I live in a humid climate (especially in the summer), and if we don’t refrigerate our bread and tortillas, or any baked goods, they get moldy in like 4 days.
Have you tried freezing it?
Refrigerating baked goods accelerates staleness, but most baked goods freeze well.
I’ve had bread in the freezer for months, I throw it straight in the toaster and it comes out like, well… normal ass toast.
Freeze it every time.
If you’re anything less than a family of four, leaving bread at room temperature is just eating half a loaf of bread and then throwing away half a loaf of mouldy bread.
Most supermarket bread has indeed already been frozen before you get it.
I even freeze all the cakes from Costco, since they only seem to come in packs of about a thousand.
Only exception for me is tortillas. I mean they technically freeze well, but they will also stick together which would make quite a thick burrito.
My parents always freeze them and I always forget until I’m there trying to make a burrito and it tears in half.
yup. tortillas go in the fridge so you can get individual ones easily. Staleness never really bothered me, but i do warm them up on the stove to improve malleability. And i like to get my burritos a little crispy on the outside to help seal the final fold. Now i want burritos…
I freeze tortillas, one trick to using them after they thaw is rolling the whole package a couple of times both ways.
Still have to be careful separating them, but it’s no worse than a package of tortilla that has sat underneath too much weight for too long.
This trick also works with tortillas that sat underneath too much weight for too long
Chuck them in the microwave or better yet put baking paper (which if i recall correctly you usians call wax paper or parchment paper) in between each tortilla before you freeze it to keep them seperate
This is the way. It’s all I do.
If I’m going to use the bread in the next couple days? I’ll keep it out. Otherwise, I put all my baked goods/bread in the freezer, and extra freezer I bought. Keeps for months. 6+ months if you’re lucky and willing to deal with it being overly dry.
Yes, we freeze some as well
people are downvoting a scientifically verifiable statment.
owning the bread chillers
Likewise. I enjoy my bread lasting more than four days.
Same. I don’t get why people act like putting bread in the fridge is world ending. Unless your eating a whole loaf of bread in 2 days in the fridge it goes.
That or you get a loaf of mold on the 4th day.
Probably because it sucks to eat cold bread
You can take two slices out for like five minutes and you’ll be good my guy.
Or lightly toast it? You don’t have to get it crispy to warm it up. It’s better than moldy bread
Also pan toasted toast with butter is way better than the toaster
I just butter and toast on low heat and flip once the other side starts to feel warm
That’s so good and I do this too. I don’t actually even own a regular toaster anymore. I do have an old toaster oven. The timer on it hasn’t worked in years but I have other kitchen timers and it still cooks like a champ. It even has a convection mode.
Toasting! Doesn’t even have to be browned, doesn’t even have to go long enough to get firm, but a little warming up makes bread even better! :D
I refrigerate my bread, english muffins, and tortillas too!
I too grew up in a humid environment and got used to using either a bread box or the fridge.
Then I realized that our bread was just cheap sugar infused garbage, and that if you pay a bit more for better bread, it does not mold anywhere nearly as quickly.
That’s legit. Not really in Canada though.
Same. In the winter here, bread can last two weeks, but in the summer it’ll mold in a day or two.
Refrigerating bread slows down mold growth…
This increasing the shelf life.
You don’t have to refrigerate bread. But you can with clear reason.
If I don’t put my bread in the fridge, it’s moldy within a week. It’s all meant to be toasted anyway.
Clean your cupboards. Mold spores can remain on surfaces for months. Give everything a good wipe-down with some cleaning spray or vinegar solution and then leave the cabinets open to dry out well. And do it again anytime food gets moldy.
Packaged bread should last more than a week, but fresh bread is meant to be eaten within a few days, if not the same day.
I used to live in a desert and bread easily lasted for weeks. Once I moved to what is essentially a rain forest, it doesn’t last more than 5 days. I have to refrigerate it.
Yes, you’re right about the humidity being the biggest factor, and that will also make bread go stale. It also depends on whether it’s prepackaged bread or freshly baked. Prepackaged bread is less likely to arrive with mold spores, and the packaging keeps humidity out during transit and storage. Once it is opened to the humidity, especially in tropical climates, refrigeration will slow any growth.
For people in arid climates, their refrigerator might actually be more humid than their cupboards.
Humidity is an interesting metric. It’s a percentage of the airs total capacity to absorb moisture.
It’s not a measure of percentage of water(vapour?) in the air.
Air can have 100% humidity. It can’t have 100% water
Greatly depends on your country. Dutch bread is very fresh when bought with little to no preservatives. So we freeze our bread, like 90%of us, cuz it will mold in the fridge after like 4 or 5 days if not sooner.
I’m guessing you don’t live somewhere with high heat & humidity, or if you do you run your AC a lot. We keep bread on the counter and in the fridge but not all bread is equally resistant to mold, even some packaged bread. In the winter it’s a lot more forgiving. Also we just open the windows and run fans quite a bit in the summer.
Naw, I’m too lazy for that.
I’ve gotten some bread with no preservatives and it went in a couple days
If i bake bread i will eat it within 2 days
Mine didn’t refrigerate bread when I was growing up, but I do now. There are less people in the house so the bread stays around longer.
My suggestion would be to freeze half a loaf and pull it out when needed. Bread thaws quite well and it doesn’t get stale that way.
I didn’t learn this til recently. My bread use to spoil after a week. Now I just keep it in the freezer and toast it when I want to use it. Comes out perfect every time.
I haven’t had a problem with the last pieces being stale. Either that or I’m just not very picky about how stale bread is.
You’re not very picky.
Refrigerating bread makes the yeast crystals break down and go stale faster. Heat can fix this, but only once or twice. This is why toasting stale bread brings it back a bit.
Freezing bread is the correct way, as it stops the yeast crystals in their tracks, rather than breaking them down. Reheating frozen bread gives you almosy fresh bread.
Think about how bread is stored before you buy it. Unless it’s only partially cooked, it’s not refrigerated.
You’re not very picky.
I will agree with that statement. As long as I’m not eating anything dangerous (I am picky about that!), I prefer it that way.
Exactly what I do. I can actually buy a bunch of bread now because most of it stays frozen and there’s only half a loaf on the counter at a time. It’s kind of miraculous how well it dethaws.
This is going to sound like a real stupid question.
When you unfreeze it, does it get sad looking and taste funny?
Or am I doing something wrong?
My mom froze bread when I was growing up and it always made it soggy and crumbly. I don’t know how all these people are so happy with it. When I got out on my own I found never frozen is much better. Just buy half loaves if you’re worried it’s going to go bad.
I wonder if the type matters. I put all my loaves in the freezer from Sam’s and just take one out and put it in the bottom cupboard the night before if I’m low/out and it looks and tastes exactly the same as the never frozen loaf I will use first after I get home from shopping. I love my dedicated upright freezer. Not as efficient as a chest freezer but it’s convenient enough that my kids and I actually use it daily instead of trying to avoid it.
Straight into the toaster from the freezer. If you want bread, set the toaster light. If you want toast, set it dark.
Some toasters even have a switch for frozen bread to compensate.
Here in rural Canada we have always frozen bread even short term. Mostly because mice can’t get into the freezer.
You’re not going to enjoy dethawed bread if it formed crystals in the freezer. The only option is to toast it.
You might be doing something wrong. Definitely should be in a airtight ziploc bag. It will get sort of freezer burned if not. Toasting it instead of thawing helps.
That’s what i’ve always seen as well. I don’t know what people do to make it work
It was my mom that did this, and always got store brand white bread. For the people saying it works, are you on the Wonder Bread side, or something with more substance?
I keep it in the bag on the counter and it thaws just fine
Not mine.
Slice it first and you can then fetch a slice from the freezer and pop it into the toaster, easy peasy hot bread in the morning.
It’s weird how common this claim is. Growing up, my Mom always frozen bread to keep it longer, but it always tasted bad and was the wrong texture
Homemade isn’t.
Are you a medieval peasant? Most folks in the US buy our bread premade, some are even lucky bastards and live by a bakery.
Even medieval peasants bought their bread from bakeries most of the time.
No I’m trying to save money, because bread here is 5 dollars a loaf. Homemade is way cheaper and it’s very easy.
Refrigerated bread goes stale faster.
But not moldy, which is dangerous as opposed to inconvenient.
Can always throw the bread in the microwave for 10-15 seconds to give it some life anyways.
It goes stale faster, but molds slower. If it molds before you can use it, then staleness isn’t the issue.
That hasn’t been true in my experience. If anything leaving it out on the counter makes it get stale (and worse, moldy) much faster, whereas i can leave a loaf in the fridge for a month or two and it will be perfectly fine.
i can leave a loaf in the fridge for a month or two and it will be perfectly fine.
I hate to break it to you, but that ain’t bread.
Ehhh I mean yeah technically it’s “Scientifically Enhanced” Bread, but the “real” stuff is only good for a short time. I need something that doesn’t rush me to eat like 5-10 sandwiches (or meals where bread is a side) in one week.
5-10 sandwiches a week is a lot of bread to you? When I was in high school as a growing teen-aged boy I would eat that in a day. Most families with kids will go through 1 or 2 loafs of bread each day.
Is this a personal thing or do Americans in general just eat very little bread?
American eat way too much bread … but I don’t get it either. I tend to follow a routine for breakfast and lunch: one sandwich a day for lunch will use up a loaf in about a week
Don’t get me wrong, when I was a teen I’d go to the bakery, pick up a loaf of fresh french bread and eat it on the walk home. But those days are long since past, unfortunately. And I don’t have kids.
It’s worked fine for me so far.
I didn’t used to refrigerate bread but living in Seattle bread here can mold in like 2 days. It all lives in the fridge now to give it a fighting chance
As a german this is heresy.
What Americans call “bread” doesn’t qualify as bread to Germans anyway. Kinda like beer.
We make plenty of good bread and some of the best beer in the world. We just also make some of the worst of both. Big country, tons of room in the market. (We also have excellent wine, chocolate, cheese, whatever you want. It’s just not necessarily at your local supermarket.)
What Americans call Democracy also doesn’t qualify
“sparkling voting”?
Oof, I wish you weren’t right.
I basically just go by whether or not it was refrigerated in the supermarket. However, once it’s opened I mostly throw everything in there except for dry stuff.
Good general rule. Only exception I can think of is there are a few fruits they’ll refrigerate in the back and then often display at room temp, since a few hours at room temp doesn’t hurt them much. Apples, oranges, stuff like that.
You don’t need to refrigerate apples and oranges? Just leave them in the counter for easy snacking.
lol what supermarket is moving apples and oranges in and out of the refrigerator every day for display purposes?
It’s pretty common actually. There is a large walk-in cooler in the back where perishable backstock is stored. When new apples are needed, a big box is fetched from the cooler and the apples are restocked in the display.
Most of the stuff is kept in the back cooler, only things left out are those harmed by refrigeration like tomatoes or those that don’t go bad for a long time.
With apples it extends their life by quite a long time though. Probably over double.
products with any sort of packaging also say how they should be stores pre and post-opening, e.g. canned goods are generally fine to keep in a cupboard until opened where they then need to be in the fridge.
There are a lot of things sold unrefrigersted that need to refrigerated after opening. Like every jar of spaghetti sauce I’ve ever bought.
Living in the tropics, it’s rather common to refrigerate bread, else you run the risk of mould overnight.
Freezing bread is much more effective and it comes right back to life after a bit of heating. Refrigerating it just dries it out imo.
Put it in a container…lol no one just throws a loaf in the fridge.
no one just throws a loaf in the fridge.
This is literally what I do.
Thats why you buy wonderbread.
That shit wont mold if left in a swamp for 3 months on a mossy rock.
That makes me wonder why I should put it in my body. 😬
There is no possible reason anyone should ever buy Wonderbread. Except perhaps to use as a pillow in emergencies.
Somebody get Mike Lindell on the phone, I think we figured out a way to make America great again!
Putting boiling water in the freezer is so useful, like you can cook it once and freeze it, then get it out when you need it and just reheat it a little.
I’ve lived on my own for a while and I freeze everything I can. Nothing lasts long enough unless it’s frozen or shelf safe.
This does mean I get a lot of my fruits in smoothie form.
I’m lucky most vegan things last longer than the non-vegan things I grew up with.
I’m vegan too, and God bless how long our food lasts.
I just now for the first realize that my food waste has gone to almost 0 since i’m vegan.
Same. Maybe the odd head of lettuce.
I’m so confused right now. We aren’t completely vegan but we mostly cook vegan at home. But like, that’s the majority of the stuff that goes bad? All the fresh vegetables and fruit? Vegan spreads, milks and yogurts go bad just as fast as dairy ones. I have the feeling oat milk goes bad faster than homogenized cow milk. Eggs never go bad. I hardly remember ever tossing a piece of meat or fish, but hell whenever I have to buy a 2 kg sack of carrots because it is just so much cheaper than 700g of carrots and 1/2 of it goes bad (and it’s still cheaper) or I buy a perfect bell pepper just to open it to find mold or that brown stuff in avocado or I buy organic lemons and they are 2/3 moldy the next day I can’t even… I have a special storage thing for potatoes and they still go bad occasionally. Yesterday garlic from the store was half rotten. Or when you didn’t notice a tomato got a hit in your bag and that injury proceeds to mold… Or when your kid tossed the apples on the floor and they all develop bruises faster than you can eat them all and they just aren’t that tasty anymore… We are trying our best to go to the store for fresh stuff daily but I feel like it is still a fight against nature.
So for real, what are you guys talking about? Absolutely no offense, I am genuinely curious why our experiences differ so vastly.
I dunno why exactly. It’s just my experience.
Maybe it’s because plant cells have cell walls, making them more rugged?
My veggies have always lasted the same amount of time, but things like tofu and milk last forever.
Plant milk last sooo long compared to cows milk.
“Plant milk” is not milk, it’s a vegetable beverage.
Fuck, here I was, jerking off to the thought of almond titties all this time
You say that like it’s something I care about. Only carnis get caught up about this.
It’s white shit I pour on my cereal and drink with my pb sandwiches.
Fucking weirdos sucking on cow tits get upset when someone compares an alternative to their cow tit juice.
Cows milk is for baby cows, grow up and stop stealing from babies.
You can dry-age beef for up to 4 months. Some people go even longer. Of course, you could also can it like fruits and vegetables, but I’ve never been a fan.
Then there’s mastodon meat dug out of the tundra that dogs would still eat…
Maybe, but the smoothies are disgusting.
Mmm, mastodon smoothie.
Yes, how to dry age meat would be very useful to a vegan.
Bread absolutely lasts longer when refrigerated
Try living with a French room mate and find out what doesn’t go in the fridge. Hint: everything.
Batteries.
I read that in the 90s and having burned through thousands of batteries to power my Gameboy, i would have done anything to get more juice.
You could have literally told me that kissing the battery before you tuck it into the Gameboy slot gave 3% more juice and I would have did it.
This reminded me of another one that probably nobody does anymore: photographic film rolls.
Cooling down batteries literally saps their charge. Because there’s less energy in the battery. You can gently warm up batteries to give them some extra charge.
The internet says that’s not true (edit: at least for alkaline batteries, but for LiPo batteries I think you’re right). It sounds like condensation is the main issue, so theoretically you might get a slight improvement if you put them in the fridge inside a plastic bag along with some desiccant.
Got it, to the microwave we must march lads!
Americans: Eggs
Europeans: WTF?That’s because in America we’re so concerned about contaminants on shells that we clean all the protection off the outside, making the shells porous enough for bacteria to get through. Store-bought eggs in the US so have to be refrigerated.
I’m aware. I have raised chickens. I was trying to make a funny, but seem to have missed the mark
Yeah well I wasn’t aware of this. Replies to your comments aren’t just for you, you know; they’re for the whole community.
I was referring to the downvotes on my comment, not the reply
America also doesn’t vaccinate their chickens.
Can’t have autistic chickens! /s
Imagine being so concerned about bacteria outside that you punch holes in the “packaging” lol
This is because of a difference in food safety standards. When eggs are laid, they’re covered in something called bloom. It’s a slimy coating which the chicken produces. It’s full of good bacteria, and it protects the eggs and prevents them from spoiling. So Europeans buy eggs with the bloom on them, and don’t need to refrigerate their eggs.
But in America, the Food and Drug Administration has strict regulations regarding animal poop near food. Namely, you can’t have animal poop near your food. Full stop, with very few exceptions. And since chickens poop out of the same hole they lay eggs from, part of the bloom is, in fact, chicken poop. So eggs in America have to be washed, to remove that chicken poop before they can be sold. But this also removes the bloom, meaning the eggs are unprotected and need to be refrigerated.
Bloom it up! Local farm stands have a good bet of being unwashed eggs. Can’t say I blame the FDA on this, given the awful state of dairy and chicken farms that we get these eggs from…
From Europe, never had a slimy coating on my eggs.
It’s dry by the time it reaches you, but is still protecting the eggs by filling in all the pores in the eggshell. Basically, eggs in america have porous shells, which means they spoil faster in the open air.
it’s perfectly standard to keep eggs in the fridge here in sweden, no reason not to since it just makes them last forever.
Wastes space imo
yeah i can see that, if you need the space more and eat eggs a lot anyways then it definitely makes sense to keep them outside the fridge.
But for me who eats an egg every now and then and buys 6 or maybe 10-12 packs, i don’t even consider keeping them outside the fridge.
I don’t eat eggs but my spouse does store them on the counter. Fresh farm eggs don’t need refrigerators.
I am American but I buy my eggs from a local farm, where they do not do more than a light wash with water. No fridge for those.
I refrigerate bread. It’s much better and more effective than a bread box. My parents did not refrigerate bread because they live in a different part of the country where it would not mold over as quickly.
Refrigeration slows down development of molds, but at the same time expedites starch retrogradation, leading to the bread going stale quicker.
Rather have slightly stale bread then molded bread 🤷♂️
Can’t even tell its stale when you toast it a little and make a sandwich or something with it.
Didn’t know this. Makes sense now why the bread is so much not crumbly. We don’t eat out bread quickly enough and with the humidity where I am in Aus it just started making sense to refrigerate.
I honestly freeze almost all my bread. I don’t go through a loaf nearly fast enough to finish it off before the remaining slices start going fuzzy.
In the freezer I can take out slices as and when needed.
But if my tiny freezer box is full, the fridge will also buy me several days.
“Only white people put ketchup in the fridge.” - my Mexican roommate
non refrigerated ketchup always tastes funky unless it’s the kind that’s packed with a large enough buttload of preservatives that they no longer have to put “refrigerate after opening” on the bottle.
I just realized ketchup in restaurants stay out at room temperature.
Resutrants are going though it at a much quicker pace than your bottle at home.
Some might put them in the fridge when they close or even have many extra so that they can be rotated in and out. But, given the frequent state of ice machines in restaurants, it wouldn’t surprise me if the way condiments are handled is less than ideal.
Though, on the other hand, if it’s not resulting in a bunch of cases of food poisoning, maybe it serves as immune system training that just gives you an ick feeling when you realize what’s been going on this whole time.
Many places use those individually sealed packets, too. Ketchup bottles usually say “refrigerate after opening”, so those things are probably fine, other than maybe plastic content.
Personally, I refrigerate anything that says Refrigerate after opening. Even if it’s preceded by For best results. Ketchup falls into that category.
Ketchup belongs in the fridge, to cut the heat. Otherwise it’s too spicy.
There’s two very distinct brands of white people: The “I like boiled meats because browning it makes it too spicy” brand, and the “if it’s not making me cry and shit bloody fire, it’s too bland” brand. There is no in between.
Wat. Tomatoes are spicy?
FWIW Mexicans don’t know what spicy is, either. They think Tapatío is spicy.
source: I’m half Mexican.
I think it’s because chamoy usually doesn’t need refrigerated.
I’m laughing way too hard at this thank you
I always had ketchup in the fridge because it gives the mustard company.
I like the temperature contrast between cold ketchup and hot food so mine is in the fridge.
The best before date is based on it being refrigerated and the reason why we do it is to slow bacteria multiplication to a crawl
Growing up, our ketchup came in plastic bottles with that little aluminum seal between the nozzle and the bottle. Our rule was it stayed in the pantry until the seal came off, then it went in the fridge.
To your roommate’s credit, we are “my brother got sunburns in winter” white.
My mother, for years, has frozen bread and then defrosted it two pieces at a time in the microwave.
If you’ve ever seen the Albert Brooks movie Mother, that’s her. She even said it was her when she saw it. She’s even started writing novels in her old age after wanting to be a writer when she was a kid.
Freeze bread to keep it from going bad and thaw it as needed either at room temp or low heat in a toaster oven. Bread in the fridge just dries out.
We always freeze all our bread, we don’t eat it fast enough for it to not go bad (is this a weird take??).
But yeah thawing bread in the microwave is roughhhh, we either use a toaster or just let it thaw at room temperature.
To be fair I bake my own bread, and I usually freeze half the loaf because without preservatives it goes bad fast, but thawing at room temp is fine. But store bread no.
that is the way
I freeze all my bread and put it in the toaster to thaw. I don’t want to eat fresh bread for two days and then the rest of the week the rest of the stale loaf.
