A tweet depicting bagels sliced like loaves of bread is causing people to freak out

Today in food crime.
By Chloe Bryan  on 

The conventional wisdom is that bagels should be sliced in half horizontally, then eaten. Even popular bagel practices like toasting and the bagel sandwich are up for debate. This is why so many people on Twitter found the following tweet so disturbing.

This bagel spread -- which appears to be from bagel crime purveyor Panera Bread -- is essentially many pieces of bread made of bagel flesh. They still taste good, probably, because they are made of bagel, which is a good substance.

However, slicing a bagel into bread-like slices means that you're likely to end up with two mini-slices -- tiny discs! -- that remain once you've cut all the slices on either side of the bagel's hole. Who is supposed to eat these? Are you supposed to take a mini-disc in addition to your slice of bagel? How many slices of bagel is each person supposed to have, anyway? Why not simply slice the bagels in half?

It is all extremely upsetting.

It should be noted that the bread-slicing practice does have a few supporters -- including, apparently, half the team at Panera HQ. It's true, we suppose, that if you're looking for a high toppings-to-bagel ratio, a thin bagel "toast" would provide the base on which to fulfill your sick dreams.

But the beauty of a bagel is in its crunchy, then impossibly chewy bite. When sliced like bread, this pleasure is gone forever. (Perhaps this is a moot point, though: Panera bagels are not known for being particularly crunchy or chewy.)

We have reached out to Panera Bread for further comment on this egregious slicing practice and will update if we hear back.

UPDATE: March 27, 2019, 1:57 p.m. ET A spokesperson for Panera Bread confirmed via email that while they're not sure how popular this particular slicing practice is, they'll slice a box of bagels "however you like." FYI if you want bagel toast!

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Chloe Bryan

Chloe was the shopping editor at Mashable. She was also previously a culture reporter. You can follow her on Twitter at @chloebryan.


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