For example, I have your standard sandwich bread on my counter that went bad after a few weeks, as expected. But I also have some gyros and pupusas that have been in the fridge for far longer and have no mold on the bread. What is it about the cold fridge air that makes the mold delay in growing?
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Mold is a living organism. In the cold they slow down and barely move. They eat less, excrete less, and reproduce much less. That’s what fridges are for – slowing the growth of microbes.
Everything has microbes on it. Everything. You keep your food as clean as possible, and then put in the fridge so that the microbes that *are* on it grow and reproduce as slow as possible.
That’s why things don’t go moldy in the freezer at all, it’s too cold for the mold to grow and reproduce at all! In the fridge, you are finding a balance temp where it’s cold enough that the mold slows down and leaves your food edible for a few weeks, while not being so cold that it alters the food itself. Like, you could keep lettuce in the freezer and it would never mold, but it would be gross to eat after freezing.
The microbes that are everywhere and on all of our food slow down when it is cold. They can’t eat and reproduce nearly as quickly. The food in the refrigerator will still eventually go bad because of mold but it just happens more slowly.
It is the same reason why your milk lasts longer when it is in the refrigerator than if you leave it on the counter: most fungi and bacteria grow more slowly the lower the temperature. Chemical reactions generally happen more slowly and enzymes may be less active.
Actually refrigerating bread will make it go stale more quickly than keeping it at room temperature.
The best way to store bread that isn’t being used in a reasonable period of time is to freeze it as this stops both mold and preserves the texture of the bread.
Bread going bad is basically mould growing on it. Now this mould, or fungus – is a micro organism. These little suckers are all around us, but since the bread is essentially an all you can eat buffet (so much starch, yay!) They basically love it, settle on it and have a great time.
Now what happens if you cool them down is their growth is stunted. The chemical reactions that happen, require a set of temperature to function properly and at the most optimum pace, so you cool them down, the enzymes act very slowly. (If you boil them or heat them up, you essentially break down these enzymes completely and kill the assholes, but you might burn the bread and make it unusable at that kind of heat – no good.)
This is why refrigerated bread go bad slower than non-refrigerated bread. Your option is to cool it down, slow down the enzyme action, and slow the growth and colonisation of this bread mould. It won’t stop them completely mind, but will buy you a lot of time.
The same reason refrigeration keeps anything fresh: the cold temperatures slow the activity of bacteria and fungus. Instead of dividing once every hour, they might now divide once every day.
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