Why is sourdough so important?

Why is sourdough so important weighs how bread has been fermented for millennia, yet its fundamental role in human nutrition lost within the last half century.

There is no question of it; bread has been the "staff of life" for rich and poor alike since the dawn of humankind. Yet today the common loaf is under attack on almost every front. It's fattening, its starch the underlying cause of diabetes and its protein known as gluten positively dangerous for us. It has little more flavour than cardboard, brings no satiety and universally gives us a bellyache.

Is this extreme rhetoric? I would suggest not. Some 40% of Americans for example claim to be avoiding gluten-rich grains.

Disclaimer

Flavour

Sourdough bread in the first instance has that deeply-satisfying flavour known as umami, the fifth basic taste. It is enjoyed without jams, jellies and processed meats; in its own right the loaf is loved by all and sundry. 

It's the way humans have been baking their common loaf for millennia; that alone must count for something.

And it would be cheap still today except for one factor; time. Sourdough bread cannot be rushed and there is simply no way you can take 500g of flour and have it packaged in a bag, ready for sale in five hours or less.

It can't be done; so today where time is money, your richly flavoured sourdough bread is more costly. Furthermore, now being considered a "health food" you can probably factor in at least a three-times markup. Is this the moment to learn how to bake your own loaf? It is not difficult.

It takes only five minutes if you have a bread machine.

• Panera bread menu recipe

Easy sourdough bread recipe

Easy sourdough bread recipe gives every baker an opportunity to a nourishing wholesome loaf; it really is not difficult.

Either get the starter from a fellow baker or make your own; it takes several months to reach maturity.

Satiety

The acids released in the fermentation of sourdough breads act on the so-called incretin hormones, slowing stomach emptying and in fact hindering the action of the small intestine enzymes that break down the starch into glucose.

All of this confirms that breads fermented by the sourdough method do not produce the glucose surge that condemns the modern loaf; they have a low GI, yet still need to be eaten with discretion by the obese. That means small helpings.

• The 10 year diabetes rule
  

Gluten and the sourdough method

Gluten is the protein in flour; it gives the dough its unique properties that enables it to rise and produce the light enjoyable loaf that we all love so much.

For a tiny group of people, less than 1% of the population gluten produces serious inflammatory bowel diseases. This comes about because of an unusual amino acid called proline that unlike all its cousins has a ring structure; and is more difficult in this tiny group of individuals to digest, leaving short chains that are detected by the lining of the gut as foreign proteins.

• Wheat gluten intolerance and whole grains
  

The beauty of the sourdough method is that these proteins are predigested even before they enter the mouth. For those suffering from Coeliac and Crohn's Disease a long fermentation is required; and certain less allergic grains.

• Meaning of gluten

Health nut neurosis

The whole subject of gluten leads us directly into what I call the health nut neurosis; it's a serious psychological disease known as orthorexia. Have you stopped eating out and becoming generally antisocial because of anxiety of what your host may have put into her meals?

The microbiome and sourdough

The microbiome is a family of friendly bacteria, viruses and yeast cells that dwells in the gut; in fact all over the body. In the healthy intestine they weigh collectively an astonishing 2kg of our total body mass.

This "normal flora" as it is sometimes called is profoundly involved with the inflammatory response of our bodies to pathogens, environmental toxins and foreign proteins.

These bacteria are utterly dependent on vitamin B1, also known as thiamine. If it's deficient in the diet then the profile of the microbiome changes, favouring those pathogens that make us obese.

The beauty of the sourdough method of baking, using true wholegrains is that the bran is a rich source of thiamine. It probably means purchasing your own mill.

This is one of the chief reasons why those eating true whole grains daily slowly lose weight; and those enjoying bread baked with refined flour, deficient in thiamine often become obese.

Pre-ferments

There are at least 4 different types of pre-ferments used in sourdough; you may for example have heard of terms like a poolish starter.

This page at sourdough bread recipe will give you some ideas about them.

Should you go away for a few weeks or even years then preserving your sourdough starter may be important to you; perhaps it's been passed down in the family for decades and you would not want to lose it.

Another pre-ferment is the use of kefir to provide the bacteria to sour the dough and produce gas. Of course all the bugs are killed in the baking but the post-biotics progress through the small intestine to the colon in the normal way.

Kefir sourdough bread is a fifth way to ferment your flour.

This yeasted beer bread recipe is yet another way to ferment your dough.

The concern with glyphosate

Let's acknowledge it plainly; glyphosate, the most commonly used herbicide is here to stay. The research that it causes cancer is not strong; we humans are not vulnerable to the pathways that it uses to destroy weeds. But the bugs in our intestines are; at least half of the friendly bacteria.

There are deep concerns that glyphosate, marketed as Roundup profoundly shifts the microbiome away from those that are friendly, making space for opportunistic pathogens, autoimmune diseases and a host of virulent bugs.

• Is there any way to avoid glyphosate?

Why is sourdough so important?

Why is sourdough so important is a question central to bread and obesity; and to the inflammatory bowel diseases.

It's that important.

True 100 percent real flour

Flour is subject to one of the biggest scams ever. According to international law, millers are allowed to label their products as "whole grain" provided they do not extract more than 40% of the goodies; most of the bran and germ.

Bread can never regain its status as the "staff of life" by the sourdough method alone; there has to be also a return to 100 percent real flour.

The Big Fat Flour Lie

Neither to yourself nor to friends whom you give or sell your sourdough bread, succumb to the Big Fat Flour Lie; that on the right below is a fake.

The Big Fat Flour Lie has led directly to the death from obesity and diabetes of millions of people. Buy your own mill.

A strict and lifelong gluten-free diet

A strict and lifelong gluten-free diet is the subject of a robust debate amongst scientists; there is no unanimity on the issues raised. It may not be necessary.

Bread experiments

There are a great many ways to bake bread, some more friendly for the gut than others.

Those who perceive they have issues with wheat flour but are most unwilling to go on a strict and lifelong gluten free diet, have an escape clause; bread experiments may well open up new possibilities.

Beer bread recipe

Beer too can be used to ferment the flour provided it has not been pasteurised. The live yeast cells plus those bacteria from the bran in the flour act in the same way as a sourdough starter.

Beer bread is a very old recipe, especially enjoyed in central Europe where natural unpasteurised ales and stouts are loved.

• Beer bread recipe
  

From the journals

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