My mother would always do the quick squeeze on loaves of bread, to determine their freshness. As a kid, I longed to be The Official Bread Squeezer.
Now that I am, I frequently neither squeeze the bread nor check the date. I just kind of assume, like Rilchiam, that any bread I buy will be at least moderately fresh. This is obviously not a flawless theory. sigh
I myself love Oroweat’s Health Nut Bread–thick slices of wheat with walnuts–but it will get moldy remarkably fast. I just assumed this was a quality of the bread. Now I’m thinking I should check the expiration dates.
I’ve left my bread (Orowheat, I think, Dill Rye) in the cupboard for two months, at which point it’s promptly eaten by green crap instead of me. Is there something about bread storage that I’ve failed to grasp?
Also, if the other loaf - purchased recently - has a 2005 expiry date, then is it a safe estimate that the 2002 loaf was actually made in the year 2000?
Wait, on second glance I see that this is white bread we’re talking about, which to my understanding is mostly inorganic in origin. Makes sense now.
Unless this is all a collosal in-joke that I have no hope of ever understanding.
Could it have been that the bread was dated Jan 02 (January 2nd) and she assumed that the 02 was 2002? Likewise the other loaves could have been Dec 02 and Jan 05.
Personally, if I were given the choice between eating two year old bread that was moldy and two year old bread that was perfectly fine, I think I’d go with the mold. What the hell kinda chemicals do they put in bread that’ll let it keep until 2005?
Although I think Cessandra probably has sussed out exactly what’s going on here.
You people are jamming me into a corner; it’s really crumby. I don’t knead this, so soon after my tragedy!
I opened the second loaf, threw the tag away, and made a sandwich out of two of the slices. (They were perfectly fine.) I just now went to look for the tag, but Mr. Rilch has tossed the coffee filter into the trash, so forget that.
Maybe they did mean the second and the fifth of January, I don’t know. All I know is, the bread was moldy. However the hell old it was, the bottom line is, it was moldy. I know that if you open a loaf of bread and leave it in the fridge for two weeks, it will grow culture, but maybe unopened, hermetically sealed bread has a longer shelf life, and I use that term pointedly. scablet may also have a point about the preservatives in white bread. I do know that I’ve been able to keep unopened loaves, that my mom sent me, fresh in the freezer for as long as a month.
But I was not making a joke! Stop grilling me. This is the stuff(ing) that starts flame wars!
Well, I’m lost without my bread
What will I eat before I go to bed?
I brought three loaves home in artic cold
Expired before they were sold
I can’t believe they’re mold(y)…
When I lived in a dorm I used to do my shopping at the local Super Walmart because they were cheapest, and their brand of bread was incredibly inexpensive so I’d buy that to make my jelly sandwiches. This bread was so white it glowed in the dark. One day I couldn’t find the bag that I KNEW had had two more slices left in it. I looked all through the cabinets and it wasn’t there! So I just shrugged it off and figured my roommie ate it or something, and bought another loaf.
THREE MONTHS LATER I moved the fridge to clean it out and that bag of two slices of bread was behind it. Not only was it not moldy, it was STILL SOFT AND UNSTALE.
I had to bread my dog the other day, and while I was tying my slices, I noticed a loaf had kneaded its grain onto my wheat!! Needless to stale, I was ryed. AREN’T I HILARIOUS!!!
Always go for the loaves on the bottom tray, not the top. When the bread gets replaced, the old bread gets rotated ** up **, so that people will grab the older loaves first.