There has been a heated debate in the British bakery press recently about what constitutes fresh bread. Calls have been made for controls preventing the word being applied to the new 'Milton Keynes' process in which bread is sold hot from the oven, having been given two 'bakes' separated by up to 6 days.

In France, too, artisan bakers have taken to the streets with demands for the legal protection of 'real' bread, defined as that in which the five indispensable stages of mixing, fermenting, moulding, proving and baking are performed in an uninterrupted process.

Freshness is an attribute of food which most people would agree is desirable. When defined, with the dictionary, as the opposite of 'staleness', freshness has seemingly unimpeachable virtue. No wonder, then, that the siren calls of 'freshly baked', 'fresh today', 'freshly squeezed', 'oven fresh' etc. beckon us from every supermarket shelf. As with most overworked slogans, however, meaning is the first casualty of closer examination.

Clearly, with many foods, 'freshness' has a meaning quite at variance with 'just made'. A cheese may have been maturing for months: as you cut open its wrapping, it is 'fresh' and 'old' at the same time. Fresh bread, on the other hand, is bread which has been baked recently. Time, heat and crumb consistency are the parameters within which fresh bread may be judged. Yet the attempt accurately to define the quality of 'freshness' in each of these categories is by no means easy.

Take time: completely different systems of breadmaking all claim freshness as their result. Artisan bread is typically made, baked and sold in one place within 18-24 hours. Industrial plant bread, made in large central factories and distributed nationally, may be up to 36 hours old before it reaches the shelf, where it must remain 'fresh' (often with the help of additives) for 3 or 4 days. 'Hot bread' and 'bake-off' units make use of dough mixed in central factories then frozen either before or after proving or after partial baking. The new 'Milton Keynes' process enables dough, mixed, 'formed' (in a very cool baking chamber) and vacuum cooled, to be held at ambient temperature for 6 days before a final bake in a hot oven at the point of sale.

The heat of baking forms a crust on most breads whose consistency is a sign of freshness. The internal heat of a loaf will reduce to ambient in about 2 hours. the crust softens after 6-12 hours. What price, then 'hot' bread? Some breads which are both cool and soft-crusted are still palpably 'fresh'. The rate of staling (the hardening of starch accompanied by evaporation of moisture) is significant: some breads (not only the traditional baguette) can be leather-crusted and powder-crumbed within hours of being sold 'fresh' from the oven. The Milton Keynes process sets out to deliver a crust at the point of sale, but only with the help of mould-inhibiting chemicals and starch-modifying enzymes which limit the natural processes of decay until the final 'bake-off' in front of the customer.

Great efforts have been made by bakery technologists to achieve the soft, springy, slightly damp crumb which is the other hallmark of freshness. Even here, though, the picture is not entirely simple. Leaving aside the role of chemicals in altering crumb structure, there is no doubt that all breads are distinctly less digestible in the first hours after baking and that some (notably rye breads) achieve their optimum state (soft but not sticky, easily cuttable etc.) only after 1 or 2 days. Furthermore, flavor can continue to develop in a well-made loaf. Flavor and absolute freshness are sometimes mutually exclusive.

Does it matter how we define freshness? To the extent that its constant promotion as a sales benefit is driven by the imperatives of competition, stock rotation, distribution chains etc. - in short by the desire to maximese profit - it clearly matters greatly to the bread manufacturers. But the cosmetically alluring 'hot' bread which tastes of nothing and turns to rusk in a day may amount to a con trick. The fresh-from-the-oven loaf which has survived to its final bake only with the help of chemical crutches presents the unwitting consumer with a dubious trade-off between freshness, purity and nutritional integrity.

There are simple reasons why consumers should put freshness in context. You cannot (or should not) eat literally hot bread. That being so, it is not buying it hot which matters so much as how it will taste and feel when you actually come to eat it. Given that most people do not shop every day, this could be a day or two later. In fact, the domestic freezer is a simple and chemical-free way in which a desired level of freshness may be preserved under consumer control. More fundamentally, our contemporary cultural infatuation with youthfulness and instant gratification make us prone to despise the process of ageing. As suggested above, well-made bread has qualities which emerge some time after baking - and there are recipes the world over which respect (even delight in) the attractions of the older loaf.

A 'monoculture' of freshness insidiously undermines the values of flavor and nutrition which are of equal importance if bread is to maintain its vital function as a fundamental, sustaining and enjoyable foodstuff.