fresh baked bread

I'm guessing that in today's fast paced world, not too many of us take the time to bake our own bread. Oh, we might break out grandma's old recipe and do that for special occasions like Easter, Thanksgiving or Christmas and other notable events but on average, we probably don't. Even with the advent of the bread-making machine, we might even find ourselves doing it only on weekends and making all sorts of delicious home baked loaves of goodness. They come with a whole set of instructions and a catalogue of mouth watering recipes and the smell they leave in the house while they go about their business would rival that of any bakery in town.

But, when it comes to making little Johnny or little Susie's favorite peanut butter and jelly sandwich for school or making that extra special bologna sandwich to brown bag it for lunch, I'm thinking that most of us rely on our friendly neighborhood grocery store to keep us stocked up on that old and reliable favorite, white bread.

Here's the thing though, as you wander the aisles, did you ever wonder just how long those loaves of bread that are trapped in that see through plastic have been sitting there? Do you pick one or two up and squeeze it like you would a roll of Charmin? Can you even tell the difference by squeezing it? I know I can't. So you're left with a dilemma. Am I getting the most bang for my buck and getting the freshest bread available or am I picking out a loaf that has been sitting there for God knows how long and will either turn stale or moldy shortly after I get it home?

Well folks, the answer lies in those little twisties that seal up the bread and keep in the fresh baked goodness. It seems that most bread companies use an ingenious method of color coding those things to indicate what day of the week the bread was delivered.

For most retail outfits, fresh bread is delivered five times a week. Those days are Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. I don't what they have against Wednesday but it must be something good.

So, in order for them to re-stock the shelves and as a method for keeping up with inventory and measuring sales, they devised the following simple color-coded system that would help with all of that.

As you're making your selection take note of the color of the twisties and keep the following in mind.

If the twisty is blue, the bread was delivered on Monday. Tuesday's are green, Thursday's are red, Friday's are white and Saturday's are yellow.

So, what does all of this mean? Well, for starters it means that if I go to the grocery store on Saturday to buy bread, chances are that I won't pick out a loaf that has a blue twisty enclosing it. That sucker has been sitting there for almost a week and I'll keep my eye open for another color closer to the day I'm doing my shopping.

It might seem hard to remember the colors and the days of the week that they correspond to but it's really not. All you have to remember is the first letter of each color is in ascending alphabetical order in relation to the days of the week.