Nutritional Value of Yeasted Bread?
The following quote was made in an article on sourdough bread making at annarbor.com
[1]
"In books on baking and even in nutritional/medical writings, the two techniques [for making bread], natural leaven (sourdough) and baker's yeast, are often mingled and confounded.... Baking with natural leaven is in harmony with nature and maintains the integrity and nutrition of the cereal grains used.... The process helps to increase and reinforce our body's absorption of the cereal's nutrients. Unlike yeasted bread that diminishes, even destroys, much of the grain's nutritional value, naturally leavened bread does not stale and, as it ages, maintains its original moisture much longer."
It's attributed to a Jacques DeLangre, Ph.D.
This one's news to me and while I'm all for naturally leavened breads, (and have been making my bread that way for several years now) the quote above sounds highly suspicious to me. The part that particlularly struck me was the claim that "naturally leavened bread does not stale" (mine does) and "yeasted bread ... diminishes, even destroys, much of the grain's nutritional value".
Has anyone else heard these kinds of claims before? Is there any kind of peer reviewed research to support DeLangre's statements?
The full article is at the link above.
-brian