Six Tips for Choosing Bread Buy Bread in the Afternoon
The supermarket offers a wide variety of breads, and novices are often misled by their colorful appearances, rich aromas, and various fillings. How can you sharpen your eyes and buy the freshest and most delicious bread? As someone who has studied bread for decades, I have a six-step secret to choosing bread.
Step one: Choose the time.
To eat the freshest bread, I buy it in the afternoon. Especially for freshly made bread, it is usually baked in the morning. If you rush to buy it early in the day, you might end up with leftovers from the previous day.
Step two: Choose the packaging.
I rarely buy loose bread and prefer packaged bread. Although loose bread may look fresh, it is easily contaminated by dust and bacteria. Without packaging, the bread's moisture is easily lost, affecting its softness and freshness. Packaged bread loses moisture much more slowly and can stay fresh for several days. Most importantly, you don't know when loose bread was produced, making it easy to buy expired or spoiled bread.
Step three: Choose the variety.
When buying bread, always choose the simplest ones. I usually buy plain milk bread, toast, or whole grain bread, and never buy bread with meat floss, sausages, fruit, or other fillings. The latter types are more profitable for the store. To reduce costs, sausages are not from well-known, quality-assured brands, and the fruit is often canned. Bread with fillings and meat floss has a more complex production process, such as brushing the surface with a sticky liquid to coat with meat floss. The more steps involved in the production, the less hygienic the bread is.
Step four: Choose the appearance.
A neat appearance is very important as it represents the quality of the bread. Also, check if the surface is oily and has a golden luster. Bread that is pale and dull indicates poor quality or a small amount of ingredients like oil, sugar, eggs, or milk. If there are dark or white spots on the bread, it means it was either burnt or under-baked. Some breads have small black dots, which are undissolved sugar grains from uneven mixing. Bubbles on the crust mean the fermentation time was too short; such bread is often not tasty and has a dry, hard texture.
Step five: Choose the texture.
Bread that is as soft as cotton wool and collapses into a lump when squeezed, without returning to its original shape, often contains softening agents. If it's sliced bread and the cut surface feels rough with large air holes, it's often due to rough craftsmanship. Good sliced bread should have small, even air holes, providing a better texture and elasticity when eaten.
Step six: Check the label.
First, choose a brand. I prefer to buy bread from major, well-known companies. I have visited these manufacturers; they generally have advanced processes, good ingredients, and reassuring hygiene standards. I have also visited small workshops, which are often narrow and full of water and oil, with workers wearing dirty work clothes and not wearing hats while making bread. Second, check if the bread is within its shelf life; freshly made is best. Third, look at the ingredient list. If it contains words like potassium sorbate, calcium carbonate, or calcium propionate, it contains preservatives, and it's best to buy less of it.
Finally, a reminder: if the bread packaging is damaged or not sealed tightly, do not buy it. Such bread not only loses moisture and becomes dry and hard, but it is also highly susceptible to bacterial contamination and spoilage.