What did your parents refrigerate? Mine refrigerated bread.

I used to live in the tropics.

This is standard. Half the bread goes in the freezer immediately.

When you finish the first half, move the frozen bread into the fridge.

Refrigerated bread is good once you get used to it.

Been freezing bread for years as I don't eat it fast enough.

Quick 30s zap in the microwave and it's warm and soft and ready for sandwiches

That works well for toast that you only ever plan to eat toasted.

The freezer does keep bread fresher longer (as long as you aren’t storing it in a self defrosting freezer long enough to get freezer burn). It literally freezes the staling process. And fridging bread actually accelerates staling. Something to do with water molecules getting squeezed out of starch molecules or something; I don’t remember the details.

I love hitting these threads a few hours late

"The sickos were FREEZING bread! UPDATE: I have since seen the error of my ways and apologized to my parents and thrown all bread I own into the freezer, and discarded any notion of leaving bread out"

When I bake bread I usually freeze half but thaw it when I need it because fresh bread goes bad fast.

Clearance rack bread.

My grandparents do that. I leave it on the counter, but always say I'm going to freeze it, especially if I get it at costco, which sells you 2 loafs at a time. The only problem is I never have enough room to shove an entire loaf of bread in there. Freezer for bread is fine. If you pull out a few slices, it basically defrosts in like 10 min or use microwave for 10 seconds, and if you wanted toast, just toast it.

I just threw out an entire loaf because it was on my counter for 5 days and saw mold... must be the type of bread as well since it normally lasts weeks just fine. Since I'm always buying what's near the cheapest that's on sale I am always buying different brands.

I'm kinda intimidated by this whole thread. I'm scared to mention that I really hate thawed bread (I tried room temp, microwave, oven and toaster). (I even tried different freezers.) If I buy bread, then it's either the very smallest amount at the bakery when I really feel like good bread, or just a bun, or supermarket bread with preservatives. But mostly I just live a bread free life.

My parents didn’t just refrigerate bread. They stuck excess bread in the fucking freezer.

My parents did that too, and they're the reason why I don't do that, because I grew up despising thawed bread.

We do that with sandwich bread because it is cheaper to buy a double loaf pack and the freezer keeps it fresh until the second one is needed with zero noticeable difference in taste and texture.

Fresh baked bread without a ton of preservatives only lasts four or five days if you don't freeze it.

It's much better than putting it into the fridge