September 11, 2016 - 5:59pm
Modernist Bread
Hubby just alerted me to an Article in Der Standard, an Austrian newspaper (online) that a book "Modernist Bread" will be coming out the beginning of 2017. Written by Nathan Myhrvold.
The Standard article is an interview titled "Vollkornbrot ist nicht besser für uns" or translated... "Whole grain bread is not better for us." The book is not cheap at around $600 and very geeky, with all the actual scientific updates and modern methods to remove the ignorance in the kitchen. A good article and entertaining as well.
In German:
http://derstandard.at/2000043580794/Nathan-Myhrvold-Vollkornbrot-ist-nicht-besser-fuer-uns?ref=rss
Mini
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http://modernistcuisine.com/2016/04/modernist-bread/
breads are not better for us than white yeast breads for free several years ago but....... when it comes to bread, you can't beat sprouted, sourdough, whole grain breads when it comes to being good for you - way better then white ones. Glad I got to save the $600 years before this book was written:-)
That's the big part of the first set of books, - that whenever they looked in detail at things that are supposedly good for you, like "eat more fiber", all they would find was confusion, misunderstanding and sometimes outright lies.
especially of they are trying to sell you something.
write off the book over the title of an article to catch attention.
The point is one doctor started saying whole grains are better for your health using cancer scare tactics with no evidence to back it up. What the trend has done is shifted the populace toward whole grain breads with more flavour, not a bad reaction in my book. Whether one is better than the other is left to method and preparation. I hope these variables are mentioned in the book.
I would also like to know what total alkalinity in water does to our sourdough bugs. Playing with swimming pool water has me thinking about it. Balancing the pool for optimum germ killing and such. What influence does it have on the variety of bacteria and yeast we want growing in our SD cultures? What effect on fermentation and timing? Flavour?
Hey, the rye flour discoveries mentioned in the article are most interesting.
why wholegrain yeasted breads are no better than white yeasted breads?
Bran is good for you. So surely a food with bran is better than the same food without the bran!
Unless when you are buying bread they add things into the wholegrain breads to make up for the lack of "fluffiness" that white bread has. So its not that wholegrain is no better than white but rather all the other added ingredients that "spoil" a healthy wholegrain bread.
Are we getting the whole picture with claims like these?
I've just tried to translate the page and there's something I do not understand. He makes a claim that fibre has no health benefits. Really!? He then says that the bran has vitamins and other health benefits in it and yet he says this doesn't add anything to the wholegrain bread.
Is he just trying to sell a book? One has to make a big claim in order to make a book interesting. I don't believe everything I read or hear.
He claims fibre goes in with its vitamins and goes out still containing its vitamins, unchanged. So whether the bread has fibre or not, the food value stays the same.
That's researchable. But surely fibre is good for you and isn't it proven that eating fibre with carbohydrates makes your body more efficient with how it uses carbs? And even if you're eating fibre for fibre's sake it is good for you.
I think it would be boring to just repeat what is common knowledge so crazy claims are made.
You are overestimating quality of common knowledge.
It's quite a simple question. Is fibre good for you or not. We could try asking someone who never eats fibre if they're having any health issues. I think it's always too easy to dismiss common knowledge too. In fact the only thing that has stood the test of time is our common knowledge of health as supposed to these new health fads that discriminates against any one food type. One needs all the major food groups with vitamins, minerals and fibre. Health doesn't have to be complicated. Getting ones fibre with wholegrains can only be good for you. It makes sense that a bread which has the wholegrain is healthier than one which has been stripped of the bran if only for the fibre content (assuming we cannot absorb the vitamins within the fibre).
No, it's not a simple question at all. Asking someone if he has health issues will only provide you with anecdotal evidence. Even asking a million people won't help - such is the level of bias in self-reporting. Like "Getting ones fibre with wholegrains can only be good for you". That's bias, and if you are biased your answer will be skewed towards confirming it. And then what is "good"? Does it reduce incidence of heart disease? Does it make you feel good about yourself? Does it hep you stay regular?
Bless you.
"Asking someone if he has health issues will only provide you with anecdotal evidence."
and dietary benefits vary. Fax seeds are high in omega 3 but if you don't crush and grind them a bit they pass through the human body without being broken down and the nutrients absorbed.
The vitamins and minerals in bran have to be unlocked and fiber can be soluble, unsolvable and modified by chemical and wee beastie actions to be more effective and beneficial in the human intestine. This is why white yeast breads are pretty much as good for you as whole grain yeast ones. There are some who think that if un-modifed by acid, sprouting and wee beasties and enzymes bran and fiber in yeast breads may be worse for you than white breads.
But, SD and sprouting do wonders for bran and fiber to unlock their benefits and these actions make whole grain breads the best you can eat - by fa and they taste way better too - a real two'fer!. You don't need to spend $600 to find this out - the guy is already rich enough.
The problem is that you sincerely believe all that, but can show no hard evidence supporting it. I am not even talking about the statements related to human physiology, only simple, cereal-science text level facts. Do you know vitamin content of grain fraction, which ones bran is rich in and how it translates into vitamin content of final bread? How bread compares to other foods as a source of vitamins. The real reason why sourdough fermentation is preferable for whole grain breads? The thing is, you can't and you don't need to, because in your gut you already know certain things to be true.
read scientific texts, journals and experiments because they weren't able to understand them and their conclusions and only folks like you could? Don.t you find it a bit ironic that you are asking me for some kind of scientific proof when you should be the one providing it in a nice summary that us laymen could understand - with proper footnotes of course.
I didn't take your advice then, am on to you since then and don't appreciate your elitist and unwarranted attitude.
You know nothing about me, my gut feelings or what I think, what I can comprehend or what I base my opinions on. You make assumptions that are not verified ,much less proven true. You wold be wise to remember that........since this is what makes smart people with experience fail so often.
So lets see the summary with footnotes - you are the expert here.
I see what you did here. I asked some very specific questions, meant to establish the level of your understanding of nutritional properties of whole grain, but now it's about me, and my "elitist attitude". Tell you what, there is nothing elitist in trying to gain knowledge that's close to reality, if not always your own heart.
internet flaming and folks saying things anonymously that they would never say to one another's faces. This is both directed at you and NOT directed at you both. Understood that folks have unique backgrounds, knowledges, interests, and areas of expertise. I came to love TFL because it is an interesting and stimulating environment that feeds my soul and interest in good bread. A place where we can share the love, so to speak.
I love bread and I really am little concerned about the nutritional value of it, although many of you may be concerned in that realm. Just as I love meat, fish and chicken and especially ales (Save The Ales!). Bread and ales share the #1 spot in my dietary book and love of food. But I digress. Fortunately it is few and far between for these discussions and advices to get ornery, but when they do, I cringe. I know that I don't have to read them, and perhaps I shouldn't. But I do. My own shortcoming, I suppose.
Whatever you think of me for penning this missive, feel free to do so and if you have the need to vent, also feel free to let me have it. I am just one lonely voice out there on Island TFL, a place that I've come to love (THANK YOU FLOYD). I know the there are disagreements and then there are Disagreements, and perhaps never the twain shall meet. But I've seen way too many other websites where flaming and major dust-ups are part and parcel of the landscape. I know that writing this will change nothing, but I had my own need to vent.
Carry on...
I used to co-own one a very large forum, so I'm all too familiar with how easily discussions can devolve from exchanging information and opinions to being personal. TFL is something of a haven in this regard and I hope everyone will remember to try to keep it that way.
as you and the rest the rest of TFL community know full well, I have been posting every week since 2012 all about why whole and sprouted grain, SD. breads are far superior to white yeast bread for many reasons and have even done posts on this specific issue several times over the years to explain this fact. I have also posted many, many links to all kinds of of places, some even scientific - oh horrors - that have convinced me why I believe what I do.
Where have you been all of these years to miss my thousands of posts? I would hate to think all of my time was wasted.
It has nothing to do with gut feelings and and you know it. All you have to do, or anyone else, is read my posts over the last 4 years and you immediately know where my beliefs and facts come from over that time - I haven't hid a thing. We don't live in a made up vacuum where facts don't exist. This is TFL where everything is open for inspection and searching.
I still await your scientific summary and proof I asked you for. I am always looking for new scientific facts and my beliefs are not etched in stone. All you have to do is search here for mine. Seems fair enough to me.
I really do hope you have something interesting to share - otherwise I wouldn't ask. That is what makes the world go around and come back around - sharing nicely!.
Happy baking Suave
I don't think he makes any dietary claims. The gist of his argument is that the science of health and nutrition is so complex that when the effects are minute (like not on the level of scurvy) it is almost impossible to elucidate influence of a particular diet on health without spending decades and billions on research.
By the way - are you sure about $600? Is it going to be another multi-volume thing? I could swing $100-150 for one large book, but $500+ set ain't happening. Amazon does not have price and date yet.
of about $600 was thrown out by the author himself in the Q&A after the article. It is a large volume set. I will go find the section if you want me too.
I got curious and sure enough, the research group has signed up to TFL and asked some questions last year. They set up a large kitchen with a lot of fancy testing equipment according to their blog. Equipment Proth and Suave probably know more about. I wish I had made a suggestion over a year ago to start a forum topic... If you could have a complete lab in your kitchen, what would you like to know about? (or something along those lines.)
I think this is going to be a library check out type of book. I am curious what the science has to say. What they discovered in their own lab and kitchens. Many research papers exist about cereals and flours and breads. I wonder if these fit into what his team has come up with in the last few years.
The fibre/fiber Question is an interesting one. It makes sense to me that we don't digest fiber, that's why we call it fiber. The body has to burn more energy to break fibre down (if they stick around long enough) than to just pass fiber on and out of the body. So in this way, fiber cost us energy. The longer fiber stays in the body, the more energy it costs us to keep it warm and pass it down its long journey in the intestines. Carbohydrates in bread are a source of energy. So the health question pops up: is it healthy for us to consume food that contains fiber and costs us energy? I suppose it is if we consume too much energy and don't want to store that energy in our bodies.
I think you are correct re: library. Of course, first you'd need to find a library that'd buy it, although surprisingly, there are a few around here that got the Modernist Cuisine.
Yes, I glanced at their blog, and I saw all the cool machinery, and I have general/good understanding where they are going with that, but I am not sure yet if this can translate into practical advice. What I mean is, if they spend 50 pages discussing how alveograph works and what they learned it's one thing. If they also provide data for common flours it's another thing completely. And fermentation - there's a lot of information out there, but try to find an answer to a seemingly simple question like "if you start a 12 h poolish at 0.1% IDY, how much yeast will it have at peak?". I don't know. I have a feel, but I don't know. This is my greatest hope - that they don't spend all their time playing with their shiny new SEM, but write a comprehensive treatise on fermentation.
I think we all tend to over-think our food just a bit and start believing that if we just ate enough of this or that, we'd live forever.
I can remember eating two pounds of blueberries for the anti-oxidant effect that was supposed to prevent cancer... spent the next two days in the bathroom.
You know the drill... variety, exercise, moderation... and have a nice slice of your FAVORITE home made bread made even better by the fine folks at TFL!
Murph
a diabetic like so many of us it seems.
what to eat. I loved this book by Michael Pollan. Worth reading. In a overly simplified resume, he says that we need to rely in our milenar culture, as humans, to know what is best to eat. He also exemplifies that with some of the changing certainties about food provided be scientists... Like egg. So, he says, eat what our grand grandmothers used to eat.
I like this thinking.
And natural fermented bread is being eaten all over the word for thousands of years...
It should be good...
https://www.amazon.com/Omnivores-Dilemma-Natural-History-Meals/dp/0143038583
from ~ $ 7,00 :P
I've always wondered if we're missing something when we mill and sift our own flour at home, seeing as how store-bought flour is enriched with vitamins to give us more health benefits. Also, isn't the germ good for us (better than the bran; not simply fibre)?
I'm just a non-scientific baker, and don't really want to know too much about the detailed chemistry though. Certainly not enough to wade through a $600 set of books! Some well-made, mostly-white bread tastes very good, as do many other kinds. All things in moderation, as Murph says!