Bruce's Daily Bread
Simple & Healthier Breadmaking
By Jacques de Langre
The nutritional and better absorption/assimilation of whole grain bread made with natural starter (sourdough) leavener instead of commercial yeast are numerous and of great importance to the health-seeker.
In many technical and medical writings, the two techniques of baking: natural sourdough leaven and commercial bakers yeast are often confounded and contradicted.
It is the aim of this paper to clear up this confusion.
All of the benefits of natural starter and all of the clearly detrimental effects of commercial yeasted bread are thoroughly exposed and discussed in the forthcoming 1981 edition of "Breads Biological Transmutations". Many of these findings are quite recent and supported by scientific evidence and clinical studies.
Baking By Principle.
The aim of breadbaking is to transform the various nutrients obtained from fresh-milled whole grain flour in a way that best facilitates their absorption. To do this effectively, life's laws must be respected through all of the transformation of matter that affect our nutrition.It is important for the bread to retain the vital and dynamic qualities that animate the grain throughout its life: Germination, growth and maturity.
Starter Leaven-A Definition.
True starter leaven is obtained from the wild or spontaneous ferments that exist in the air. This micro-macro-flora consists of a multitude of micro-organisms in symbiosis - a mutually beneficial association.
False Leaven.
In attempts to make sourdough bread - for its characteristic taste and to please customers who request natural leavened bread, -professional bakers and bread process researchers have often begun a primary starter with minimal amount of commercial yeast to get it going, or simply by holding back a certain quantity of yeasted sourdough from the previous days baking. This, in no way, duplicates the health benefits of true benefits of true natural sourdough leaven and is actually injurious to health is the same way yeasted bread is.
Easy Method for First Starter.
Making a true leaven First Starter is much easier and failproof than most beginners and long-time yeast bakers imagine. The myths that urround starter-type breadmaking fall apart when one bakes by principle.
RULES:
1.Use only fresh ground flour from organic sources.
2. Grind the flour fairly coarse and only on natural stones.
3. Milling of the coarse flour should be controlled so that the temperature within the flour does not rise above 96 degrees F. (To preserve the heat-sensitive delicate enzymes).
4. Use untreated well or spring water. Fluoride, chlorine, ionized or distilled will not promote ferments.
5. Mix 1 cup of cold water to 1/2 cup of fresh coarse ground flour. Do not add salt, oil or least of all: yeast. Knead the mixture until a smooth consistency develops.
6. Place the resulting mixture in a clean (scalded) wooden bowl or earthenware crock covered loosely with a clean cotton cloth in an area that is well venhilated but free of draft, cool and dark but not not refridgerated unless inside building temperature is above 90 F. Stir mixture with with a scalded spatula every for three days.
7. After three days of cool storage, starter will have acquired a beer-like fragrance, display some bubbles or if dry will show superficial fine cracks.
8. From this point on, the starter may be kept in an airtight close jar and refridgerated. It no longer requires air in order to live. The starter does require periodic feeding with fresh flour or usuage in bread along with refreshing or renewing.
Deep Freeze:
For inactive storage periods up to 3 or 4 weeks, it is possible to store the starter in a deep freeze. In any prolonged periods of inactivity, the only danger is that the starter will acquire an excess of acidity or that the acid will turn to acetic acid instead of lactic acid. (Lactic acid is friendly to our organism, acetic is not.)
Thawing out and Use of Deep Frozen Starter.
It is important to completely thaw out out the starter before use in bread and to avoid rushing the process. Under no circumstance should hot water be used to thaw it out as this would destroy the enzymes and kill the starter action. Be sure to feed and remix the starter every time it is thawed out.
Starter Functions.
Definition:
A starter is a bread leavening agent that contains a wide spectrum of wild biological ferments, mold and digestive enzymes, all contributing to the health of the intestinal flora.
Primary Function:
The starter serves to change the raw elements of wheat and other cereal grains into ready nutrients, more easily absorbed by the body.
Auxilary Role:
The combined action of the wild ferments and enzymes maintained within the starter added to the enzymes existing in the freshly ground whole flour are creating heat and energy that will aerate and leaven the bread harmoniously.
Bonus Benefits:
Among the multitude of elements present within the starter-leavened bread, some combine to insure the breads keeping qualities while others serve to improve its taste during the aging. (While yeated bread loses its taste quite rapidly after baking and actually becomes toxic*, the natural leavened bread increases its healing powers as well as its flavor and taste.)
*For a complete discussion of this important difference, the reader is invited to consult "Breads Biological Transmutations" published by Happiness Press 14351 Wyclif, P.O.Box DD, Magalia, CA 95954.
Making Starter Bread.
Dissolve of the starter in 1 cups of cold spring water, add 2 to 3 cups of fine ground flour and mix until a smooth consistancy is obtained. Store this batter for 12 hours in a wood or earthenware at a low temperature (68degrees F. - 16 to 18 degrees C.). Cover with a clean cotton cloth and keep away from drafts. The above is called the Chef, it is an intermediary step between the starter and the final bread dough.
Note that it contains no salt and no oil or other additives. For smaller quantities, the proportions can be halved. To 1 lb. Of Chef, add 1 to 2 quarters of water and 4 to 5 pounds of fresh ground flour (Fine Ground).
Begin to knead without salt. Weigh the amount of dough being formed and add 1 per cent of that weight in unrefined salt, either in crystals or fine powder.
Continue to knead for 15 to 20 minutes so as to completely dissolve and absorb the salt. Allow the dough to rest one half hour. Separate the dough into loaf-size pieces. Keep in mind that the bread pans should only be full.
Lightly oil the pans using either corn or sesame oil. Roll the dough balls in flour, mold them into the pans and cover with a clean cotton cloth. Place the covered bread pans in a moist area at a temperature of 75 to 80 F.
Until they double in size (3 to 6 hours).
Baking:
The purpose of the heat of baking is to transform the starches into dextrin. A sufficiency of heat must be available to accomplish this purpose fairly rapidly without scorching or burning the bread loaves.
Preheat the Oven to 400 degrees F. Remove the cotton covers make sure that the room in which the oven is located is free from drafts or cold air. Place the bread pans without delay in the center of the oven andclose the door tightly and quickly. After 15 minutes, lower the temperature to 325 F. After hour, open the door and check the color of the crust. At this time it should be possible to quickly remove the the bread from their pans and place them alone on the wire racks for better browning. (If they should stick, disregard this and oil & flour them better the next batch around.)
Cooling:
When the bread is correctly baked, it should have an even color on all surfaces, underside as well as on top.
The shade of brown is near fresh-sawed redwood. This bread will keep without refridgeration up to one month. But to accomplish this quality, the bread must be cooled in an energetic draft and all surfaces exposed to the air. This is best down on a wooden rack with the loaves standing on edge. When completely cooled, wrap in kraft brown paper or in white paper sacks. Do not use plastic bags as the bread must breathe. If mold (green spots) develop during storage, these are the children of the bread and consist of natural penicillin, and will disappear when bread is paced in a warm oven for a few minutes.
Question:
Why does the Natural Leaven Bread taste Sour?
Answer:
The action of the ferments of life bring the naturally leavened bread within the optimal biological zone, which is slightly acid.
If the bread has acquired a decidedly strong acid taste, it contains acetic acid. This often happens in commercial sourdough breads and is detrimental to the health. The mild sourness, however, belongs to the beneficial lactic acid and is characteristic of the true leaven bread. This taste stabilizes itself after a few hours and thus should not be thought of as stale bread too old for consuming.
Question:
Bran rich bread is known to deconstipate immediately. Why does natural leaven bread appear at first not to effect the same quick deconstipating action?
Answer:
Much of the popularity of whole grain bread is due to its roughage and its power to quickly scour the colon. When the whole grain bread is of the yeasted variety, most of this roughage -being undigested by fermentation- is still in its abrasive state and stimulates elimination by mechanical scouring action. The very abrasiveness which has temporarily relieved the problem soon creates another one: inflamation of the colon. True starter leavened bread owes its permanent regulating action to the biological action of its ferments that alone possess the power to regenerate the intestinal flora. These same ferments also restore the peristatic action and the flexibility of the colon. While this cure is not as spetacular as the non-predigested high-roughage diet, it has a much more lasting and beneficial biological quality.
Question:
Why does Naturally Leavened Bread appear not to contain any bran particles and yet retains a dark brown color within the inside crumb as well as the crust?
Answer:
The micro-organisms of the natural leaven have in effect digested the bran flakes to such a degree that they totally disappear. All the nutrients of the bran coats have been retained, however, and this accounts for the dark coloring inside the loaf. This color is the evidence of the use of natural leaven: that of creating a physiochemical tranformation of the elements within the dough, in order to obtain a predigestation of the nutrients. This results in a total assimilation of these nutrients by the human organism.
Question:
Is there a way to simplify the Starter Bread Method of Baking even further than that outlined above?
Answer:
Yes, there are numerous ways of using Natural Leaven, for as long as the rules for making the starter are carefully observed. For instance, the Chef could be completely eliminated, thus mixing the cup of starter directly into the 4 to 5 lbs. of fresh ground flour. In this latter case, it is better to increase the amount of starter to 1 full cup.
(From an 2 double paged leaflet published by Jacques deLangre sometime before or after 1981. Jacques taught about natural leavened bread, Celtic sea salt, Do-In, George Ohsawa, and macrobiotics. I met him in 1980. Jacques died from the result of an automobile collision in Nov. 28, 1993)
The Grain and Salt Society
( http://celtic-seasalt.com/saltoflife/index.html )
Samap (stone) Grain Mills
( http://celtic-seasalt.com/saltoflife/grainmills.html )
Some other publications about natural leavened bread:
The Bread Book: A Natural, Whole-Grain Seed-to-Loaf Approach to Real Breads by Thom Leonard (East-West Health Books, 1990) 100 pages $8.95 ISBN: 0-936184-09-4
The Laurels Kitchen BREAD BOOK:A Guide to Whole-Grain Breadmaking by Laurel Robertson (Random House, 1984)w100 448pages $19.95 ISBN: 0-394-72434-8
Breads Biological Transmutations:The Changes in Food Grains from the Wheatfields to the Stone Mills, through the Bakery Ovens and life-giving Energies by Louis C. Kervan (Happiness Press, 1981) 32 pages $2.00 ISBN: 0-916508-06-4 (out of print, call 1-800-TOP-SALT)
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 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 nourish 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.
Lynn Gordon runs the French Meadow Bakery in Minneapolis, Minnesota
Telephone 612-870-4740 and 1-877-No Yeast
FAX 612-870-0907
Postal address:
2610 Lyndale Avenue South
%Minneapolis, MN 55408
Electronic mail:
General Information: info@frenchmeadow.com
Sales:pr@frenchmeadow.com
Customer Support: bread@frenchmeadow.com
Webmaster: bread@frenchmeadow.com
French Meadow Bakery Home Page
( http://www.frenchmeadow.com/index.htm )
"Rising" To A Higher Level Of Healthful Eating
( http://www.frenchmeadow.com/rising.htm )
Other Places to go:
