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Your Grandma Was Right to Use Bread as the Ultimate Stain-Eraser

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The idea that you can clean with bread sounds crazy. How does that even work? But it turns out Wonder Bread really does live up to its name; it’s a mess-erasing machine. Here’s how to remove smudges and stains with a slice of stale bread. 

Bread has long been used to clean up messes, starting with the original eraserheads. People used moist bread that had been uncrusted and rolled into a ball as an eraser until the late 18th century. The gluten in bread made it a great at erasing mistakes, however eraserheads made of bread are susceptible to mold. 

Luckily, you can still harness the cleaning power of bread today. Simply remove the crusts from a piece of stale bread, and then roll it into a ball. Then, gently dab at the stain and watch it disappear. This trick even works on leather stains. 

Cleaning with bread doesn’t require any harsh chemical-laden cleaners, it doesn’t cost a fortune, and it won’t damage your furniture and appliances. How’s that for an all-natural cleaner?

In addition to removing stains, bread is also useful for catching any hard-to-reach coffee grounds in your Keurig, sopping up leftover dust on picture frames, and trapping those teeny-tiny glass shards that are too small to see but always hurt your feet. It’s also a multi-use ingredient in the kitchen and can be used to thicken your soups and sauces, prevent the inevitable tears when cutting onions (cover the blunt side of a knife with a piece of bread), absorb the burned smell of any overcooked dishes, and soak up weird odors in the fridge. 

Of course, we don’t have to tell you all the wonderful ways you can eat bread. Tear it into bite-sized pieces and bake into delicious homemade croutons, or shred it and mix with ground beef for juicy meatballs. Our favorite recipe involves cutting ridges into a loaf of bread and stuffing it with cheese and butter. 

No matter how you choose to use your leftover loaf, one thing’s for sure: Don’t throw away your stale bread!

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