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.
Frozen bread or bust. No one’s wants that cardboard you kept in the fridge.
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.
Good to know, I recently started getting bread from a local bakery but it doesn’t last, I’ll have to try freezing it next time
Make sure you cut it first if it’s not sliced, it’s a lot easier to deal with before you freeze it
Oh my god, yes. Otherwise you have a blunt force trauma weapon
Like a poor man’s dwarf bread. If only we knew the real recipe.
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.
In my area it’s common to buy bread daily
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 had air conditioning growing up and my family tends to make desserts more in the winter.
The first summer living on my own, I made a beautiful blueberry pie, and the next morning I took it out of the microwave (to keep bugs away during the night- I have since learned this was also an idiosyncrasy from my parents. Most people just cover it) and it was already visibly moldy.
I’m glad I got a slice the first day, and I definitely learned a lesson but holy shit was it a surprise.
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.
Same. In the winter here, bread can last two weeks, but in the summer it’ll mold in a day or two.
That’s legit. Not really in Canada though.
I had 65% last weekend and since then constantly a bit above 50% in Switzerland. Usually around 30% unless it’s summer. How much is “humid” for you?
We get 90% every day here in Florida
Sounds like mold.
There were mushrooms the size of dinner plates in my back yard the other day. I was mortified.
Humidity where I live right now is 81%. And we’re having a “dry spell”.
Woah.
Today it’s 75%
52%, rainy-sunny mix. This season is incredibly wet.
Well, yes…but 4 day old bread from the fridge is basically inedible as well because of the bad taste.
I’ve never had my bread get stale from being in the fridge for 4 days. You have to leave it in a bag or airtight container.
It just goes into the toaster. Works better than frozen bread with crystals.
Then you probably only ever had bad bread to begin with.
Edit: I suspect all the down-votes are from the US/UK who sadly never tasted good bread fresh from the oven it seems.
Good (fresh) bread only lasts a day or two around my house, because it’s amazing and delicious and everyone just eats it.
Average commercial everyday bread is going to sit around longer because it’s waiting on someone to feel like making a sandwich, or feel like having toast. It’s basically a pantry staple hanging out, waiting to get used. The fridge is fine for that.
EDIT I see your edit - I think culture/lifestyle is also playing a fair part here as well. I’ve spent most of my life living in a rural area where nothing is walkable, so trips to the grocery store were once a week. If I lived in a place I could just walk down the street to a bakery and grab a fresh loaf, that would be different. But just because I don’t live in a walkable place doesn’t mean I’ve never had good bread.
Regular white bread without additives lasts about 24h before going stale. Wonderbread goes longer. Refrigerating any bread ruins it in short order.
I bake frequently, sometimes bread, sometimes bagels, sometimes sweets. If I leave any homemade goods out on the counter in the summer, they would get moldy even quicker than store-bought.
why are you comparing 4-day-old bread to bread fresh from the oven? wow yeah it really doesn’t compare, what genius observation. what kind of storage makes it as good as fresh bread from the oven, pray tell?
Buy less and only eat fresh 😎
Stale bread, no thanks. Even no bread at all is better than that.
But freezing it and reheating it afterwards also works OK for some types of bread.
Buy less and only eat fresh 😎
But don’t you get it? Here in the US, we can’t do that because we’ve got to drive an hour to the grocery store once a week (or less)! Uphill, both ways, fording rivers and traversing icy mountain passes! Waaah!
Obligatory NotJustBikes on how there is a better way
Downvoters are brain dead. Science aligns with the taste buds on this one. Freeze your bread, you degenerates! Doesn’t take terribly long to thaw, doesn’t become dry and stale af like fridge bread.
Hi, it’s you from the future, older and wiser, take your fucking bread out of the fridge!
Keep it in the bag and then warm it up in a toaster oven. Imagine eating sad room temperature bagels…
My fridge bread tastes exactly the same for weeks?
That’s not bread, but some bread looking cardboard then.
It’s freshly baked daily at my local market, not the kind that sits on a shelf for months. If your bread can’t last a few days in the fridge then it’s also probably not bread…
Please don’t ruin freshly baked bread in the fridge! Do you have no taste at all?
Once again it stays tasting exactly the same after a quick warm up in the toaster oven. Maybe you should clean your fridge.
My SO got a chuckle out of me because I instinctively put chocolate in the fridge. I grew up in a hot climate but I live in Canada now.
That’s legit though.
Even when in canada, because cold chocolate below 20°C is cronchier and doesnt melt in your hand as fast.
It changes the taste, though. Like, it’s probably not noticeable for cheap chocolate, as that tastes flat to begin with, but proper chocolate should be kept at room temperature…
False. All chocolate should be frozen.
It warms up and develops its taste in your mouth. Im pretty picky about chocolate quality but i still prefer the expensive ones below room temperature. Unless its like mousse ones. Maybe im just weird idk.
There are certain chocolates I won’t buy in the summer, because above 25 degrees they get spongy and below 15 degrees they are flat and hard. I think it’s why most drugstore chocolate in the U.S. tastes like cocoa scented candle wax. It has to withstand the heat.
I put dark chocolate in the freezer, not for preservation or anything I just love the texture.
crystalline chocolate is the shit, then when you chew it it just sort of turns into gravel and melts, so good
Gotta give the lead some fridge time too
Wait, yeah I guess it does make sense that people living in cold climates wouldn’t put chocolate in the fridge. TIL
The reverse is also true sometimes. Coconut “oil” for example is always a solid where I grew up, and it caught me by surprise seeing it actually being sold as a liquid in normal oil bottles.
I really enjoy coconut oil as a rough weather gauge.
I cook with it a lot, but prefer it to be in liquid form for easy measure (which only happens in the warmer bits of summer here), so in winter, I keep a jar of it on top of a particularly warm heat vent.
I keep my place at 60f/15.6c in winter or it costs a fortune to heat. When it’s relatively warm out, the heat doesn’t kick on often enough to melt it, but when it’s real cold/windy the entire thing will be liquid.
How are you able to keep yourself warm enough with 15-16c of room temperature, though? I can sleep with 18 and above, do daily stuff and touch water regularly without much hassle, but even that drains a lot of energy from me. Below 18 would be a high risk of catching an illness if I am staying home those days.
Heated mattress pads on my bed and couch, mostly. And a heated chair pad when working. They cost a ton less to run than filling a drafty space with gas-warmed air, and are mostly sufficient. A month of both of the big pads being constantly on, on high, barely touches my electric bill, but my gas bill for heat… I keep it that cold because that’s still around $200 usd/mth. If I bump it to 65/18.3, it shoots up to the $350-400+ range. And since I’m not actually comfortable at 18.3 either (26-33/80-90 is about my sweet spot), might as well just keep it at 15.6 and save the money :)
So those, and fuzzy socks, fuzzy pajama pants, and a fuzzy bathrobe. Maybe a high-heat pad here and there, if I’m feeling luxurious or my back hurts. A friend of mine does something similar, but uses heated vest and socks to take the warm along with (rechargeable ofc).
80 to 90 °F is your sweet spot?! Did I read that right?
Yeah, I’m basically built for tropical environments. I’m cold at 75 unless I have a sweatshirt on. And I still wear that big fuzzy bathrobe through most of summer (I don’t have AC, and never have, but I do have dehumidifiers for when it’s really warm, and that’s generally enough).
Hmm, good to know. Electricity rates here are not quite good to go with electric heating, even if for a smaller area, but might be worth checking out to use from time to time. Thanks for the details.
The nice thing about it is that this isn’t actually heating an area, it heats you and the mattress/blankets around you, basically making a microclimate in your sleepy cocoon. Very very efficient, even if your electric rates aren’t great (mine really aren’t either, but it still barely touches it, they just don’t use a lot of electricity). I put my heated pad under a padded pad to help retain and even out the heat, and it helps a lot.
Happy to help either way! So here’s some more info!
https://electricado.com/how-much-electricity-does-heated-mattress-pad-use/
Most of the below comes from that link-
60-100 watts is roughly average energy use, but you can get lower, and smaller pads will use less.
Energy Cost = (Wattage x Usage Hours) / 1000 x Electricity Rate
For example, let’s assume your heated mattress pad has a wattage of 75 watts, you use it for 8 hours per night, and your electricity rate is $0.12 per kWh. The calculation would be as follows:
Energy Cost = (75 watts x 8 hours) / 1000 x $0.12 = $0.072 per night
For one mattress pad for a 30-day month with the above assumptions, it would run you a whopping $2.16/mth.
Warm cloth. The problem is mainly that if it gets warmer during the day, then you end up having a lot of condensate from air humidity on everything and that is the perfect condition for mold to form.
I purchase mine as a solid but by the time I get it home it’s mostly liquid
Ghee is the same way. It becomes thick and granular in cool weather. Otherwise it looks like cooking oil.
yea if you live outside I guess
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yea that’s what I’m saying
I’m here for crunchy chocolate. Also really depends on what season for Canada definitely can get toasty.
I know i’m not the only one prefering chocolate refrigerated (and some variants frozen). Not the creamy type for me.
Lindt with nuts is way crunchier in the freezer.
I keep Reese’s peanut butter cup minis in the freezer when family sends them (not for sale in Japan currently). My wife likes Alfort which are chocolate + biscuit cookies and turned me on to putting those in the freezer. Somehow, it’s much better that way; I didn’t expect the biscuit to be changed or, if so, certainly not better, but it is.
Refrigerating bread slows down mold growth…
This increasing the shelf life.
You don’t have to refrigerate bread. But you can with clear reason.
Mine refuse to refrigerate cheese (other than cream-cheese) and butter. Infuriates me as it gets super oily and rancid real fast.
One of my wife’s friends got persistently sick last year. She just could not get better. Sometimes she’d be fine for a week or two, but then she’d get sick again. Eventually it came down to her needing to document everything she did each day - and they discovered she was getting sick from warm butter.
Turns out her mom had come over at some point and saw that she refrigerated butter and said “you don’t need to do that, it’s so much easier to use when warm and it doesn’t go bad.” Yeah, that’s the case if you eat a stick of butter in a few short days. But you can’t leave it out for more than that or it starts getting filled with all sorts of germs.
Was it unsalted butter? Salted butter can be left out for a while, certainly more than a few days without concern, but unsalted needs to be refrigerated.
Not sure. Sounds like unsalted based on what you said.
i eat salted butter that stay days outside the freezer without getting sick, never tested with unsalted, or my immune system is better idk
For the last few years, I’ve been using butter I leave out in a covered butter dish on the counter since I learned that’s fine. It’s always been a stick of salted butter which I typically finish within 2-3 weeks and that’s never caused any problems. I wonder if it being unsalted would really change things that much…
did she just leave it out uncovered? one of those ceramic dish things with a cover seems to keep it out fine.
Not sure. But those dishes definitely aren’t airtight.
I’ve been made fun of for thinking butter tastes/feels off after sitting out on the counter, but it absolutely does. If you want soft butter, take it out like an hour before or soften it with heat and whip it back into a homogeneous mixture. I usually cut a pad and melt it on top of whatever I’m making before spreading it. Anything but leaving it on the counter to go bad…
Cheese is a weird one though. Definitely refrigerate cheese.
They claim cheese needs to “breathe” and apparently that is indeed a thing for some French cheese, but not have it sit unrefrigerated for a few days 😒
Depending on the cheese, breathing just means being exposed to oxygen, you can do that INSIDE the refrigerator if it is clean
Someone tried to convince me to get a heated butter knife. I think I’m seeing their point on it
Can also just heat a regular butter knife over the stove or more ideally in hot water
My SO is a counter butter er. I’ve told her it’s grow but she won’t listen. She gets her own butter now.
My SO does leave butter in a butter dish but only a small amount.
We got a butter bell, which is the best of both worlds. Room temperature butter kept airtight. Lasts 10-14 days, I’d estimate.
I always thought it was OK to leave salted butter out. Been doing it for years never had a problem I can remember. I also don’t eat tons of butter so would guess I’ve left it out longer than two weeks
Today’s salted butter doesn’t have enough salt in it to preserve itself like that.
Back in like Oregon Trail days they would pack butter in enough salt to preserve it for travel, and people got used to the taste (hence why they still make the two types) but today’s butter is just not salty enough.
I think that goes way further back, because Brittany’s butter is traditionally salty. Like, cronchy salty.
Never had a problem with salted butter but mine’s European, dunno how y’all do it.
Interesting thanks for the info. Like I said I haven’t had any issues so far, but now I think ill pay attention to how long it takes me to go through a stick of butter
I also did that for years, with 5 people in the house we went through softened butter fast.
Then as kids grew up and moved out, I realized it was taking WAY longer to go through. I gave up and leave it in the fridge now. Then again, going through it much slower means that I’m buying much nicer quality butter 😁.
It will eventually go rancid. More oxygen getting to it and more heat will speed that up.
I’ve never heard that, but if it works, it works!
This is the first I’ve heard of a butter bell. I’ve been leaving salted butter out for years, but I bought a glass food storage container with a snap on lid that is basically the exact size of a stick of butter. I suppose it’s accomplishing almost the same thing, although a tiny amount of air does get inside especially as the stick is eaten.
Yeah, butter changes color too. Something happens if it turns soft.
I do this with Colby cheese. mmmm, greasy cheese
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
*2 hours
This is why I don’t bake bread.
Well with some breads yeah… Its healthier and cheaper than store bought bread so I dont mind
Yeah, but…
Worth it
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.
Bread outside the fridge spoils fast. Bread in the fridge lasts longer but is less fluffy. In this household we refrigerate our bread and then toast it lightly if we’re going to eat it straight. Most of the sandwiches I make are toasted anyway.
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.
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.
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.
Fruits from warm climates on the other hand, take cold damage and go bad sooner in 4°C.
Bread absolutely lasts longer when refrigerated
I have an slightly odd one that I do myself: Carrots in a water filled container (in the fridge). That way they last really long and you don’t get that limpy half-dried version after a while that is hard to remove the peel off. They basically stay as if fresh from the store or garden.
“Only white people put ketchup in the fridge.” - my Mexican roommate
Batteries.
