To Consume Grains or Not?
There is so much debate out there on whether or not we should be consuming grains. I agree, that modernized grains are most likely not good for you. Most of them are made from genetically modified grains and can damage your health.
For the past year or so, I have eliminated grains from my diet… I needed the break. I have slowly started to reintroduce grains back to my diet.
I have chosen to focus on the traditional preparations of grains so that my body can break down the grains and digest them more easily.
Could Sourdough Be The Answer?
Last week I posted a post on how to soak your grains so that they are more digestible.
Today I am going to share with you a little information about fermenting your grains or more specifically some information on sourdough and the benefits to souring dough.
If you don’t have any problems digesting grains and have a healthy gut, you might want to try some sourdough bread.
What is Sourdough?
What is sourdough? According to the Bread Bakers Forum, sourdough is an American term for a natural leaven of “wild” or natural yeast and lactobacilli. Also the process of leavening bread with a natural leaven.
Don’t mistaken this with today’s modernized yeast, it is not. Sourdough is created from a sourdough starter.
A sourdough starter is a starter or culture of wild/natural yeast and lactobacilli in a medium of flour and liquid which is propagated through ongoing refreshments (or “feedings”) for the purpose of leavening bread dough, is on-going and is continued on from one bake or activation to the next.
Sourdough Bread is bread which has been leavened with a sourdough starter. It may or may not be a sour bread, depending on the characteristics of the starter.
A True Sourdough Bread
Sourdough bread is bread that is baked without the use of modernized yeast. It is the traditional way bread was made thousands of years ago. The bread rises
The bread rises slowly allowing the bread to ferment for several days to up to a month. This helps to promote the growth of more probiotic organisms. Last month I took a course on grains from
Last month I took a course on grains from Cheeseslave, and according to their post, here are 10 reasons to eat sourdough bread.
10 Reasons to Eat Sourdough Bread!
The probiotic microorganisms that are created when fermenting the dough:
1. Digest and assimilate (properly absorb) the foods you eat. Without adequate beneficial microflora in your gut, you can’t absorb nutrients in the foods you are eating.
2. Are necessary in order to maintain a healthy intestinal tract.
3. Contain uniquely balanced proteins, fatty acids, cellulose, minerals, and innumerable other nutrients our bodies need.
4. Provide vitamins B1 through B6 from lactobacillus and B12 vitamins from wild yeast. Wild yeast multiplies aerobically. This is because they have oxygen in them (not free radical oxygen ions) that feed your blood cells and not cancer cells. Most plant proteins including grains, seeds, cereals, beans, nuts, and some grasses form gluten. However, sourdough microflora has all the amino acids available, without the protein that forms gluten.
5. Depletes damaged starch in bread, thus diabetic people should not get insulin shock. It is a misconception that whole wheat is better than white flour for diabetics (the Glycemic difference is only 1%).
6. Produce acids, which will break down and remove some of the glutens from the bread. Acids do not allow mold and most bad bacterial growth. Alkaline with high pH allows mold growth and toxins. Mold ferments at a higher pH, allowing bad bacterial growth and the secretion of toxins. The absence of acids is abnormal, even animals have acid stomachs to kill bad bacteria.
7. Offset the effects of phytic acid, which robs your body of precious minerals.
According to Wikipedia:
Phytic acid is found within the hulls of nuts, seeds, and grains. In-home food preparation techniques can reduce the phytic acid in all of these foods. Simply cooking the food will reduce the phytic acid to some degree. More effective methods are soaking in an acid medium, lactic acid fermentation, and sprouting.
Phytic acid is a strong chelator of important minerals such as calcium, magnesium, iron, and zinc, and can therefore contribute to mineral deficiencies in people whose diets rely on these foods for their mineral intake, such as those in developing countries. It also acts as an acid, chelating the vitamin niacin, which is basic, causing the condition known as pellagra. In this way, it is an anti-nutrient. For people with a particularly low intake of essential minerals, especially young children and those in developing countries, this effect can be undesirable.
“Probiotic lactobacilli, and other species of the endogenous digestive microflora as well, are an important source of the enzyme phytase which catalyses the release of phosphate from phytate and hydrolyses the complexes formed by phytate and metal ions or other cations, rendering them more soluble ultimately improving and facilitating their intestinal absorption
8. Dissolve proteins by producing protein enzymes, thus loosening multiple peptide bonds so that you can absorb more amino acids into your body. They dissolve four gluten-forming proteins: albumin, globulin, prolamin, and glutalin. They also produce alcohol that dissolves the most stubborn water insoluble protein bonds. These bonds are the reason why so many people have gluten intolerance.
9. Inhibit the growth of bad bacteria by: (1) creating a more acidic environment (2) producing anti-bacterial agents, and (3) absorbing all the B vitamins from their surroundings leaving none for the harmful bacteria.
10. Have most everything needed for optimum nutritional absorption. To absorb calcium, you need magnesium. To absorb magnesium, you need vitamin E, C, etc. Most of these are in the sourdough microorganisms, thus providing optimum absorption.
Crazy Amount of Health Benefits!
With all of those healthy benefits, You know I am out to make a true sourdough bread, but that will take time.
So in the meantime, I wanted to find a traditional sourdough bread that was healthy and good for me.
Update: I now have a recipe ready for you to try. If you are interested in making your own sourdough loaf, you can view these two recipes to learn how.
If You Just Want to Buy A Loaf…
I want to inform you that I am not making any money by endorsing this product, I just believe in this company so much and really wanted to share with you this great find 🙂
This bread company, Berlin Natural Bakery, is nestled in an area that I grew up in. Berlin Ohio is the largest Amish community in the world and this company follows the traditional ways in preparation.
They use GMO free grains and pride themselves on doing things the way they were intended to be done.
Here is a short video that is absolutely beautiful and clearly shows you their beliefs. Being raised in this environment and in this beautiful countryside is something I am very proud of!
Thanks Stuart for inspiring Halle to write this post. A great read. I am so going to try that bread.
Yes thanks Stuart…being Italian this was the hardest for me to let go of, will look into for an occasional treat.
You say ” modernized grains are most likely not good for you. Most of them are made from genetically modified grains…”. What grains are GMOs?? According to everything that I’ve read, including information from The Institue for Responsible Technology, there are no commercially grown GMO grains right now, so where is the information behind this statement you are writing coming from? Do you mean hybridized grains? If so, while I do believe modern grains are not great for us, that is still an entirely different thing than GMOs.
Traditionally made breads are so much better for our health — this is a great intro for folks, thank you. It is always good to hear about trusted products from other blogs. Thanks for sharing on Hearth & Soul Hop. 🙂
Thanks for the recipe, I am starting it now.
Just wanted to say, be careful of statements like this: “Most of them (modernized grains)are made from genetically modified grains and can damage your health.”
While there are environmental concerns to growing GMO crops (such as unintended harm to the natural species they inevitably interact with), there hasn’t been a whole lot of conclusive research that supports direct harm to human health. That’s not to say we shouldn’t be prudent or wary, just that it’s not necessarily a true statement. Also, many modernized grains are not GMO, but are still health damaging or at least not as good for your health as older grains. This is due to our selective breeding over the years, selecting for other qualities sometimes to the detriment of nutrition.
Just don’t want people to get put off, it’s such a controversial subject!
While I love sourdough bread and agree that it has many health benefits (http://www.carobcherub.com/why-love-sourdough/), I don’t agree with all of your benefits.
1. There aren’t any live Lactobacillus in baked sourdough bread. In the starter/culture, yes. But not in the bread. It’s questionable if there is any benefit to eating good, dead bacteria.
4. I don’t know exactly what nutrients sourdough bread does provide (it probably depends upon the flour used), but it doesn’t contain B12.
7. Phytic acid doesn’t rob your body of nutrients, but it can prevent the body from absorbing them. It seems as if you’re conveying that phytic acid takes nutrients out of the body, which it doesn’t. It can simply inhibit the absorption of nutrients in the food eaten.
Love this recipe for Sour dough!
Thank you for listing it!!
Thank you, so much! The video was amazing! The bread is so absolutely delicious! Many Blessings!
I love sourdough but want to use HEALTHY flour! Trouble is, I’m not sure what healthy flour(s) would work.
Question: When you bake the sourdough, doesn’t heat destroy the probiotic microorganisms???
Yes they are.
Lactobacillus bacteria are the stars behind sourdough, but once they have done their job to lend flavor and height, these hearty bacteria are killed in the baking process.
I would have liked to see some answers to your questions listed above. I’m still questioning what bread to buy that would be the most nutritious as well.
Hats off to Mr. Yoder for your heart warming video. I am a transplanted buckeye to the state of Florida and very much enjoyed reminiscing about my childhood days in the great state of Ohio while watching. It was lovely and the tears flowed freely! Thank you, Mrs. Landis