These Ain't the Same Grains!!

People have been eating bread for thousands and thousand of years, it is known as the 'staff of life' so what's the problem? The problem is most of the grains in bread and baked products today is new. It has been developed for mass production of a 1000 and one factory produced products. Man has meddled with nature big time, and there is always a price to pay. As always Sean talks in a plain way and explains complicated concepts in a way everyone can understand. Make him one of your guru's I have.

It is true man does meddle with nature and not always to mans benefit.

I have often been told nature has the strongest hand - is this true? Time will tell.

But this is another great video from Sean   

All the best Jan

Believe it or not, before I joined Fire Service, I was a baker. My brother-in-law was a trained baker and we bought a shop together. He made the cakes, I made the bread. Real bread, flour, yeast, water, should only stay fresh for a couple of days. Any more than that and it's full of preservatives. Eddie is also correct about the flour. Even the stuff we used from Marriage's ( UK's largest distributor ) is full of additives and enhancers. Whilst most on this forum believe bread is the product of the devil, I just would like to let you all know how much hard work goes into making a proper loaf of bread. It is the toughest job I've ever done. Even if we don't eat much of it any more, please appreciate your local baker and shake his hand !

It is Mo.  I've made bread myself over the years, and it's a very strenuous workout.

Whilst most bakers these days have the support of machinery, it still involves a lot of prep and planning.  I think in some ways that 'artisan' bakers who make sourdough and other slow-rise mixes have an even tougher job due to the prep and complexity.

My research into Coeliac Disease well over 7 years ago led me to understand how different modern wheat is to the ancient strains.  France, for instance, tends to use more ancient strains of wheat, which may be why they have far less of a problem with it than we do using the highly-hybridised American Dwarf Hard Wheat.

Hi Ali, this goes much further that just grains. The hunt for months or even years of shelf life for some foods has caused untold grief for the consumer, although added much to the bottom line profit.

For a real horror story check out the so called Chorlywood process for bread.

"Back in the early 1960s, the national loaf was fundamentally redesigned. The flour and yeast were changed and a combination of intense energy and additives completely displaced time in the maturing of dough. Almost all our bread has been made this way for nearly half a century. It is white and light and stays soft for days. It is made largely with home-grown wheat and it is cheap. For increasing numbers of people, however, it is also inedible.

Now, as technology finds ever more ingenious ways to adulterate our bread, so science is revealing the havoc this may be causing to public health. As recent research suggests, we urgently need to rethink the way we make bread.

And now the safety of bakery enzymes has been radically challenged by the discovery that the enzyme transglutaminase, used to make dough stretchier in croissants and some breads, may turn part of the wheat protein toxic to people with a severe gluten intolerance."

Link to info here http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/features/the-shocking-truth-about-bread-413156.html

Bread certainly has got a bad name, and we each have to decide whether or not we will eat a slice?

I can remember quite some years ago now enjoying some of the different 'artisan' type loaves that Waitrose sell. In a lot of the continental countries bread making is still seen as a work of art and their breads do seem to have a completely different taste and are bought on a daily basis, I'm sure there are many master bakers in the UK too.

But how about this for a great bread recipe - it's made using broccoli

Link here http://thelowcarbdiabetic.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/low-carb-grain-free-gluten-free.html

All the best Jan

Absolutely Eddie. The Chorleywood process has a lot to answer for.

The interaction of the yeasts and water on the flour takes time. Three hours or less is not long enough. Not only does the interaction need time to pre-digest the gluten proteins, it also needs time to generate the up to 50% more nutritional elements that are found in slow-rise bread, especially sourdough.

Before saccharomyces cerevisiae became the yeast of choice in modern times, all bread was made with sourdough. Because it contains a much broader range of microbes, it generates a much wider range of nutritional elements, all of which support the digestion and utilisation of the bread within the body.

It becomes another 'all the nutrients needed for its digestion, and some.....' food, unlike 'nutritional burglar' fast bread and unfermented wheat products full of twice as much undigested gluten as ancient wheat and sorely lacking in nutrition.

There are lots of reasons why it's toxic, and this is just one of them.