Tag, You're It!

Have you ever wondered what those bread tags meant besides their "Sell-By" date or their "Eat-By" date?  I clearly didn't but my friend Brian asked me that on our most recent get-together and asked....

"What does the color of the tag mean on the bread bag?"

Most of us were baffled at the question since most of us didn't think it had a meaning.  But these colorful tags have more a significance than I thought. 

Most bakeries follow the concept of assigning each color to a day that the bread was baked.  So besides the "Best-By" date, the color of the tag indicates which day of the week the bread was delivered. 

Before you decied to follow the dotted lines and cut out this handy-dandy clip-art, just note that the colors are alphabetically ordered based on their color:

Monday = Blue

Tuesday = Green

Thursday = Red

Friday = White

Saturday = Yellow

So just remembering the color and where they fall in the alphabet, you can determined when your bread was baked and by what date you should finish your bread. Notice that bakeries do not bake on Wednesdays and Sundays? According to Snopes.com, these are two days that bakeries traditionally do not bake so the if you were to buy bread on Wednesday and Sunday, the freshest bread would have a Green and Yellow tag, respectively.  REMEMBER, while most bakeries follow this standard, not all bakeries do.

Here are 3 main rules to know if your bread is fresh:

1. Squeeze the bread and no, do not let your child do it for fun.  Soft bread means it's fresher than firmer breads.
2. Check the "sell-by" date on the tags/sticker.
3. Again, the color of the tag indicates the date the bread was DELIVERED.