Trader Joe’s Shopper Buys Sourdough Bread and Opens It — Then He Noticed Odd White Specks
Like most foods, bread is like a sensitive individual. While the loaf sits in a refrigerator, the creeping force of air lurks and hovers around it, awaiting just one chance to possess it, especially when the bread is without preservatives. Once air penetrates and invades the soft, fluffy flesh, the chemicals in it latch onto the bread and eventually spread their territory, weaving a web of mold. Two years ago, Reddit user u/Anthayden24 bought a packet of sourdough bread from Trader Joe’s to make school sandwiches for their kids. Upon opening the packet, they noticed some strange white splotches on the slices.
They mentioned that when they sniffed the bread, it smelled like any other “good sourdough” bread. But while their nose suggested no issue, their sight depicted something else altogether. “I smelled it and it smelled fine- I had it for lunch yesterday too and no issues. The top was like that when I bought it, so I figured a feature of the sourdough with flour on top. It was the white dots that threw me off,” they described in a comment. Puzzled by what these white specks could be, the user asked Reddit, “Mold or flour?”
According to Trader Joe’s website, its sourdough sandwich bread is hailed as one of the “best breads on toast.” Tons of people find delight in biting into its golden brown crust. Some slather their slices with cultured butter or jam, while others make scrumptious grilled cheese toasts. Many prefer to eat it in their breakfast avocado toasts sprinkled with crunchy chili onions. But the retailer explains that none of these recipes would be possible without its extraordinary blend of ingredients, which includes yeast and an array of unbleached, enriched flours, including wheat, malted barley, and dark rye.
In this case, however, Reddit users suggested that the white specks on the bread weren’t flour, but mold. If it were flour dusting, it wouldn’t show up on the inside of the bread slice, people told them. Based on more than 900 comments that people left after reading the post, the mold party won the contest over the flour party. “If it were just on the top, I'd probably say it was just flour. But with it growing on the bread itself... probably the early stages of mold. I'd throw it out,” said u/RedNeckNaruto. In response, the user said, “Exactly what I did!”
A TJ employee, u/Few_Lobster7961, chimed in to share, “That sourdough does that because of the lack of preservatives. When I buy it, I keep it in the fridge, which lasts up to a couple of weeks. The same goes if you buy the 4-pack of sub rolls or any bagels. Keep them in the fridge.” u/PreciousNonsense commented, “One of their employees told me that when the bread is produced at the factory/bakery place, they often put it into plastic bags before it cools completely, so a lot of their stuff gets moldy.”
Another user went too deep into the science behind these white blotches on the sourdough slices. “That's mold. It would be strange to see flour on the crumb, plus if you look at some of the white spots on the top-middle, it has a very telltale spidering out along the outside with a distinct center,” wrote u/Feketelo. The wrap is, if you have bought a packet of Trader Joe’s bread, make sure it’s you who end up eating it, not the sinister chemicals lingering in the air. The Takeout suggests storing the bread in a breadbox to protect it from the invasion of air.