Bread or Baker. Which One is Making Us Sick?

I recently watched the Bread episode of Michael Pollans’ “Cooked” during which he discusses that the nations obsession of steering clear of wheat proteins may have nothing to do with the wheat itself, rather our modern baking techniques.  In the spirit of not offending anyone, I do recognize that a small percentage of people do actually have Celiac disease.  I'm not talking about that.  I am, however, examining the recent sensitivity to wheat. 

 

In a nutshell, Pollan believes that the true problem with bread is how we make it.  In commercial bakeries, rising time has been whittled down from days to minutes thanks to adding fast-acting yeasts.  Breads made with fast-acting yeast do not have time to ferment, therefore, the wheat is not broken down into something our bodies can easily absorb.  Fermented bread, which by the way was the bread we all ate prior to industrialized bread, is naturally digestible because it has started to break down during fermentation so it is something our bodies recognize.

 

What did we do before  commercial yeast?  Our ancestors captured wild yeast from the air.  Yep that’s right, from the air!  Simply combine flour and water and voila you’ll have a perfect environment to grow your own yeast for natural leavening.   

 

Armed with this knowledge I am conducting my own experiment.  Capturing wild yeast in the form of a starter then making my own bread with it.  Wish me luck!

 Day 1 - Water & flour.  Pretty unremarkable

Day 2 - Its growing!  Looks like I've captured some yeast. 

Day 3:  Look at those bubbles!  It's working folks!

Instead of excising bread from your diet, look for increasingly popular bakeries that use traditional methods and avoid the fast bread approach of baking.  Sure beats trying to make gluten-free taste good.