How Digestible Is Your Bread?

After I wrote my last post about my gluten sensitivity and bread and all that good stuff, I came across an article called Bread Dread: Are You Really Gluten Intolerant? from the Native Nutrition blog on Nourished Magazine. In this article the author discusses how in the 1950s, in order to mass produce loaves of bread, bakers developed a “fast loaf”—bread that required a significantly shorter fermentation period. Rather than leaving the loaves to ferment overnight, they could reduce the process to a mere two or three hours.

For all of you who don’t know much about bread fermentation (and I’m right there with you), an article from the Weston A. Price website summarizes the process thusly:

[G]luten in grain is not fully broken down, even by all the digestive enzymes normally present in the digestive track. What does break down gluten…is a bacterial enzyme…just what the bacteria in a sourdough culture are likely to produce! …[W]hy not just apply a little logic to the problem and go back to preparing bread with a long fermentation. This ancient method not only seems to digest or completely break down the gluten…but also neutralizes enzyme inhibitors (that interfere with digestion) and phytic acid (that block mineral absorption).

The author of the Native Nutrition blog post believed that since fermentation increases the digestibility of the grains, those “fast loaves” of the 1950s were actually far less digestible than those that had undergone the more traditional long fermentation process:

Very basic bread that had once been fermented for a healthy 8 hours or more was now brewing in just 2 hours! Yeast levels were increased, accelerants and proving agents introduced. Glutens, starches and malts were not given the remotest opportunity to convert to their digestible potentials, in a sickly anti-nutrient-laden, gluepot stew. Breads are still made this way, even the so-called health breads!

Fast-made bread is one of the most destructive implementations into the modern diet. It has become normal fare, and poorly-prepared and poorly-digested wheat is the chief contributor to the current plague of “gluten-intolerance”, obesity, diabetes, candida diseases and many allergenic conditions.

Gluten (once properly fermented) is a wonderful vegetable protein. It is actually a mix of the two elastic proteins, gliadin and glutenin. So-called gluten-intolerant adults and kids are eating my long-ferment bread with amazement at, delight in, the taste, the clarity and the painless, satisfactory satiety.

Sure, be intolerant of gluten in its under-prepared, expedient form. It most certainly is toxic. Such sensitivity is wise and self-preserving, but do not condemn gluten and wheat via this premise. We are not gluten-intolerant; we are allergic to the accelerating haste of modern life!

Wheat is, yes, potentially one of the most highly allergenic foods on the planet, but like soya beans, converts to a truly great food once it is fermented long enough.

All current breads, pastas, pizzas, cakes, biscuits, and on and on and on, contain complex proteins which have not been given the requisite fermentation time to convert to their excellent, digestible alter-egos.
Wheat also contains a difficult starch and a highly allergenic maltose, but within that same complexity, when correctly fermented, there lies varied and splendid nutrients – 18 amino acids (proteins), complex carbohydrate (a super efficient source of energy), B vitamins, iron, zinc, selenium and magnesium, and maltase.

From a demon to a god in one ferment.

One of the reasons I love Grindstone Bakery (yes, another plug!) is that they make their breads in a more traditional way—including a slow, natural fermentation process with no added yeast. Their breads turn out dense and hearty, which I happen to love; they taste healthy and leave me feeling satisfied.

When I went gluten-free about nine months ago, I stopped eating the wheat-free Grindstone breads (made with oats, barley, rye and spelt) and started eating various other gluten-free breads that contained added yeast and ingredients like tapioca starch, potato starch, and all sorts of things I wasn’t used to eating. And guess what? I didn’t feel any better. In some ways, I felt worse.

I find I often feel hungry and unsatisfied after eating many of these mass-produced gluten-free products. Sometimes I even have an addictive response and feel like I want to eat more (and more and more…) But when I eat long-fermented, gluten-free breads such as Grindstone’s, I feel fine. I feel satisfied. And even though these breads aren’t cheap, I’m starting to think they’re worth the extra money, since I feel good after I eat them.

To me it makes perfect sense that these “faster” loaves with all their added ingredients might in some ways be less healthy for me. Certainly my stomach seems to think so. Granted, I don’t have Celiac disease, and I’m certainly not going to recommend that gluten-intolerant folks ditch their gluten-free products and start consuming foods that may be harmful to them. But for those people who, like me, have gone gluten-free and not noticed a difference, maybe we want to take a closer look at what we’re eating.

Gluten-free good health is not simply an issue of not eating gluten. If we want to feel good, we need to consider what’s been added to our breads as a substitute for gluten and even how the breads have been prepared. Many different factors affect the digestibility of our foods. You can trust your gut on this.

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For those not familiar with traditional foods and food preparation techniques, I highly recommend Sally Fallon’s book Nourishing Traditions. Fallon provides a wide variety of information about food, nutrition and cooking, and answers questions you never knew you had.

For more information on Grindstone Bakery, how they prepare their breads, and also the fermentation process, check out their website at www.GrindstoneBakery.com.

Tagged as: Digestion, Fermentation, Gluten intolerance, Gluten sensitivity, Gluten-free bread, Grindstone Bakery, Wheat-Free