Yeast Breads

[lilmizcheezcake]

I had a question about yeast breads. I have read non-yeast breads are better for you then breads made with yeast. I was wondering why this is?

Lil Miz

[Bruce Paine]

lilmizcheezcake.

Maybe the following will help you to understand the difference:

Yeast Free Bread...Real Food For Health
By Lynn Gordon

What are yeasts? John Willard Rippon, PH.D., said in his book Medical Mycology: "Yeasts (including Candida albicans) are mild mannered creatures incapable of producing infection in a healthy individual. They only cause trouble in persons with weakened defenses.. ..the severity of the disease will depend on how weak a persons resistance is, rather than any disease-producing properties exhibited by the fungus....because of its rapid ability to make itself at home in mucous membranes (the medical term is colonize) and take advantage of many types of host alterations, the clinical manifestations of candida infection are exceedingly variable....Candida albicans accounts for the vast majority of diseases caused by the yeast." William . Crook ,M.D., defines what yeast is in his book The Yeast Connection:

"Yeasts are single cell fungi which belong to the vegetable kingdom. And like their cousins the molds, they live all around you. And one family of yeasts, Candida albicans, normally lives in your body and more especially in your intestines and other parts of your digestive tract."

Yeast germs normally lives on the mucous membranes, along with billions of friendly germs. The dark recesses of the digestive tract and the vaginas are the perfect environment for yeasts. Unfriendly bacteria, allergens, and viruses also find their way into these and other membrane-lined passageways, including the respiratory tract. However, when the immune system is strong, these unfriendly bacteria arent able to penetrate into the deepertissues or blood stream. When the system is weak and vulnerable, the opposite occurs thus creating illness.

When yeasts multiply in the body, the put out toxins which circulate through the system causing hundreds of symptoms which often times lead to serious illness. When the yeast multiplication occurs, this weakens the immune system. Other factors such as nutrition deficiencies caused by poor diet and/or inability of the body to absorb essential amino acids, essential fatty acids, complex carbohydrates, vitamin minerals also weaken the immune system.

Common symptoms of a weak immune system are fatigue, depression, headaches, and the development of yeast or fungus infections on the nails, skin, or vagina. Allergies and becoming more susceptible to infections such as those of nose, sinus, ear, throat, bronchial tubes, and bladder are also common symptoms.

Twentieth century diets which are rich in sugar, bakers yeast, and birth control pills encourage yeast growth. Naturally leavened bread, commonly referred to as yeast-free bread, is easily assimilated by the body and does not promote yeast growth.

Yeast-free breads are growing in popularity due to the fact that they are being recommended by health care professionals to their patients that have yeast-connected health problems as describedpreviously.

Bread is The Staff of Life, our daily sustenance. What are the characteristics of this alternative yeast-free bread? Natural, traditional bread must be leavened in a natural traditional way. Bakers yeast is not a natural and traditional leavening as is generally believed today. The natural leavening process requires a long fermentation time. By mixing wheat and water to make a dough, and letting this dough rest at least twelve to twenty-four hours in a temperature controlled environment, the dough develops from the exposure to all the microorganisms in the air.

Jacques de Langre, director of the Grain and Salt Society stated that The natural leavening agents provide a better strain of bacteria to the human system than the Lactobacillus acidolphilus which is derived from cows milk. These friendly bacteria help control candida. On the other hand, bakers yeast is a pro-candida organism. Why not ignore the leavening altogether?

There are many good qualities of unleavened bread, but there is a big catch-22 factor. Wheat, the primal grain, contain phytic acid or phytin- a natural ingredient that is associated with poor digestion, anemia, and nervous disorders to name a few. The natural group of leavening microbes (microorganisms in the air) in naturally leavened/yeast-free breads eliminate 100% of the phytin; breads baked with bakers yeast contain 90% of the harmful acid.

Unleavened bread leaves even more phytin on hand for the unsuspecting eater. Natural leavening is a multi-faceted phenomenon. When the multiple forms of airborn microbial life contact the warm, moist environment of kneaded dough, processes of fermentation are initiated.

Complex carbohydrate molecules are broken down into simple sugars. When these complex carbohydrates are broken down they become very digestible and can be easily assimilated and properly eliminated by the body.

The yeast-free variety of bread is also more nutritious. The long proofing time breaks down the the bran of the grain, releasing valuable minerals which are dissolved in the rich dough, hence producing a healthful and tasty bread.

150 years ago, microbiological science isolated and cultured one particular yeast, the special Saccharamyces cerevisae, commonly known as bakers yeast. It was discovered that this tiny character caused a rapid and uniform raising of the dough, which was therefore much more predictable and controllable than the natural leaven method. This bacteria stimulated unnatural growth. The new cultured yeast made it possible to to raise a new loaf in 1 hour compared to the 24 hour process the naturally leavened yeast-fee bread required. Little did they know that they were causing an unnatural imbalance in the intestinal flora of all who consumed their daily bread.

The rising popularity of naturally leavened yeast -free bread is not only for health reasons but for reasons of quality and taste as well. To lovers of good bread, there is nothing to compare with naturally leavened whole grain breads. Yeast free breads have a good keeping quality (1 month refridgerated) and when bread is warmed it tastes as though it was just baked.

For centuries man has been nourishish on naturally leavened (yeast-free) bread. In the search for health for ourselves and our families, let us seek out this true bread - Bon Appetit!

Transcribed from the Sept/Dec 1994 Mountain Ark Catalog.

Naturally Leavened Bread
by Jacques de Langre

Natural Leaven or Commercial Baker’s Yeast?
There are two methods for leavening bread and they differ totally in the way they act on the flour, as well as on the taste and nutritional effect of the resulting bread and, in the end, on the health of the consumer. The aim of bread fermentation is to transform the various nutrients freed by the milling of the grain and to modify them for optimum assimilation during digestion.

A Definition of Natural Leaven
Wild yeast, or multi-micro flora are the natural air-borne ferments that are generated or seeded in a dough left exposed to a clean and cool atmosphere under specific conditions of moisture and temperature and the exclusion of larger specimen. Within that fertile medium, lactic bacteria of the various beneficial types are found: B. Pastorianum, B. Delbrucki, B.Ternoas well as saccharomyces such as S.Pastorianus, and S. Cervisiae. This type of microflora consumes little energy and multiplies quite slowly. Its growth duplicates the cycle of human breathing and that of wheat embryo germination. Wild yeast also naturally enriches the bread, due to an additional development of nutrients by the beneficial enzymes and ferments.

Baking by Principle
In baking as in all natural processes, the laws of life must be respected; it is vital for the fermented bread to retain the dynamic character that originally develops within the wheat berry as it evolves toward its germination. Just as the breathing cycle consists of an oxidation, followed by a reduction, the same cycle is reproduced in the five day cycle of the germination of wheat. Natural leavened bread (seeded with wild yeast or natural leaven) also duplicates this cycle: The rising of the dough corresponds to an oxidation (like wheat germ growth), followed by a reduction (during the baking of the loaf) identical to the development of the miniature sprout of wheat. We readily see that of the two methods available for leavening bread, only natural leaven faithfully follows God’s laws of the universe.

Beware of White Sourdough
There is also the question of sifting out the bran: Today, many loaves of sourdough ‘French’ bread are being offered but they are made with white flours that are almost totally demineralized. The pseudo mycelium (vegetative part of the thallus of the fungi, composed of several filaments) cannot feed on such debilitated flours and the bread tastes excessively sour which tells us that, besides lacking the essential nutrients, it is unfavorable to the digestive process.

Another problem sometimes occurs in natural baking: An excess of lactic bacteria may develop and give the bread a definite sourness. Although these bacteria are natural, they have proliferated in excess because the starter or sour dough sponge was not cared for daily. Excess proliferation is a result of a lack of aeration or scrupulous daily feeding (refreshing) or else is due to the storage of the starter in warm areas or areas contaminated with vinegar or other acetic acid products. Since lactic bacteria are anaerobic, they can only develop in the absence of air. When these have exceeded their limit, a “lactic bread” or “acetic bread” is obtained, excessively sour that becomes more sour with aging, with definitely harmful results.

How Baker’s Yeast Works
Commercial yeast is an isolate “mushroom-type” microorganism whose cells are high in moisture and consist of vacuolated protoplasm. Their reproduction cycle is extremely rapid and thus one gram of compressed yeast contains several trillions of yeast cells. In a dough seeded with 1% of commercial yeast, the number of these cells can double in 6 hours at 80 degree Fahrenheit. If the fermentation is allowed to continue, the proliferation will reach a concentration of 150,000,000 cells per cubic centimeter regardless of how little seeding was done at the start.

With commercial yeast, rising of the dough is lightning fast, coupled with a reduction (baker’s yeast is a strong reducer), followed by a strong oxidation during the baking and often accompanied by an alkalinization. This is increased even more when a portion or all of the bran is removed. We witness here a phenomenon totally opposed to the normal laws of life. The end result of this biological decay (staling of bread), is a deficient oxidative energy that changes into a glycolysed energy, as evidenced by monster, or anarchistic, cells that are an exact duplicate of human cancer cells, according to the research of Dr. Warbourg, M.D.

Candida and Anemia are Related to the Consumption of Yeasted Bread
Rickets and anemia can be caused by the consumption of yeasted whole wheat bread. These chronic calcium deficiencies are corrected and even totally eliminated when the whole wheat bread is naturally leavened. In the natural leavening process, the phytic acid and the phytates are hydrolysed by the phytases of the bran in an acid environment and transformed into phytin and soluble phosphatic acids of magnesium, calcium and iron which are totally assimilable and beneficial.

In the case of yeasted bread, with a pH varying from 5.9 to 6.5, the reduction by hydrolysis of the toxic phytic compounds is insufficient, no better than 50%, a level that causes yeasted bread to be detrimental, especially for anemic people.

A full hydrolysis is possible only when the pH remains between 4 and 5.6 maximum, which is the case for natural leaven bread. At the median pH of 4.8 in a dough kept at a temperature of 64 degrees Fahrenheit; there remain only 0.78% (less than 1%) of the phytic acid compounds, which is a totally safe amount.

Sweet Tasting Bread Made with Sourdough Starter
It is quite easy to obtain a sweet tasting bread with a natural leaven fermentation for a base. The slower proofing of the dough at temperatures between 62 and 64 degrees Fahrenheit, made from a leaven always stored at low temperatures of 47 to 50 degrees Fahrenheit and regularly refreshed, will totally prevent the characteristic sour dough taste often associated with natural leavened bread.

Two Extra Benefits from the Natural Leaven Process
The limited growth of friendly lactic bacteria and the presence of other micro-organisms will add little to the acidity, yet will create a good swelling of the gluten as evidenced by small but regular air cells in the crumb. As it ages, natural leavened bread will retain its moisture and keep well without refrigeration, quite opposed from the yeasted bread that stales and dries out within hours after its baking. With natural leaven, no dried out bread need ever to be thrown out.

Bran Value
The high mineral and enzymatic value of bran is widely known and needs little elaboration. It is necessary however, to discuss the little known phytic acid and its detrimental effects on the body metabolism. Phytic acid is inherently present in whole rice and whole wheat and it can cause allergies and other severe illnesses. This toxic substance can only be neutralized and eliminated by the skillful fermentation of those cereal grains through highly principled baking. Thus, the natural baking method that drastically reduces phytic acid must be adopted universally if one is to obtain the most beneficial bread.

Digestibility
Bread and grain-based diets, especially at the beginning, give the illusion that they do not readily digest. Natural leaven bread, because of its inherent beneficial ferments, slowly recreates the population of friendly lactobacillus digestive bacteria in the absorption tract. The end result is a recovery of digestion and proper elimination by the effective action of friendly bacteria. Natural leaven bread provides more stable nutrition than that obtained mechanically by non-fermented (and thus non- pre-digested) bran and other raw or cooked roughage diets, since these only succeed in physically abrading and irritating the colon.

Copied from a Grain & Salt Society archive by Ran Prieur

To find out more about natural leavened baking, please visit the Links at:

the fall and RISE of our DAILY BREAD

Thank you, very much.

And happy baking!

Bruce Paine

[lilmizcheezcake]

Bruce- Thank you so much for all that wonderful information! That was more than I was expecting and was surprised to find bread so interesting. I look forward to giving leavened breads a try. Again thanks so much for your thoughtful response.

Lil Miz