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One of the best tips I learned about reducing food waste is to freeze bread and avoid putting it into the fridge. Frozen bread stays fresh and can go directly
by exhilaration 7y ago
One of the best tips I learned about reducing food waste is to freeze bread and avoid putting it into the fridge. Frozen bread stays fresh and can go directly into a toaster or toaster oven:
Harold McGee replies: Good point to bring up! Bread and other lean baked goods are the exception to the rule that cold storage is good. Bread stales faster at refrigerator temperatures than at room temperature. So if you want to keep a loaf for a couple of days, a breadbox is better than the fridge. For much longer than that, the freezer is the best place.
https://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/09/harold-mcgee-on-bread-and-baking/ https://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/09/harold-mc...
- stronglikedan 7y agoI can only get through a loaf every couple of weeks, so I keep a loaf in the freezer, and only slice off a couple slices at a time. Let them sit on a towel for 5 minutes, and they're as good as fresh without the need to toast them. Plus, it's easier to slice while frozen without smooshing it, and fresh sliced beats store sliced any day of the week.
- mistermann 7y agoYou cut it while frozen?
- hanniabu 7y agoHe keeps a circular saw in his kitchen
- ben509 7y ago... that's not normal?
- mbrock 7y agoThis is why I do my cooking in the workshop so I can use the table saw. A crosscut sled with a stop block is hard to beat for cutting many toast slices to the same width. And of course there’s no better potato peeler than a lathe.
- logfromblammo 7y agoI have a coping saw labeled "FOOD USE ONLY". It's mainly used to cut sashimi slices from a fillet without thawing the fish first. It goes in the fridge with bite-sized nigiri-sushi rice wads, and is defrosted by lunch time the next day. It occasionally gets used to make really thin slices out of slightly stale bread.
- phonypc 7y agoA sharp chef knife will do this pretty well, while unexpectedly a bread knife won't.
- RussianCow 7y agoMy wife and I do something similar, but we cut our loaves into quarters. That gives us maybe 3-4 slices of bread for each quarter loaf, which is generally plenty for a couple days—and if we need more (i.e. planning to make sandwiches or something), we'll just pull out two quarter loaves. I've found frozen bread to be a pain to cut, so we prefer this method.
- jhbadger 7y agoI freeze pre-sliced bread (standard way supermarket bread is sold in US) and use it for toast. It works well.
- bytematic 7y agoYou can freeze almost anything. Bread, butter, fruits/vegies
- glup 7y agobut not cheese
- marxama 7y agoDepends on the cheese, and on the usage, really. My mom works at a cheese factory, so I regularly get more cheese than I know what to do with, so most of it ends up in the freezer. Non-aged cheese (not familiar with the English terminology, sorry) is absolutely no problem to freeze in my experience. Aged cheese, at least the ones I eat, crumbles completely after defrosting, absolutely impossible to slice - but I only use aged cheese for pizza and other stuff that goes into the oven, so the fact that it falls apart just by touching it is more of a feature for me - no need to grate it!
- stevenwoo 7y agoIt depends, I buy a large block of cheddar, cut off a weeks worth and freeze the rest. The frozen cheese of course does not retain the texture but is fine for meals calling for melted cheese. Cheddar usually comes in quantities that would mold if kept in a fridge until consumed for me, so it’s either waste excess by letting it mold or having meals with melted cheese for a few weeks.
- jpindar 7y agoFrozen fruit pieces are amazing, I swear they taste sweeter than than they did before freezing. Especially bananas and grapes. Could the freezing be converting starches to sugar?
- slothtrop 7y agoIn addition to freezing, pickled and fermented foods will last a long while. Beyond that we just meal-prep what we know we need for the week. In the past we'd cook "a little extra" to be on the safe side but it goes to waste so often and frankly we'd rather spare Friday night for either a new cooked meal or takeout.
- rdtwo 7y agoMy freezer is unfortunately never big enough for all the frozen food
- whenchamenia 7y agoA deep freeze is suprisingly efficient.
- novaRom 7y agoWhy simply not to buy less, exactly as much as you will consume? Here at a bakery around corner I simply buy fresh bread every morning.
- NikolaeVarius 7y agoMaybe poster doesn't want to buy bread every morning or spend time getting it on demand when the system works just fine.
- hnal943 7y agoYour baker sells you bread by the slice? Or do you consume a whole loaf of bread every day?
- eurg 7y agoWell, actually, many do (edit: sell slices); that of course doesn't mean that I'd consider that a particularly convenient set-up.
- xyzzyz 7y agoConsuming whole loaf every day is not that strange if you have children.
- hnal943 7y agoI have three kids, A loaf of bread will last us a week. I suppose it depends on your menu.
- electricviolet 7y agoYou buy 2-3 slices of bread every morning? Or are you buying some kind of roll or smaller unit of bread? The smallest unit of bread most people are able to buy is a loaf, and for me, it takes a week or two to go through a loaf of bread.
- joshvm 7y ago
- moate 7y agoIf the godfather of modern food science says it, I'll believe it. I freeze lots of breads, but rarely wind up using them as bread. More often they get cut up for breadcrumbs or bread pudding or stuffing.
- ma2rten 7y agoMy parents have been doing that since I was young. This way they could avoid going to the bakery in the morning like many people in germany do. But frozen bread is not quite same. It has a strange crispiness to it.
- kaybe 7y agoThe bakery will sell you half a loaf if you ask, which is what I tend to do. I never tried asking for a smaller portion, maybe it's possible.
- analog31 7y agoLikewise tortillas.
- RankingMember 7y agoThis seems counter to my experience with bread. I wonder if it differs based on bread type. The whole grain stuff I buy grows mold noticeably faster if left out compared with being stored in the fridge.
- RussianCow 7y agoBy "stays fresh" I think the OP means "doesn't go stale", not that it doesn't go moldy. Bread in the fridge dries out considerably faster than bread sitting out.
- phonypc 7y agoBread staling is actually somewhat separate from drying. The cooked starch recrystallizes, and it's the low temperature in the fridge that accelerates this.
- astura 7y agoRefrigerated bread doesn't mold as fast, bit it gets stale faster.
- quadyeast 7y agoYup, I would rather have slightly stale than moldy bread. And it does not get that stale that fast.
- notJim 7y agoIt's weird, in my experience, bread almost never goes stale. It goes bad by going moldy. I wonder if the bread I eat (usually the industrially produced wheat bread) has higher moisture content than breads of yore.
- bryanlarsen 7y agoAre you keeping it in a plastic bag? That traps the moisture that lets it mold. A proper bread box is designed to let bread dry out slowly so it doesn't mold.
- geoka9 7y agoI find that a lot of food can be frozen - bread is the first thing that comes to mind but also many that are added to dishes (milk, condiments) or reheated/cooked before consumption. Berries and fruit are also good at freezing.
- behringer 7y agoI find this hard to believe, because for the last 6 months I've been refrigerating deli style breads in their plastic and they last weeks instead of days.
- jedberg 7y agoWhen I was a kid I would make my lunch each morning with frozen bread. By the time lunch rolled around, I had nice soft bread and the sandwich was still cold, so I could safely put turkey and mayo in a sandwich.
- tzs 7y agoIf you want to thaw it without toasting it, and like me have a crappy toaster where you never can figure out how to heat it enough to thaw without also partly toasting it, I've found that a short time in the microwave thaws frozen sliced bread very well. (Well, frozen sliced wheat bread. I haven't tried other varieties). If you aren't in a hurry, it also thaws pretty well on the counter. About 10 minutes seems to do the trick. I wish someone had told me all this a long time ago. For the first 35+ years of my adult life buying bread either meant wasting a lot, or eating a lot more sandwiches and toast than I would have liked. The other frozen thing I wish I'd known about a lot earlier is microwave "steam in bag" frozen vegetables, such as [1]. They are only $0.78 at my local store, which is way cheaper than the canned vegetables I used to buy, taste way better, and are trivial to prepare (stick bag in microwave for 5 minutes, let stand for 1 minute). [1] https://www.walmart.com/ip/Great-Value-Steamable-Mixed-Vegetables-12-oz/817042496 https://www.walmart.com/ip/Great-Value-Steamable-Mixed-Veget...
- thatfrenchguy 7y ago> One of the best tips I learned about reducing food waste is to freeze bread and avoid putting it into the fridge. Frozen bread stays fresh and can go directly into a toaster or toaster oven: As a french person, the idea that you would put bread in the fridge just horrifies me. But then most of the stuff labelled as bread in the US really isn't bread. A bread machine will make both your bread a million times better, both taste and ingredients-that-are-inside wise.
- antisthenes 7y agoThe "good" expensive bread that is sold in the US at $5-6 a loaf never lasts more than a few days anyway - it's just too tasty and gets eaten quick And the imitation "sandwich" bread that tastes like cardboard and sawdust easily lasts for 3+ weeks regardless of where and how it is stored. Which makes me marvel at what it's made of that it doesn't go bad in a month. Bread machines are tricky and very messy. They don't produce enough heat to fully cook bread through like it would in a proper commercial oven. At least that was my experience with all the consumer-grade bread machines. YMMV
- joshuahughes 7y agoI have a breadmaker and love it. Pop the ingredients in as you go to bed and come down in the morning to the smell of fresh, warm bread. The bucket is non-stick so really easy to pop out your loaf and clean up. You're right that some models are a poor experience though. If you ever fancy giving one a go again, I'd recommend one of Panasonic's (https://www.panasonic.com/uk/consumer/home-appliances/breadmakers.html https://www.panasonic.com/uk/consumer/home-appliances/breadm...) machines. I'd never use anything else.
- rdtwo 7y agoOnce you get the bread bug you have to keep getting better and better bread till you just end up making home made sourdough
- pkaye 7y agoHow long does the French baguette last in France? Do you get them fresh daily and finish them off? Or is it just the baguette we get here dry out so quickly?
- joshuahughes 7y agoI and various other family members discovered the hard way that frozen > defrosted bread led to serious stomach discomfort — apparently because of the changes that happen to the starches when they're frozen. They change from their normal state into a 'resistant' starch, which can cause you problems if you have a tendency towards something like IBS. Here's one BBC article that mentions it: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/4DfZMpv7BYJ3kGXdHxdxkKp/10-things-you-may-not-know-about-carbs https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/4DfZMpv7BYJ3kGXdHx... "Freezing turns starch into resistant starch... this means that your body gets far fewer calories from the bread. In effect, the resistant starch feeds your gut bacteria, rather than feeding you."
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y agoOn the other hand, maybe that's a good note for people looking to cut calories and still want to eat some bread.
- joshuahughes 7y agoAbsolutely. If you can cope with it, it's a win. It's just important to note that the bread that comes out of the freezer is materially different to the bread that went in.