There are many things to consider when you're picking out a loaf of bread at the grocery store. Should you go for a sprouted grain this week, or perhaps a potato bread? How about a rye bread, or maybe even a whole wheat? What will taste better with that tomato sandwich you've been craving ( )? Perhaps you're interested in trying which is really just potato chips, butter, and bread. No matter which loaf you're eyeing in the bread aisle, there's one thing that can give you a bit more information as you're shopping: the bread bag tie.

The bread bag tie, also known as a bread tag or a bread buckle, doesn't just have the sell by date and a random code on it. The colorful fasteners are actually how a bakery deciphers between the loaves they bake every day. Every color coincides with a different day of the week.

The most common color coding has blue tags for Monday, green tags for Tuesday, red tags for Thursday, white tags for Friday, and yellow tags for Saturday (with Sunday and Wednesday being typical days off). But here's where it gets tricky: There's no industry standard for these bread ties, so different bakeries have different colors for different days. In other words, the tags are only really helpful for the bakeries as they keep track of all their bread.

So, as much as it feels like you've discovered a cheat code for finding the freshest bread possible, it's not really as useful as one might think. How to find the freshest loaves in the bread aisle While it would be nice if .