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people generally talk about food preservatives in a negative way. certainly, some of them are not great for you. but I want to take a moment to appreciate how wonderful food preservatives (and refrigeration and pasteurization and canning) are as well. it's crazy how fast most normal food goes bad. like a loaf of real old fashioned bread will go stale after a day and then become moldy after a few more days. for almost all of human history, people just sort of lived with this, and if they wanted to make foods last they had to dry it out and/or drown it in salt or vinegar or alcohol. pickles and beef jerky are great, but it would suck if you had to eat them all the time.
Sourdough bread lasts 7 days without going stale?? Perhaps this depends on your climate. For me, plain sourdough is notably worse the next day and pretty crappy within 2-3. I assume people with no access to preservatives would have gotten used to this and would be more willing to eat food I consider bad tasting, but still.
Note, though, that this only applies to sourdough with just flour and water, no dough enrichment; breads with even small amounts of oil and sugar added stay soft much longer.
1Steveot
Maybe you're right and it's climate, perhaps I also meant something unusual with "stale" or it could also be a cultural difference between US and europe? I'm talking about bread like this (https://www.lazycatkitchen.com/sourdough-rye-bread-beginner-friendly/), stored in a bread box and perhaps wrapped in a cotton dish towel. Of course it does get a bit harder over time, but I can usually still eat it like completely normal bread even after 7 days. And note that I agree that pure wheat sourdough bread does get stale more quickly.