 2004 at 7:37 pm
I once got 36 grapes into my mouth at once. No way I could chew them all. Can’t believe I didn’t choke on one.
March 22nd, 2004 at 8:01 pm
At least I got my afternoon chuckle out of this little site (found in my daily “The Mouthpiece” e-mail). Good job on the experiment although I was hoping for undeniable success – the desktop wallpaper will have to do………..!
CJ
March 22nd, 2004 at 8:18 pm
Superb experiment! Next up, the number of crushed saltine crackers one can fit into one’s mouth without swallowing!
March 22nd, 2004 at 8:46 pm
You might be able to do it if you used one of those vac-sav things to suck all the air out and squish the bread down to nothing. Yeah! Do it! Peer Pressure!
March 22nd, 2004 at 8:46 pm
I have to agree with CJ…this is great for a laugh…got it from my UL (Urban Legends) group…they made sure to say “Don’t miss that last picture!”
JoDee
No offense, guys, but I won’t be using that for my wallpaper any time soon! lol
March 24th, 2004 at 1:18 am
i did the 2 sliced of bread thing in 1:02… is that close enough?
March 25th, 2004 at 5:20 am
My roommate and I just tried the two slices of white bread in a minute experiment. I don’t know what you people are talking about. We both finished in exactly 35 seconds.
Eat both at same time, fold in half. Eat center first, then divide crust into three parts. Don’t chew very much just swallow.
Extremely easy. I could do three maybe four pieces in a minute.
Tony
May 17th, 2004 at 7:24 pm
A good one to try is banana’s and sprite. You eat two bananas and then chug a litre of sprite. the two don’t get along so well! (have a bucket handy)
July 26th, 2004 at 7:01 am
Peanut butter on your gums feel funny plus it made Mr.Ed the horse talk…!
February 28th, 2005 at 7:59 pm
thats awsome man i can do the same thing but wit frogs soo can chocklet bar basics of mKING CHESE I WANNA KISS U AL OVA AND OVA AND AGAIN Y DONT U PRINT UIT GOD PARDON CONTOR P COPUGH COYUG
P
April 7th, 2005 at 9:16 pm
That is so cool. I wish I could do that. I can only do 3 slices. I suck!!
March 22nd, 2004 at 4:37 pm
The Wonderbread experiment
the wonderbread experiment | badmouth.net…
May 21st, 2006 at 5:57 pm
December 24th, 2005 at 8:14 pm
I once drank 100 shots of beer in 100 minutes. Then I had to hitchhike to a bar, because I was too drunk to drive.
September 4th, 2006 at 8:56 pm
I ate 2 slices of wonder bread in 54 seconds..
I watched a chick do the same..
My spaish freind did it in 32 seconds..
Trick is. to pull small potions off the loaf and chew and swallow quickly.. dont shove it all in your mouth..
This wasn’t to hard.. That or wonder bread is smaller? or the recipe has changed.
September 5th, 2006 at 8:21 am
The goal here was to eat as much Wonderbread as possible in a single bite. You were attempting something completely different.
October 17th, 2006 at 12:33 pm
#9 (CT) “food experiments”
How about a 2-part ice cream float?
Part 1 – Eat a mouthful of ice cream & swallow.
Part 2 – Chug down some root beer.
Ahhh! The great American Ice Cream Float! I introduced a foreign student at college to this 2-part treat. Shame on me!
As for the bread thing, I’d hate to chow down the compressed bread and then drink something to chase it on its way. I’d think the expansion would cause some great distress.
January 10th, 2007 at 9:07 pm
January 11th, 2007 at 6:35 am
March 26th, 2007 at 2:45 pm
June 22nd, 2007 at 4:51 pm
Hey all you young guys, don’t you know that “the whiter the bread the sooner your dead” I am 82, still working 6 or 7 days a week (in 4 businesses). I haven’t eaten a slice of white bread since WW2. The only thing going is my memory. Its got so bad that when I’m chasing a girl around the bed and I catch her, I can’t remember why I’m chasing her. I told my doctor last week that my only problem is dreaming of gorgeous women all night. He said, “Jack your 82, its all in your head” I said “That’s why I’m here. I want you to lower it”.
May 8th, 2008 at 8:45 pm
October 7th, 2008 at 6:43 am
20-30 Dollars can educate a child in Afghanistan for a year eternity.
October 26th, 2008 at 9:41 am