We hardly live in the caveman era, nor do we hunt and gather our food…but someone does! Just because I enjoy a two-minute drive to the grocery store and shop for all the gastronomical wonders known to man doesn’t mean they magically appeared on the shelves. What I find amazing is the day-to-day effort required to provide us nutritious food.

Behind the colorful store shelves lies another grocery store, a mysterious place where products are loaded off delivery trucks, where freezers and coolers hold items until they are ready for shelving, vast cavernous spaces we never see. Some large companies enjoy a specified storage place for all their products, while the rest are organized under the auspices of the grocery store management. Can you imagine the consternation when you want an item missing from the shelf, and a kind young man says, “Let me check in the back.” These are my heroes.

Employees work around the clock to make your shopping experience seamless and convenient. Remember that scene in You’ve Got Mail where they talk about the aroma of baking bread in the middle of the night, with flour dust escaping the vents? As it turns out, it’s true. Bread is baked during your restful sleep to maximize its freshness for you. How fresh is it? Look at twist ties to determine its shelf life. Here’s the code: Monday’s bread has a blue twist tie or clip, Tuesday is green, Thursday is red, Friday is white and Saturday is yellow. (Most companies arrange a five-day delivery schedule omitting Wednesday and Sunday) When I read this, I raced to my junk drawer holding old twist ties and did a cursory check. It’s full of brightly colored ties, and my current loaf of bread has a red tie. My head is about to explode.

Since I’m a carb-lover from way back, let’s just focus on bread for a moment. Once the dedicated baker, delivery driver and stocker have done their work, how do you store bread to maximize its freshness at home? Here’s what I found: Take over their work by keeping it cool, eliminating excess humidity, and double-check its expiration date.

Does anyone actually do this? Amazingly, the millennials and Gen-X peeps do. My daughters-in-law regularly check my food expiration dates and like to tell me about them; but being raised by survivors of the Great Depression, I never look at those dates (meant to encourage frivolous buying) and eat everything (as long as it isn’t sporting any suspicious colors.) Yes, I cut the mold off cheese, and no, I never get food poisoning.

The bottom lines are these: Thank your grocery store workers; they deserve it. Exercise common sense. You probably should look at expiration dates, even if it’s just a matter of morbid curiosity. Don’t obsess. And for heaven’s sake, stay away from horror stories! I no longer read The Haunting, nor do I read Fast Food Nation. I just don’t need that kind of negativity in my life, lol.