Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
Twinkies are back!
Table-ized A.I.
Quick heads up - they put the ingredients on the side of the bag.
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.
Botulinum bacteria are obligate anaerobic, they can't survive in oxygen atmosphere. So you're safe with bread. And C. botulinum _spores_ are ubiquitous, so there's no sense in trying to prevent those.
Purchase 40% less food. Duh!
I imagine 100% of a bag of bread is chemicals just like 100% of a person's body is chemicals. It's a good fit.
100% of everything is chemicals. But if you're insinuating that 90% of what's in bread is chemically altered or produced by some artificial means, you're insane, It's obviously mostly flower. Any preservatives they put into it are salts of one form or another. And sometimes they put high fructose corn syrup in it, which keeps it seeming fresh while lowering the water activity. But there's no need to speculate about any of this, because the ingredients are listed on the label.
Okay, in the spirit of your comment:
What the freak is Google for?
Here's what you get when you lookup "hovis bread ingredients" (Hovis is the most popular brand in the UK and sadly plain white bread is still the most popular loaf): http://www.hovisbakery.co.uk/our-range/soft-white/soft-white
On that page it lists the ingredients (the same as it does on the bag) as follows:
Wheat Flour (milled from 100% British Wheat), Water, Yeast, Salt, Soya Flour, Fermented Wheat Flour, Vegetable Fat, Emulsifiers: E472e, E471 (made from Vegetable Oils); Flour Treatment Agent: Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C).
Starting from the end, I think your "dough conditioner" is out "flour treatment agent". Even some home bakers use Vitamin C in their breadmaking.
So I do some more Googling (try it, you'll like it) and discover that an 800g loaf typically has about 500g of flour and 7g of yeast and may be up to 45% water - we're running out of room for the "chemicals" now.
Onwards:
Vegetable fat - fat extracted from vegetables. Ha. Binding agent, also controls the gluten development to avoid over-rising.
Emulsifiers (binding agents, prevent the separation of ingredients, improve the texture). See http://www.laleva.cc/food/enumbers/E471-480.html for the specific ones used by Hovis.
Now, was that so difficult? Use your loaf, as we might say in Britain. Don't be "suspicious" of a product, investigate. You might not like what you find, but at least you'll know and your mind can be put to rest.
And yes, as I mention in another comment, I was being "funny" - I just have a hard time when people have the means to discover information, but instead choose to sit there and develop preconceptions.
The hardening of bread is actually caused by moisture in the air crystallizing the starches in the bread. If you could build a breadbox that would keep humidity very low, you could probably keep your bread good for a long time.
However, bread goes stale faster in the refrigerator because it speeds up the process of starch crystallization, so if you could store it outside of the refrigerator without mold spores developing, you have extended the life of your bread by quite a bit.
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.
C. botulinum _spores_ are ubiquitous, so there's no sense in trying to prevent those.
Err, you missed the crucial "can food" component of his post. I also can food. Not so much because of cost (I think your time has to be worth less than 50 cents/hr to break even) but because I apparently have weird taste in food. For example I love canned brandied apples, peach -n- rum sauce, bourbon cherries... hmm I detect a pattern there. Interesting how tasty food canned with booze is, and how you absolutely cannot buy it retail in the USA. Also for awhile I was making my own mustard for the technical challenge (the exact timing of the reaction is important to the heat level, and balancing/working around the bitterness is also pretty interesting). I enjoy the chemistry of the whole canning activity. Acidity, sugar levels, salt levels, pressure canning is 10x cooler than water bath canning, etc. Aside from novelty and taste, canning also saves time when done right. For example the immense prep, measurement, tasting and fine tuning, and especially cleanup time for my homemade peach barbecue sauce is nearly the same for one piece of chicken or 24 canned halfpints so I'm far better off making 24 times what I currently need and canning the rest for near instant use. In CS notation the overall system of food making scales WAY less than linear with volume.
Anyway the "ball book of canning" and/or the stuff from the USDA will save your life (literally) WRT canning. Granny recipes and stuff you read on the internet will just get you food poisoning or worse (yes, there is worse).
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Problem is most bread companies dont want to do that, it reduces the CEO's pay by reducing profits.
That's only how straw man capitalism works, not real world capitalism. In real world capitalism if bread made with honey were actually a superior product then although the CEO of an entrenched bread company might not want to produce it a CEO of an upstart would realize she could raise her pay by producing and selling it thus gaining market share, enriching her investors and leaving the entrenched bread company in the dust.
Of course, in "capitalism" as practiced by the US right now the entrenched bread company would get the government to pass some regulation that seemed reasonable but that was actually designed to hamper the competition. Perhaps new labeling or packaging requirements that, due to scaling effects, would impose much higher costs per unit on small producers.
Bread contains flour, water, yeast, and salt. Anything else and it's not bread.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
The sugars are generally used when proofing the yeast, and that is usually only one or two teaspoons. You basically are giving it glucose to start making CO2. The yeast can get that from the flour, however it takes longer for the dough to rise. If you're producing bread at a bakery then you have access to a proofing oven, sugar is less important in that case, however it still is used to give white bread a more golden colour. Yes, I once worked at a bakery.
False. Bread gets hard because the starches move to a lower-energy state. Bread keeps well frozen; but in the refrigerator it goes stale faster because the starches change their physical structure. This change occurs more slowly at room temperature. It ceases at extremely low temperatures, and reverses at elevated temperatures.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
I'm not really sure why I'm explaining all this as this is naught but common sense.
No, it's more like naught but bullshit. The proper way to store bread in the freezer is in a freezer bag that retains the moisture. Ice crystals form inside the back--that's moisture that's leaving the bread. You bring the bread out of the freezer and allow it to sit at room temperature in the bag until the crystals have disappeared, re-absorbing the water. Then you place it in a 350F degree oven for about 15 minutes to re-distribute the water.
Taken from an 80 year old man who has baked over six thousand different styles of bread and routinely freezes whole loaves, even if they're to be served in just a few days.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
Which is why you can throw a stale slice of bread in the microwave for 5-7 seconds and have a fresh out of the oven slice of bread experience. Just be sure to eat it before it cools.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
For most people just looking for an excuse to eat butter (toast) or something to hold together a sandwich, bread IS a commodity.
While I suspect the percentage of true bread lovers on /. is perhaps higher than average since we're nerds and appreciate quality, the average man does not think twice about grabbing a loaf off the supermarket shelf. The mere situation of grabbing bread off the shelf compared to from a bonafide bakery says a lot about the state of bread in today's society.
More Twoson than Cupertino