Bread in the supermarket comes in a wide variety, 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 trick for picking bread.
Step one: Choose the time.
To get the freshest bread, I buy it in the afternoon. Especially for freshly made bread, it is generally 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. Loose bread may look fresh, but it is easily contaminated by dust and bacteria. Without packaging, the bread's moisture can easily escape, affecting its softness and freshness. Packaged bread loses moisture much more slowly and stays fresh for several days. Most importantly, without packaging, you don't know when the 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, sausage, fruit, or other fillings. The latter types are more profitable for the store. To reduce costs, they don't use well-known, guaranteed-quality sausages, and the fruit is often canned. Bread with fillings and meat floss has a more complex production process, such as applying a sticky glaze and dipping it in meat floss. The more complex the production steps, the less hygienic the bread is.
Step four: Choose the appearance.
A neat and uniform 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 that the quality of the oil, sugar, eggs, milk, and other ingredients is poor or that they were used in small amounts. If there are blackened or whitened spots on the bread, it means it was either burnt or under-baked. Some bread has small black dots, which are undissolved sugar granules from uneven mixing. Bubbles on the crust mean the fermentation time was too short; such bread is often hard and dry.
Step five: Choose the texture.
Bread that is extremely soft, like cotton, and collapses into a lump when squeezed without bouncing back often contains softening agents. For sliced bread, a rough texture with large air pockets in the cut is usually a sign of a rough production process. Good sliced bread should have small, even air pockets, which gives it a better texture and a pleasant springiness.
Step six: Check the label.
First, choose a brand. I prefer to buy bread from well-known, large companies. I have visited these manufacturers; they generally have more advanced processes, better ingredients, and reassuring hygiene standards. I have also been to small workshops, which are often narrow, wet, and greasy, with workers wearing dirty work clothes and not wearing hats while making bread. Second, check if the bread is within its shelf life; bread made on the same day 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 is also highly susceptible to bacterial contamination and spoilage.