The Disgusting Reason Grocery Store Bread Won't Mold

[00:00:00]I wasn't even going to make this video, but after I let Wonder Bread sit on my counter for 32 days, I decided I need to come back in front of the camera and tell you what happened. Now, look at this.

[00:00:12]This bread sat on my counter. In fact, it sat up on this piece of furniture for 32 days, and it took this long to grow mold.

[00:00:24]If I had done that with my own homemade sourdough bread, it would have grown mold after less than a week, and it would be completely covered. It would be a science experiment inside a plastic bag like this. By the end of this video, you'll know exactly why that happened, and honestly, the answer is a lot stranger than I had expected. So, here's what happened.

[00:00:49]For a recent video, I bought a loaf of Wonder Bread to kind of show you guys what this looks like, the ingredients, and to be able to be credible, and to actually have this Wonder Bread, I bought a loaf. I really hate throwing out food, whether it is debatable that you know, this is actually food, or like a food-like substance is another question. I'll let you be the judge.

[00:01:17]But, I know that this is edible, and I just hate to waste stuff.

[00:01:24]So, because of my indecision, I thought, you know, I'm just going to let it sit there, and I can make a decision. And then, I kind of forgot about it.

[00:01:32]Went about my own life, and had my own bread, probably baked two or three loaves since then. And just yesterday, looked, and I thought, "Oh my goodness, I can't believe it. Now, it's finally going mold. It's taken this long." If I had, like I said, done that with my own sourdough bread, it would have not lasted this long. Now, quickly, what I do with my own bread is I store it in a linen bread bag that I made sometime ago.

[00:02:02]And I usually keep it inside my oven because there's some airflow and a linen is really good absorbing moisture and it's a little bit antibacterial. Keeps the bread fresh and also keeps it from drying out prematurely.

[00:02:16]I can do that because it's just me here in the kitchen and then after usually it depends on the hydration of my actual bread because I usually don't use a recipe. I just kind of wing things and I do it by experience after having baked without of her 40 years.

[00:02:35]>> [sighs] >> It may be susceptible to mold after 5 days, maybe 7 days, at which point and I know a lot of you are going to go she's doing what?

[00:02:53]I do put my bread in a plastic bag in the refrigerator. And I know it's not ideal, but I do that because I'd rather have my bread go a little bit more. It gets fairly firm and it kind of changes the starches a little bit. There's something going on.

[00:03:09]Then letting it go moldy and then I have to throw it out. And sometimes I will cut it in slices and freeze it, but it always depends a little bit on, you know, how things go in my own kitchen.

[00:03:20]However, the linen bread bag is amazing.

[00:03:23]This bread I need to bake really soon. I realize that. Is probably over 10 days old. So, and it's still perfectly fine and edible. It's not exactly fresh bread, but like I said, I don't want to bake all the time and I want to still be able to eat my bread.

[00:03:43]Back to the Wonder Bread. And it goes without saying that my own bread doesn't have any preservatives, any chemicals, any any additives, anything. It's just flour, water, salt, and sourdough starter.

[00:03:59]Sourdough is pretty acidic, and that usually makes it last longer even than yeasted breads, which are susceptible to mold a little faster than sourdough breads.

[00:04:10]Now, with a Wonder Bread, what is so interesting about it is that the mold I'm seeing here is very different from the mold that I would see on my own bread. And I can't show you right now because I didn't let my bread get moldy, but I have had bread in the past that has gone moldy because maybe life happened or you know, sometimes circumstances and all of a sudden you have some mold on your bread. Now, my mold looks very different from this mold, and this mold, and this is why I thought I'm going to make this video is because it is really interesting that this moldy looks gray, and it's sort of like all over. It's not just Usually when I see it on my own bread, I get little specs here and there, but this is kind of throughout the whole bread, and it's pretty interesting. And by the way, if you're interested in making your own sourdough starter, I have a quick little cheat sheet that you can download for free. It is right here and will also be in the description box below that teaches you my super easy method. And then of course, I have a whole sourdough playlist where you can find all of my videos on sourdough and making your own sourdough starter and maintaining your own sourdough starter with my super ridiculously easy method that is no fuss, no feedings, no discards, no waste, no complicated instructions. It's my German family's generations old sourdough method. All right, back to the bread.

[00:05:45]One of the ingredients in here, the additives, is calcium propionate. And that is a mold inhibitor. Now, it will not completely keep your bread from getting moldy, but the fact that it can sit on your counter for over a month speaks to its efficacy. Calcium propionate doesn't block every strain of mold, and what's really strange is that the mold that is showing up now, and I'm even afraid to open the bag here, is a very resistant type of mold. So, that's not the mold that I see on my own bread. That's the mold that actually makes it through the calcium propionate and somehow survives in there and then grows in there. Now, with my own sourdough bread, because I'm using sourdough starter, which contains acetic acid and lactic acid, and that creates a very acidic environment, which is a natural mold inhibitor. So, that's why I don't need to add additives to it. And that also means it lowers the pH, which makes it just really an unfavorable environment for mold. It's not specific to any mold strains. It just completely resists or um creates an environment that mold doesn't like to grow in, which is also what people and bakers have been doing for thousands of years of known wisdom and experience. So, at the end of the day, the question really is which bread molded first, although I do find it very concerning that this one took as long as it did to grow mold, but it's like, what kind of mold are you actually growing? And in your homemade sourdough bread with no additives and no toxins in it and no chemicals, you will just get something that's your garden variety of mold. Well, would you rather have something that is so resistant that it actually cuts through the calcium propionate, the mold inhibitor, and it's almost like mold on steroids or super mold.

[00:07:46]You get to decide. Now, if you're interested in how industrial commercial bread actually came to be, I have a video here in which I talk all about how Wonder Bread got started. I'll see you over in that video.