Why bread should not end up in the rubbish

Central Europe is the cradle of bread culture: there are more than 3000 types of bread, and new trends are constantly emerging. But how can you recognise good or bad bread?

Good bread is certainly not sliced and shrink-wrapped in plastic. Stored in plastic, it would immediately start to soak and mould. You can't pre-cut good bread either, because every single slice would dry out. Good bread that is whole will keep fresh for at least seven to ten days. Of course, it dries out a bit, but it is still so juicy and so soft at the core that it is good to eat. On the contrary, very fresh bread should not be eaten at all, but left to stand for a day or two so that it becomes more digestible and easier to digest and you don't get a stomach ache.

Industrial bread has many additives

Everyone should be aware that when they buy pre-packed, pre-cut bread or whole pre-packed bread in the supermarket, they are harming the craft and contributing to the eradication of individuality, of the baker's craft and of enjoyment. Because this pre-packed bread is treated with a guarantee: With enzymes or E-numbers. Even if it says "without preservatives", you can be sure that this bread has been processed. Because this bread wouldn't keep that long at all and would go mouldy if it was trapped under plastic.

There are 200 additives that are allowed to be in bread at all, and there are hundreds of enzyme additives that don't have to be declared that are added to the bread. We are now enlightened and reject the E-numbers. But we haven't heard so much about enzyme additives because they don't have to be declared. So with industrial bread, even well-cleaned industrial bread, we can never be sure what we are eating, and we cannot know where the basic ingredients come from and we cannot know what is in it at the end.

Bread does not belong in the rubbish

Because we eat so much industrial bread that is no longer worth anything in our eyes, we deal with it in exactly the way we should not. We buy a lot of bread of inferior quality, which dries out and shrivels up the next day or two at the latest. And what happens? We throw it in the bin, we just throw it in the rubbish. Not only do we cause a waste of resources of basic foodstuffs, of grain, of wheat, of rye with our eating behaviour.

We are damaging the climate, we are damaging nature, because we produce expensive and energy-intensive food that we don't eat in the end, that no one needs and that ends up in the landfill.

Tip:

I recommend cutting the bread open before it gets hard, cut it into cubes or grate it - then we have breadcrumbs for Wiener Schnitzel or mushrooms au gratin, for example, or we have bread for Italian bread salad or for something delicious like bread dumplings, for soup garnishes and as poultry stuffing. There is nothing more delicious and that is why you should never throw away stale bread, but continue to use it.