A BORED bathroom designer has revealed he spent three hours crunching numbers to work out on average how many crumbs are lost inside toasters as the bread cooks.
Michael Fullelove, from Tyldesley, Greater Manchester, has sparked wild debate online with his theory which estimates that the UK loses 3372600 tonnes of crumbs every five years.
The designer has left people scratching their heads as to where these crumbs go, with experts even weighing in on the matter.
“Two slices of toast (same two pieces) weighs 72 grams.
“A seven gram loss per piece. Now I’m basing this on crumbs lost in the toaster.
“Let’s average this to your average toaster lasting five years yielding four slices of toast each day. Which equals 7300 pieces of toast.
“If you didn’t clean it for the duration there would be 51.1kg of crumbs. Now base this on the UK population of 65 million. 3372600 tonnes of crumbs.
“Where does it all go?”
He shared images of his bread before and after toasting on a set of scales to illustrate his point.
Many online were baffled by his “discovery”.
Laurence Cain said: “Oh crumbs, this one is going to do my head in.”
Joel Wood said: “Down the back of the sofa?”
Guy Warren wrote: “It’s the Upper crust! Where all the crumbs are stuck together with their own dough.”
And Robin Moorshead said: “The breadcrumbs go to the same place as socks that were put in washing machines never to be seen again.”
However, experts were quick to challenge Michael’s methodology, and offered a different explanation.
Andrew Chappell, who works at Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen wrote under the post: “The loss is moisture rather than crumbs. Dr. Chappell, PhD Human Nutrition.”
Terry Haslem added: “It’s moisture, ambient air and bread has a higher moisture content than heat dried bread.”
Duncan McNeill said: “Could the op [original poster] please do the experiment again so I can sleep better tonight?
“If he does it again following the above instructions, it would make it a peer reviewed experiment.”
Although speaking today, Michael refuted that he had failed to account for moisture, he said: “The bread was left out to dry in a sunny spot next to the window.
“The figures just astonished me to be honest! The amount of crumbs around the world at any given time is unbelievable.”
