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Comment by novaRom | Hacker News Reader

Why simply not to buy less, exactly as much as you will consume? Here at a bakery around corner I simply buy fresh bread every morning.

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You buy 2-3 slices of bread every morning? Or are you buying some kind of roll or smaller unit of bread? The smallest unit of bread most people are able to buy is a loaf, and for me, it takes a week or two to go through a loaf of bread.

This is pretty common in most of Europe (especially Spain and France). People will buy a (demi) baguette or equivalent every day and it'll get eaten. We're not talking about sliced bread.

Which is easy to do in Europe, because you have a bakery on every corner, so it takes a 5 minutes walk to get fresh bread. In the US the nearest place selling bread might be 10 minutes car ride from home.

Not in every place in the US you need a car, not in every place in Europe you have a bakery around the corner. We are talking half-continent sized areas with several hundred million people. There is quite a variance.

But more to the point, good quality bread has been more ingrained in the culture of several (but not all) European countries than in the US, and while the wheels are turning, it seems to take some time.

More that the idea of eating a small loaf of bread, daily, is - as the sibling comment says - culturally ingrained in many European countries. It doesn't necessarily need to be a "real" bakery. Lots of people make do with supermarket bread.

But also bear in mind that in some places, eg rural France, it might well be a ten minute drive to the baker in the next village. People will still do it daily, or several times a week.

Also the case in the middle east and Asia, though it tends to be flat breads of various kinds. And in some places like India it's more common to just make it yourself.

As little as two slices of bread may be bought in convenience stores in Japan. I have noticed it seems to go moldy much faster than American bread.

If you don't buy bread a slice at a time, you spend a lot less time buying bread, time you can spend on other things.

One reason is that you don't have a bakery around the corner. If it takes more than 10 minutes to buy something, I'm probably not going to do it every day or two.

Another is that you consume significantly less than even a small loaf of bread. I haven't been to a bakery that will sell you individual slices of bread, or even parts of a loaf. Maybe this is different in other countries (I live in the US).

Your baker sells you bread by the slice? Or do you consume a whole loaf of bread every day?

Well, actually, many do (edit: sell slices); that of course doesn't mean that I'd consider that a particularly convenient set-up.

Consuming whole loaf every day is not that strange if you have children.

I have three kids, A loaf of bread will last us a week. I suppose it depends on your menu.

Maybe poster doesn't want to buy bread every morning or spend time getting it on demand when the system works just fine.

If you open a bakery around the corner from me, I might! Not everyone has that luxury.

It's also typically much more expensive to buy serving-sized anything.

Because I have more money than time? I despise wasting my time doing stupid errands everyday, I rather buy a lot of food at one time and throw away most of it.

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