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Scientists Develop Sixty Day Bread
Hugh Pickens writes writes "BBC reports that scientists have developed a technique that can make bread stay mold-free for 60 days that could also be used with a wide range of foods including fresh turkey and many fruits and vegetables. At its laboratory on the campus of Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Don Stull of Microzap showed off the long, metallic microwave device that resembles an industrial production line. Originally designed to kill bacteria such as MRSA and salmonella, the researchers discovered it could kill the mold spores in bread in around 10 seconds. 'We treated a slice of bread in the device, we then checked the mold that was in that bread over time against a control,' says Stull. 'And at 60 days it had the same mold content as it had when it came out of the oven.' Food waste is a massive problem in most developed countries. In the US, figures released this year suggest that the average American family throws away 40% of the food they purchase — which adds up to $165 Billion annually. There is some concern that consumers might not take to bread that lasts for so long and Stull acknowledges it might be difficult to convince some people of the benefits. 'We'll have to get some consumer acceptance of that. Most people do it by feel and if you still have that quality feel they probably will accept it.'"
...you have to come back tomorrow.
especially if it can kill the mold of other stuff too as for me, bread won't be the main usage - because it gets either eaten or too hard to eat before mold comes
Just put the bread out in the hot sun .. it will dry out. Then 60 days later SLOWLY steam use a moderate steam setting for a 2 hours (not longer) .. it'll be like new.
OK I haven't tried it and just came up with the idea, but it sounds like it would work. F it.
I remember when several bread makers quit using preservatives over some FUD or other. It benefited the entire bread supply chain since the bread would spoil faster. I think most have started using them again.
I'd like to know if that destroys C. botulinum spores. (botulism)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001624/
I'm starting to grow and can food again due to cost. If that could help reduce or maintain food costs it would be welcome.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
I've always been very suspicions of bagged, mass-produced bread. Normal, homemade bread goes stale and hard after a day or two at most. What could they be possibly putting in there that lets it last ten days, let alone sixty?
So when are they going to build it into the fridge?
Sounds just like how the UV Sterilizer Lights kill surrounding bacteria. Depending on how much this costs I could see it becoming a standard issue item in most households.
http://interserver.net/
Twinkies are back!
Table-ized A.I.
Well, I for one already accept it, for I have read about it on Slashdot.
The problem is over time nutrician in food declines. We're so obsessed with keeping food forever it may all end up with the nutricianal value of card board. On the bright side it may reduce waste but it would tend to be abused. Bakeries may decide they can run just one day a week and take their sweet time getting to you or better yet centralize so there are a couple of mega bakeries in the country that take their time shipping all over the country. Their idea of fresh bread may be a month old. It may not form mold but it could all taste like crap but if it saves corporations money get used to it. Remember tomatoes taste like rubber because they are picked green to make them easier to transport. Corporations only care about profit.
It can still technically be considered organic. Finally a solution to buying certified organic sandwich bread and having it go bad after 2 days.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
The article doesn't mention whether it has other effects on the food. My main concern would be with the food getting dried out, hard or otherwise unpleasant to eat as can happen when you microwave it. Instead they talk about people being potentially concerned with it not spoiling for so long and cost, but it could easily go the other way since a lot of people are concerned about the effects of preservatives and people understand cooking things makes them safe to eat and having food last a lot longer means it can go a lot further. Especially interesting with bread for me since I love to eat bread, but will only have a few slices most weeks and have to either throw out most the loaf or freeze it and defrost a few slices a week.
Really fascinating though. I hope it proves to be a wonderful way of treating food that gets widely accepted.
Okay, it resists mould, but does the bread resist going stale and hard?
Why OpalCalc is the best Windows calc
It's more like a medical supplement preparation than actual food. Extremely purified starch. Without any of the essential B vitamins and fibers that are required to digest starch without getting sick, fat and stupid. (Which is also true for all white "bread".)
Not "can"... You *have* to eat this with a wide range of fresh foods. Otherwise it's outright dangerous for your health.
If you eat this thinking it's food, have fun with your diseases when you get old... (Please don't. I don't wish suffering upon anyone.)
Also, except in extreme situations, why would you need bread to last that long anyway? A normal bread (not a starch sponge) lasts a couple of days at room temperature, even without cooling. A normal 500g bread is eaten in 2 days. 3-4, if you bought a 1000g one for you alone, which is a stupid mistake that won't happen again. And the bakery has fresh bread every day. Even Sundays. They bake about as much as is bought... and leftovers go to the food bank to feed the poor. Nothing is wasted.
So this is a solution looking for a problem that doesn't exist.
Source: Medical knowledge about nutrition that is well-known since the 60s, but apparently hasn't reached bread makers and consumers yet. And basic damn common sense.
... 60-day old bread sounds worse than the usual pre-sliced white (Wonder) bread that you guys usually eat :(
Figure out a way to make one of those fumigation tents into a microwave blocker, and blast the inside of houses with it.
You can still make lots of pain perdu!
Purchase 40% less food. Duh!
McDonalds have them beat by years. Their stuff does not mold. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1319562/McDonalds-Happy-Meal-bought-Sally-Davies-shows-sign-mould-6-months.html
To be honest I thought their first picture was the old 6month old meal when I opened the page and was disgusted by it. Turns out it was the meal on day 1, than all that happened was the food dried out a bit.
Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done
on Earth as it is in Heaven.
Give us this day our DAILY bread,
and forgive us our sins,
as we forgive those who trespass against us,
and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever.
Amen.
Recently a known tv / radio host Enbuske tasted a 5 years over due date swiss roll - and told it was just fine. 60 days for bread doesn't seem far fetched.
http://www.mtv3.fi/uutiset/kotimaa.shtml/2012/11/1666871/enbuske-toteutti-lupauksensa-soi-viisi-vuotta-vanhaa-kaaretorttua ( in Finnish only )
Take a McDonalds burger, it will stay like new for a few years.Bread, meat etc.
I don't see anything new here, except if this bread starts to get moldy after 60 years. Then it is a step backwards from the McDonalds bread.
The only downside is that breadcrumbs must be buried 6 feet under ground.
Isn't food waste, it's lack of nutrition; What other kind of effects does this treatment have, e.g. on the nutrition value of the products?
Of course nobody actually develops stuff for developing countries but for the fat ass Americans who will be forced to eat anything. (See Monsanto)
I bake my own bread. No special ingredients. Only water, flour, yeast, sourdough. It stays perfect for about 6 days. After that it gets chewy. But 90% of the time it's gone within 3 or 4 days anyway... Why would you keep break for 60 days? It's for eating!
If we stop shipping it from factories, we could eliminate most of the wastage.
Waste is a problem, but a social problem that needs a social solution.
I bought some bread "Mrs. Baird's" brand from the local H.E.B,in Texas, that sat on top of the fridge for a least 4-months, yet there was no signs of mold after all that time. I became scared to eat it, yet I would just look at it and put it back. Eventually I just threw it away and promised myself to never buy that "Forever Bread" again, scary I've never seen bread not go moldy after at least 8-weeks.
I like my bread freshly baked either from my local baker (first choice) or from my trusty bread machine. I have no interest in old, crappy preservative riddled, chemical crap in my food thank you very much. Maybe useful for astronauts or arctic explorers etc. but this is exactly the sort of thing that is simply not needed.
Not to mention the fact that a bit of bread mould is good for you !
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
I buy 1/2 sized loaves and freeze them, these loaves are sold in a breathable wrapping. I take them out a few hours before I need them (or pop in the microwave if I am in a rush). I don't buy bread that is wrapped up in a plastic bag - such bread is generally tasteless mush.
What's the big deal here?
McDonalds has figured out how to make an entire hamburger, including the bun, last for 20 years without molding.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
The operation comes with a cost, probably losing most of the nutrients after the "treatment". Food already loses most of the value after being irradiated, and this is a worrisome trend.
Once you OPEN the bread it will go bad. Most of the bread in my house goes "bad" because my girlfriend opens it and leaves the open package out on the table until it gets hard. Even if you re-closed it properly like a normal human, mold spores would still get in when you opened it, so it would still be a problem. I think this technology would only really help people to keep unopened packages for loner.
Bread actually can be frozen and taken out slice by slice when required. It remains quite fresh if it's wrapped and sealed. An amazing piece of technology called a "Freezer" can do this for you at minimal expense.
Now, if it says fresh after sixty days - then you have a breakthrough. Bread without mould after sixty days could be re-used as quite an effective mallet for woodwork.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
If you store bread sensibly it goes stale long before it spoils?
Considering that nearly all commercially mass-produced bread is insipid uninviting junk made with homogenous inferior ingredients and yet consumers still buy it by the truckload, I don't think "quality feel" will be an issue at all. People who aren't super-tasters won't even notice the difference, if they're willing to eat the junk that is mass-produced now.
...what does it taste like? Scientific progress aside, food should always be a pleasure, that's why we don't eat astronauts' food unless we need to.
If the process kills all mold spores and this is repeated again and again, doesn't that imply that if this becomes widespread practice that nature will develop super mold that can survive this process?
Make 40% smaller loaves? Also, I've found wrapping fancy artisan bread in aluminum foil keeps the crust texture up until it gets moldy, which is 6 to 8 days depending on temperature hereabouts. YMMV
Why would they do that when the burgers are prepared frozen and cooked on the spot?
"A week in the lab saves an hour in the library"
I bake bread on a regular basis. Unless you add lots of other food ingredients like egg or other perishable stuff, it will go dry long before it becomes moldy. So, this "discovery" doesn't solve a real problem.
if they can get it to stay fresh and good tasting for 60 days... Bread tends to get stale after 4-6 days. Probably because it is not sealed air-tight, nor vacuum-sealed. I suspect if bread (and many other foods) were sealed with as much air removed as could be (without crushing the bread), and it was frozen, it would last much longer.
Bread dos clast somewhat longer if refrigerated, and much longer if frozen.
They don't. McDonalds never successfully developed any method to make their cooked products imperishable. The reason the McDonalds standard burger can "last" for so long is, first, the dehydration due to the frying process and, second, the huge amount of salt they use. If you read reports on this subject you will notice it's always the basic 1 dollar burger, not the moister double cheese burgers, BigMacs, quarter pounders, etc..(Dammit I got hungry). Also just because it's not visible rotten, it doesn't mean it's safe to eat.
The study found that families throw away between 14% and 25%, not 40%.
Together the dog and I go through a load in two days.
http://aht.seriouseats.com/archives/2010/11/the-burger-lab-revisiting-the-myth-of-the-12-year-old-burger-testing-results.html
So there we have it! Pretty strong evidence in favor of Theory 3: the burger doesn't rot because it's small size and relatively large surface area help it to lose moisture very fast. Without moisture, there's no mold or bacterial growth. Of course, that the meat is pretty much sterile to begin with due to the high cooking temperature helps things along as well. It's not really surprising. Humans have known about this phenomenon for thousands of years. After all, how do you think beef jerky is made?
You think the equivalent of killing mold spores/antibacterial agents is not going to have side effects? Not only on people, but on bacteria which happen to live on/in the bread? In addition, questions of what actually happens to these food products post treatment? Are they safe to eat?
Oh right, they don't get into actually studying stuff like that.
This means we'll get food at least 60 days old!
i think the whole "are microwaves dangerous" thing was settled with the whole mobile phone thing.
Newflash numbnuts - cholesterol is a vital part of our biochemistry. Without it cell membranes would fall apart. The problem comes when its eaten in excess. But you could say that about anything - salt, sugar, protein, carbs, even water.
AFWIW a high protein low carb diet is actually quite healthy. Protein doesn't give you heart problems OR make you fat. Ask any athlete. Though if you over indulge over a long period of time it can give you kidney issues. And bad breath.
My kids need gluten free food and a lot of gluten free breads & rolls are delivered packed in smaller portions in sealed plastic filled with nitrogen and have a shelf life of several months. I imagine that something similar would have to be done with 60 day bread. But I'm not entirely sure what the research is showing which hasn't already been put into practice with GF.
Ah come on, it was a J-O-K-E and you linked to a place called "Serious Eats"?!
Clearly they aren't going to be having any fun with it.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
FTFA:
We introduce the microwave frequencies in different ways, through a slotted radiator. We get a basically homogeneous signal density in our chamber - in other words, we don't get the hot and cold spots you get in your home microwave.
Forget bread, I want that microwave!
Everybody so far seems to be commenting about the use of this technology for bread. However, the article says that this technlogy can be used for many other kinds of food, including many fruits and vegetables. The article says the only type of fruit that the device was unable to treat was cantalope. So all of you people saying you'll just buy fresh baked bread from a bakery are missing the point that this will be used on everything in the whole supermarket, including most fruits and vegetables. Goodbye to fresh fruit and vegetables unless you buy them from a farmer's market.
We've already have the tech to preserve food safely for months at a time using ionizing radiation, it's called food irradiation. Sadly, the anti-nuke kooks have blocked it and people have needlessly died as a result. I'm thinking this will go the same way..... although people are less scared of microwave radiation so I hope I'm wrong.
Yes, in the traditional Capitalist manner: tons of money was dumped by manufacturers on producing enough reports that showed there was no hazard to using their products, and the contrary evidence was buried or questioned relentlessly until a way was found to make it seem dubious at best. Bribes were also used without doubt.
Its the same technique Big Pharma uses to ensure its products are safe :P
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
The one positive thing you could say about the bread products around him
was that they were probably as edible now as they were on the day they were
baked.
Terry Pratchett
Choose your allies carefully, it is highly unlikely you will be held accountable for the actions of your enemies
Panettone bread lasts for a year.
If cell phone transmissions were dangerous, 90% of the USA population would have brain cancer.
A post that was concise, yet contained more information than anyone needed. A mod point to you as thanks for bringing back a little bit of the old Slashdot.
- Farmer Tim
Due to the high level of sodium McDonalds food is never really safe to eat for me.
Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
BREAD is like my DICK! It doesn't "come" in a bag!
APK
Sourdough bread stays mold-free, when baked in small loaves. The traditional Finnish style was to bake loads of sourdough rye bread at a time, and store them hanging from rods suspended close to the ceiling. It just gets slowly harder when it dries, but very rarely gets moldy. So this "technology" is pretty ancient...
I attended a class in which a food scientist basically made the assertion that any bread that didn't spoil after a couple of days wasn't fit for human consumption. His reasoning was that if bacteria don't want to eat it then you don't either.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
I had a "twink" yesterday. Find them on Craigs List M4M!
APK
....this could have SAVED Hostess smh....
Wonder (no pun intended) if they borrowed some of the technology from what allows the twinkie to last 20 years LOL.
60 day zombies will finally appear. I guess the world won't end in 21-12-2012 after all.
He's an idiot. By that logic hardtack isn't fit for human consumption. Unenriched bread that does spoils instead of going stale (self-preserving) is not kept properly or isn't done right.
we're not talking about putting your head directly on a radio tower's transceiver. That doesn't mean it has to cause explicitly brain cancer, either. Ear problems? head problems? skin problems? nobody knows.
The answer as to the danger has yet to be confirmed in the US, but other countries appear to imply that their initial results simply warrant more research.
Lazy obvious troll is lazy and obvious.
If anyone seriously believe that cell phones cause any sort of bodily problem, they're just an idiot.
They call it Food Irradiation and it is perfectly safe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_irradiation
They do it in the U.S. to our mail to kill off any anthrax. The U.S. consumer just freaks out at the word "radiation" as if their lightbulbs don't "radiate" light.
The average American family doesn't waste 40% of their food; there is approx 40% wastage across the whole cycle, from farms, to spoilage in transit to problems in stores to uneaten food in restaurants. From TFA:
According to various estimates, American families throw out between 14 and 25 percent of the food and beverages they buy.
just thought you'd find it interesting how it lasts so long.
personally, i don't eat mcdonalds/fast food because it's disgusting.. so I was curious about what they put in it to make it last forever (and it turns out nothing).
I always laugh at the fools posting the 'omg mcdonalds burgers dont rot' things.. because obviously they dont have a disgusting teenager.
I can assure you that the made with love homemade burgers that ive made, using high quality ingredients will sit unrotted and looking just like said mcdonalds burger that sat out for weeks: because ive dug them out of the corners of a kids bedroom.
perhaps people should try it themselves, or ask their teen to do it.
In addition, questions of what actually happens to these food products post treatment? Are they safe to eat?
Do you have a microwave oven in your kitchen? Has it ever poisoned you? You sound like my sister's husband, "microwaves change the cellular structure!!" Well, duh, so does conventional cooking. The fact is we have decades of data about eating microwaved food, and the data say it's safe.
I can see the cave nerd Ogg and his new invention, "cooked food". His brother in law Org asks "is that safe?"
Lots safer than eating it raw, Org.
Free Martian Whores!
If we stop throwing out $165 billion a year the food industry will suffer and we'll end up paying $165 billion for a loaf of bread. Can't win.
Wuddooeyeno? IITYWYBMAD? Like nuts? eclecticallyincorrect.com
We don't live in a country where most people are walking past the grocery store daily and grabbing the foods and produce they need for the night. We shop in bulk now because the grocery story probably isn't around the corner and it's so inconvenient to go daily and maybe even weekly. So, now there's a larger window between food purchase and consumption.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
The idea is you seal the product then kill the microbes. Thus it isn't spoiling as there is nothing in there to want to eat it. Break the seal and it would spoil just as fast.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Why is it any different than ingesting the spores and letting your digestive acids/enzymes kill them?
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
You can't mention homemade mustard and peach BBQ sauce without giving detailed recipes! That's just cruel. /* Looks at yellow mustard and BBQ-flavored high fructose corn syrup in fridge, makes sad face. */
That's a recipe for a traditional baguette. If you want your bread to not go stale in 12 hours or so, you'll want to add some fat (Olive Oil, Vegetable Oil, butter, lard, whatever) Sometimes it's nice to not to have to bake bread Every Single Day if you want to keep it on hand.
And why is "fresh yeast" better? Unless you want the yeasty taste of a sourdough (which is certainly no bad thing), instant, active dry, or cake-yeast is just fine. (I use vacuum-packed SAF-Instant purchased a pound at the time... keeps in the freezer as long as I need it to.)
Am I the only one who thinks this deserves the what-could-possibly-go-wrong tag?
Why spend all that money researching this when they could have just taken a look at McDonald's french fries. They stay mold free for years.
Liberty.
Didn't this used to be known as irradiated food, something people objected to as it would lead to unfit food being re-processed for human consumption. As in - if it's going to be zapped - then less care can be taken in production and storage. While it would kill the bacteria, toxins remain in the produce.
Food Irradiation
AccountKiller
Bread made from frozen dough has the appearance of freshness, but within about twenty minutes undergoes change into something awful. That's why the staff at a certain world-wide franchise avoid the produce and refer to it as a s**t sandwich ..
AccountKiller
From TFA:
Mr Stull believes that the technology could impact bread in other ways. He said that bread manufacturers added lots of preservatives to try and fight mould, but then must add extra chemicals to mask the taste of the preservatives. If bakers were able to use the microwave technology, they would be able to avoid these additives.
You see, it is just like the arguement against nuclear power: Many people say "NO NUKES!", but since nothing else is as cost effective, they are actually saying "MORE COAL!". Personally, I'd rather my hazardous waste be contained to one spot instead of vomiting it out of a smokestack for everyone else to deal with.
Same thing with this bread. You claim the health declines, but if it is a choice between preservative and chemical-laden bread and microwaved bread, I'll take the microwaved bread any day.
Of course, the correct answer for both is "Wind/Solar power" and "Bake your own bread", but those are not the options that either the power company or the commercial bread maker are considering.
Grammer Nazis - I mod you "troll" unless you actually add something on-topic. Yes, I know I have mispellings in my sig.
Apples are harvested at one particular time of the year, by farmers. Some of it goes to corporations. Some the farmer holds back to sell himself at "Farmer's Markets". But, the harvest only comes at a particular time of year for either. If you are buying apples right before the harvest, they are almost a year old, whether you get them from the coproration or the farmer himself. He doesn't have a magic tree that gives fruit year round.
This is not because corporations are evil, it's just the way the world is.
The corporation might be able to beat this to some degree by importing fruit from the southern hemisphere, effectively giving them fruit (on average) half as old as Farmer Brown.
i like it! my next food product will be "Nutricanical, and tastes great too!"
You have a gauge R&R problem. You are 40 years older, and have a diminished sense of taste. The food isn't the only thing changing.
The store I work at sells some brand of special dietary bread, gluten-free maybe? I forget the brand-name at the moment.... It has a shelf life of three months of something like that.
It isn't even placed with the other bread. It is shelved in one of the dry-goods aisles. We call it the 'zombie bread'.
It is called Hardtack.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ac/Oldest_ship_biscuit-Kronborg-DK.JPG
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
My dad's been using a cellphone since the 1980's, if the 5W bagphone he had back then and all the phones since then didn't cause cancer over 30 years of exposure then the couple hundred mW max units we carry today certainly aren't going to.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
This would make Gilgamesh very happy.
I've had a bag of Sara Lee Hamburger Buns Since July (from a big family BBQ), and it's still soft and Mold Free, never eating that brand again, who knows what's in that stuff.
So I looked over the Microzap website and I couldn't find a good explanation of how this microwave technology kills the mold spores other than the vague description:
"The unique MicroZap technology utilizes a combination of thermal and non-thermal effects to destroy bacteria at lower (colder) temperatures, thus creating “cold pasteurization” of fresh foods and eliminates deadly pathogens."
The thermal mechanism seems obvious, but what might be the "non-thermal effect" they are referring to?
There has been rumours of McDonalds bread rolls lasting over a year
Does anyone remember this from their MRE-eating days? I wonder if what kind of stabilizers were used in the average military field meal.
(we always used to joke that it was shelf-stable, but atomically unstable)
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Jesus, you'd best be trolling because I have no answer to a worldview that screwed up.
Give us a mechanism more specific than ZOMG RADITIONS! and I'm sure somebody might take it from there.
relentlessly questioning is how science is done btw.
Chocolate that doesn't melt? Bread that doesn't mold? See, genetically engineered foods are better!
Why yes, the microwave in my kitchen is the same as an industrial one, right? /facepalm
The same scientists found that they could quadruple the life to 240 days, but then the bread turned into Twinkies.
Why not buy the secret to keeping baked goods forever from the inventor of the Twinkie, now they are bankrupt?
Yes, it is. The only differences:
Free Martian Whores!
Bread mold is not in the same toxin league as salmonella yet
the article mentions both. I hate news outlets that do this...
And, Stale bread has nothing to do with mold. It has to do
with the starches and time (like 48 hours).
Still there are foods and processes where this trick has
great potential in the limited and isolated bit of the food chain that I know
anything about.
The real problem is that it will take 21 years for the FDA to give it
the go ahead and the patent window will have passed.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
This is how the Twinkie succeeded
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.