It’s that time of year again…time for the dreaded science fair project. Last year I won 1st place in the 2nd Grade Science Fair (oh wait, I mean LO won 1st place!) Ok, I admit, I probably helped her more than I should have.
This year I was determined to let her do everything she could on her own. She decided on the project of “Which Type of Bread will Mold the Fastest?” This sounded like an easy project to me – buy 3 loafs and bread and wait for them to mold…easy, right? What I didn’t realize was that the time allotted for the experiment would be right around Pesach. When I realized this I had to explain to LO that we couldn’t start the project until after Pesach. Even though this felt like waiting until the last minute there really was no way around it. Other than the fact that I knew we would have to adhere strictly to the deadlines for each part, I didn’t think it would make much of a difference. Boy, was I wrong.
Yesterday marked the 20th day of her experiment. The bread NEVER molded. LO and I joked that we should change the name of the project to “How come my bread didn’t mold?”
This morning I watched as she headed off to her classroom with her project board with her 3 pieces of non-moldy bread. Despite her failed experiment, she remained a good sport.
Note to self: Next year, no science projects involving chametz!
5 comments:
Too many preservatives?t
RaggedyDad is always going on about how the bread in America is not like the bread he's used to. It takes ages for it to go bad, which means it's not really bread according to him. More like a bread by-product. Groan. This is starting to sound like a frequent conversation at our house.
Kudos to LO for having a positive attitude!
The wonders of preservatives indeed. Our bread now is just different. It's not even like the stuff we grew up with. It's 'shelf
stabilized' so it can stay on the shelves longer and sell longer. The 'sweet breads' are actually the worse offenders here. There was
a Univ test of twinkies awhile back. They kept a twinkie for years, it just never went bad. This said, it's helpful to add moisture to the bread & possibly some heat to 'help' the process along some. But you'd be amazed at how effective some of those
preservatives are in 'saving' the previously high spoilage rate for many foodstuffs. Hotdogs are another food type that are infamous for having a very long shelf life due to all sorts of chemical marvels. Years later they are seemingly edible and show no spoilage, even if kept at room temperature. Cheers & Good Luck! 'VJ'
I'm sure it had to do with too many preservatives. I guess I should have thought of that when she chose it for her project. And I guess we are spoiled from all the fresh (and non-preservative) challah every Shabbos!
That's kind of disturbing. I thought that will all the humidity down there in south florida that you'd get a nice moldy growth pretty quickly.
Post a Comment