May 12, 2009 - 6:34pm
Is there a way of increasing the fiber count in homemade bread?
I like buying Arnold's WW breads and Thomas's english muffins that are high in fiber- more than your normal "whole grain" products that you can buy. Does anyone know how they add the extra fiber in their bread products, to make them even healthier,
Is there a way to assess a recipe for the nutrient data, to find the fiber content? I'd specifically like to know how the fiber can be increased at home though.
Thanks a bunch!
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You could try using Hi-Maize resistant starch. It's often listed as modified starch in ingredients lists. Available through Amazon or through King Arthur Flour. I've considered it myself, but I want to get my bread making to a more skilled, experienced level before I go messing with things. I've just about got my rosemary sourdough where I want it.
Next: Pumpernickel Rye.
I don't start off easy, do I? :)
Is that the same stuff they use for tortillas ?
Is that the same stuff they use for tortillas ?
Is that the same stuff they use for tortillas ?
Is that the same stuff they use for tortillas ?
You can add fibre in many forms, wheat germ, oat or wheat bran, barley, rye, depending on whether you want soluble or insoluble fibre. There are all sorts of multi-grain flours on the market, including cereals, and when you add some to your bread, simply note the percentage or amount of fibre on the package of grain, then add it into the total percentage of fibre in the rest of your ingredients. After baking the bread, you simply divide the total amount of fibre either by the number of loaves or the number of slices you get from each loaf. I used to do that with carbs when first diagnosed diabetic. That was a few years ago, and I can now figure out the approximate number of carbs in every bread I bake.
I make our sourdough sandwich bread with whole wheat flour (no yeast or white flour) and add to that wheat germ, wheat bran, oat bran seven grain cereal, and flax meal. This bread I also add potato flakes and dry milk.
thanks RS for all of the technical info. I'll be sure to read up and do some searching tonight after work. Thanks Sula for recommending the Hi-maize.
I have wheat bran, barley, wheat germ, but wasn't sure about how much to replace at one time. The 7 grain is probably a good idea too.
Why not use whole grain flour? Ours has plenty of fiber. I have had two of my bread customers tell me that their blood sugar has dropped since they have been eating my bread made with my stone ground whole wheat flour. I am assuming it is due to the high fiber.
www.organicwheatproducts.com
I found the simplest solution for me is to use a mill to make my own flour or buy a truly "whole" wheat flour. There is no comparable taste to home millled wheat flour as it is simply wonderful.
I find that buying flour and then adding bran and germ etc. etc. etc. is not only a bit complicated but it felt too much like trying to out smart a natural product, that being good old whole wheat.
Jeff
My sentiments exactly. I don't understand why people say that whole wheat flour is bitter either. Freshly ground whole wheat flour is wonderful stuff.
But if you don't mill your own or happen to get some that is a bit stale and started to go rancid, which happens very quickly with W/W it IS bitter. yuck
qahtan
Know a homebrewer, or is there a homebrewer's club, or a brew pub, in your area you can contact? Ask them for some spent grain. A five gallon batch of good English ale requires about eleven pounds of malted barley grain. Homebrew club members and brew pubs go through hundreds of pounds of malted grain monthly. They convert all the grain's starch to sugars (dissolved into water), collects all the sugar water (wort) he//she can and turns it into beer. What's left behind is spent grain: primarly barley husks, a little bit of uncollected sugars, and protiens--a great source of fiber, and flavor. Normally, however, it's thrown out, or fed to the pigs or cows.
I don't own it yet nor have I read it, but I understand Peter Reinhart's latest book Whole Grain Bread contains formulae containing brewer's spent grain; or Google "spent grain bread recipe" and you'll get about 26,000 references.
David G.
If you will read the ingredients in some of the "Added Fiber" breads, you will see one of them is Methyl Cellulous....I do believe that is Sawdust.....if I wanted that, I would just serve a side of Oak with my meals!! YUKK!!! That is one of the biggest reasons I decided to start making some of my own breads!! Oh and FYI...it is considered a "Natural" ingredient because it is grown....just not natural for HUMAN digestion!!!
I used to have an English Muffin recipe that called for about a tablespoon of white Vinegar to be added to the oil and milk when you get ready to mix it up, but I can't find that recipe anymore....does anyone have it or one close to it???? Didn't have the Nooks and Crannies but had a FAR superior taste!!! HELP!!!
to be honest, I'm a nutritional label junkie, and I try to find recipes that offer nutritional values, so I don't know how a regular homemade loaf of any whole grain bread, compares nutritionally to an enriched store bought bread.
As an example, Arnold's Grains & More double fiber 100% Whole Wheat bread's fiber count is 6gms per slice and 90 calories.
Ingredients are:
Whole wheat flour, water sugar, inulin, soy fiber, wheat gluten yeast soybean oil, cellulose fiber, polydextrose, salt molasses, wheat bran, datem (?), monoglycerides, calcium propionate, momocalcium phosphate, calcium sulfate, soy lecithin, azodicabonamide, whey nonfat milk.
I know inulin is added fiber, as it's in many other foods too, to boost fiber counts.
Jeff, I am NO where ready to start considering milling my own grains yet....still getting feet wet here.
Thanks for all of the suggestions, and flourgirl, I'm going to check out your site. Honestly, I am not very knowledgable about what products are even out there. I buy my KA unbleached bread flour, whole wheat, and brans from the co-op.
I understand not being ready now (or possibly ever) to grind your own wheat. I would find a source of freshly ground whole wheat and buy from them. Possibly flourgirl can help you from her site; www.organicwheatproducts.com
As a side note I make bread with organic flour, water and salt. That loaf you describe is something that not only would I not eat but I would be afraid to touch it. I don't eat words that I cannot even pronounce and it really scares me when there are whole bunch of them in the same package.
Jeff
You ought to check out LivingCookbook (recipe software)! I have the extended version (DietPro) and just love it. It calculates all the values of your recipe and does a lot of other neat stuff, too. There is a new version of LivingCookbook out, but I am holding out until the new DietPro comes out to upgrade....
Nancy
Calcium Sulfate is Plaster of Paris I believe. That will make that dough behave! Mmmmm, so glad I bake bread.
Calcium sulfate is also gypsum. It is used to adjust water quality to increase hardness. It is naturally occuring in many water supplies. If you have soft water, it can help to add it to your water. Almost all natural water in the USA is hard to very hard, so chances are you've never tried to make bread with soft water. It isn't pretty.
Mike
I have used the organic stone ground flour from Country Creations just recently, and getting ready to bake with it again. Amazing flour, and amazing bread. Far from bitter, it is actually sweet. I know I am getting enough fiber. Laurel says, stored at room temperature whole wheat flour will keep one month. Refrigerated two months. Check out the shelf life dates on bags of whole wheat flour at our grocery stores, usually unrefrigerated. I have a bag that states, best by Dec 30, 09. How can it go that long and NOT get bitter?
Hello Rayel!
I don't know that I have EVER had fresh flour! I did grind some of my own a few years ago but who knows how old the berries were?? It was good and I liked it, but don't remember it being sweet! So where can I get some of this flour??? I had NO IDEA I was eating Plaster of Paris for God's sake!! I am glad I have turned my daughter on to baking breads so she can bake it for my grandson!!! AMAZING!!! Sawdust and POP!!! No wonder we are a "bound up society!!! This stuff should turn to concrete in our bowels....sorry....I'm a Nurse!!
I am Country Creations- www.organicwheatproducts.com
Thanks Rayel for the kind remarks about my flour. I am so glad that you like it.
If the berries were stored well (not gotten wet, etc.) they should be good. Kamut is an ancient grain that was though extinct. An archeologist found about a cupfull in a pyramid and sent it to a farmer in Montana to be propogated. It is now being sold all over the place. If it's good enough to sprout after all that time...
Nancy
Nice post, I am getting educated. Is it safe to say that all whole wheat flour that is not sprouted flour, can be expected to graduallly go rancid? For that flour is a six month shelf life a stretch? Nice Info, thanks.
Without trying to be (too) argumentative, what's good bread? It's like someone talking about a crust being too hard, too brown, too soft, or too pale. By themselves, these terms are meaningless because they are so subjective. Different people could describe the same loaf of bread with all the terms above, one saying it's too dark and another saying its too light.
I've seen people talking about how they can, and can not, make "good bread' usign this or that flour. And "good bread" is a bit vague. If you like it, it's good. But that's a hard standard to communicate.
In general, I find that most of the recipes I've seen for freshly ground wheat tend to use a lot of stuff that I prefer to avoid, or at least prefer to be able to avoid. Like sweeteners, oils, dough conditioners, and other odds and ends. And they still wind up heavier than I like.
I'm not fanatical about getting a great rise, but most of the home ground flours don't deliver what I consider a good rise.
Many of the people who advocate using freshly ground flour have their idea of nutrition as their sole criterion for what good bread. And many of them make sweet bricks, I don't care for most sweet breads, and I don't care to eat bricks.
Allan Scott, one of the authors of "The Bread Builders" used to say that he liked making bread with flour that was just ground, fresh from the grinder, and still wriggling with life. A number of poeple have pointed out that freshly ground flour, left at room temperature, becomes harder to use within 24 hours, and that it needs about 2 weeks of aging after that to recover its good baking characteristics.
As an aside, I have a whisper mill, and have had a nutrimill and a wondermill. I've had flour from stone or steel mills. Overall, I feel that the micronizer mills produce inferior flours, with regards to their baking qualities. I understand that not eveyone can affort a Retsel or whatever. I know I can't. However, I don't know of any industrial flour mills that use micronizer technology. I was told about a company that tried it, and due to complaints from their customers they abandoned the technology and went back to their previous mills.
All that said, I've gotten some very good results with some of Peter Reinhart's recipes from his whole grain book using whole wheat flour from my Whisper Mill. Nicely risen. pleasantly firm so I can slice it, a fresh wheaty aroma and a great wheaty taste.
Mike
Mike,
I've been hoping you would weigh in on this. As I was reading through the thread a few days ago, I thought of the section on your website describing your "food philosophy."
It seems like food has become "nutritionalized" over the last century (not my own idea). As a society, we tend to focus on calories and nutrients instead of making and enjoying actual food. These days, instead of eating "real foods" that are naturally high in fiber, we look for ways to increase the amount of fiber in the food we already eat. Regardless of whether this is done by artificial or natural means, I think we sometimes miss the point. If you bake a healthy loaf of wheat bread, combine it with fruits and veggies, and make meat and dairy sides instead of a staples, then you're already ahead of the curve.
Granted, there may be medical reasons to add fiber to a diet. And, when you're working with kids who might have a "discerning" palate, you might have to slip in extra nutrients any way you can. However, as a general rule,it's not necessary to be concerned about adding fiber to an already-healthy loaf of bread.
Just my 2-cents. Happy baking!
Eric
Eric. I think I am personally trying to break away from the "typical" American diet, and am conscientiously adding more fiber for the health benefits.
Like I did say up above though.....if recipes don't give the nutritional values, then I don't know which recipe may be a healthier choice. I would like to make educated decisions on choosing better recipes, and would stay away from plain white bread.
Figuring out the nutritional values isn't that hard, at least for macro-nutrients such as protein, carbs, fat, and fiber (if fiber can properly be called a nutrient.)
Your sack of flour will tell you that in each 1/4 cup (or 30 grams), there are (lets say) 2 grams of fiber. You use 5 cups to make a loaf of bread. That's 20 1/4 cups, so in the loaf there are 20 * 2.25 grams of fiber. Let's call it 45 grams. You slice the loaf into 15 slices. So, each slice has 3 grams of fiber.
If you're good with spreadsheets, you could put together a table of ingredients with their nutritional values, enter the recipe, have the spreadsheet do lookups in the table and calculate the nutrition for each batch, and even each serving, of whatever you are making,
Mike
of people knowing what they are talking about, and willing to do the math for you! I don't know how to set up spreadsheets, but I bet that would be quite useful too. I guess I'll need to get my info off of the KA site, as I buy flours in bulk at the co-op.
I may just have to suffice in knowing that I am baking with whole grains, without fillers and preservatives, and things we can't even pronounce in my bread.
I went vegetarian in February, so was looking to round out the higher fiber diet with increased grain fiber. I have the fruits and veggies covered!
There are all forms of nutritional calculators available on the web. Just Goggle keywords "recipe nutrition caclulator". Many of them are free downloads.
David G
about.com by submitting a recipe. Not sure if it can handle weights though, vs volume
thanks for all of the input you guys! This really turned into a very educational discussion!
Matthew,
I, too, am a Weight Watcher and I was going to google around to see if I can find a recipe calculator to add some of my recipes. I bake every weekend and my bread is part of my plan.
I was worried I would have to give up bread when I joined but have found that WW is not about giving things up-it's about managing whatever you want to include-my bread included! Works for me!
Please post the spreadsheet! It would be nice to have the point value!
I can testify to the general good health properties of whole wheat sourdough bread.My systems have really benefitted as well as my general health.
As for adding fiber to bread, wheat dextrin can be used but I'm not sure of a source.May take some searching. It is used in the processed food industry to increase fiber content and I also don't know how it behaves in a dough situation. It is available in the product "Benefiber" as a bulk forming laxative but that could get quite expensive to be adding to bread. THere is about 8 gm fiber per tablespoon. The plus side of using wheat (or corn,oat or potato) dextrin vs psyllium husks is that the dextrin doesn't form a gel. Psyllium, quite literally, sucks up all the water. I'm sure if you used that in bread, you'd have to add a lot extra water or your loaf will be very dry.Psyllium has about 13 gm fiber per tablespoon.
it sounds like that Hi-Maize stuff is the answer for those of us for whatever reason who want to do fiber-boosted bread. does anyone have a particularly good source for buying this stuff? the only places I'm finding(maybe I'm using the wrong term or something, I dunno) are King Arthur Flour, and this place:
http://store.honeyvillegrain.com/hi-maize5-in-1-fiber.aspx any other options anyone here knows of?
Any whole grain flour has the bran and germ in it which will have more fiber than processed flour. Sprouting has nothing to do with the fiber content.
I know- I sell sprouted flour but wanted to point out that it doesn't increase fiber as it contains the whole grain that has all of the fiber in the first place.
www.organicwheatproducts.com
the part of the food that just passes through, may I suggest adding wood chips or straw?
Ok, too much fiber?
How about vegetable & fruit peels and pulp, peanut shells and root fibers? Everyone knows that corn skins go thru unscathed. Whole sweet corn? More nuts?
I've got it ... Beans! Yes, add cooked beans to your bread like black turtle beans. Works well in breads! Laurel's got a good recipe. I think 1/2 cup of dried beans gives you 1 cup of mashed bean. Search under: Hello! And Help!
Mini
and it tastes good too! Remember to keep under 1/3 of the flour if using a gluten recipe. Non gluten breads could beef up the fiber in leaps and bounds!
I have never added coconut flour to my bread, but I have to say it has very nice flavour (not like the horrible desiccated coconut) I love making muffins with 100% coconut flour!
Rice bran is a real fiber booster, Coconut flour will add a different taste to you end product, and if you use too much, it will be gritty.
Beans flour is also a real fiber booster, try it you might like it.