I am a retired scientist and love good food, good cooking and find the science behind them quite fascinating. Long story short, I was having "stomach" issues a few years ago, and working with a doctor and dietician I did an elimination diet and when i added bread back in bingo all my issues came back. Seems I may have developed some sensitivity to something in bread, gluten, wheat, or whatever. After reading Michael Pollan's "Cooked" I began to really understand why many people are having "issues" with today's bread. Basically today's bread is NOT fermented using sourdough starter but packaged yeast. It is the fermenting process that breaks down the proteins in bread (gluten being one) and makes them digestible. I plan on using the recommendations in this blog to develop a sourdough starter and try bread out once again. I miss good bread. Rather than start blind does anyone have any experience with this concept and either some reliable reading or some helpful suggestions on this? Ideas including but not limited to: grinding your own wheat, where to buy really good whole wheat or rye, how much longer does using this method take for bread to rise and ferment before baking, are baking methods different for these types of breads? Any thoughts would be appreciated.
From the inquiring mind of a hopeful bread maker
