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Why is Sourdough Bread is healthier than yeasted Bread

margoooo's picture
margoooo

Why is Sourdough Bread is healthier than yeasted Bread

If high temperature in the oven would kill all bacteria and yeast, why the Sourdough Bread is healthy?

NumbWhistle's picture
NumbWhistle

This article touches on the role of the lactic and acetic acids, and how they can be beneficial in a number of ways:

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/jun/22/sourdough-bread-good-for-you

That said, I've always wondered if similar benefits can be had from a long cold ferment of dough with commercial yeast. If anyone has any information about that, I would greatly appreciate it!

naturaleigh's picture
naturaleigh

Here are just a few links with interesting info on the benefits of naturally leavened vs. commercial yeast breads.  These are not scientific papers by any means, but provide some basic info.  Google is your friend for this topic and you will likely find some other threads on this site if you use the search function in the upper right corner.

Sourdough

Wild yeast vs. commercial

Real yeast (interesting blurb from the Blue Zones book)

 

phaz's picture
phaz

There is no proof it is healthier if you shouldn't have it. And plenty that it's just as unhealthy if you shouldn't have it. Funny how that works. Enjoy! 

Brotaniker's picture
Brotaniker

Sourdough Bread is simply not healthier than yeasted Bread. It's myth. Sourdough is often seen as some type mystical being, something holy. It's not, it's just one way the leaven the dough. 

Lots of very weird information out there around sourdough. 

I believe that misconception comes from the fermentation time. With yeast you can work very fast and have a bread within a few hours. With sourdough you typically work the next day with the dough - longer fermentation makes a healthier bread because long fermentation bread is easier to digest for the body. Typically - but you can do the same with yeast too if you want to! Then it's the same.

 

barryvabeach's picture
barryvabeach

There have been studies that show some health benefits to sourdough - you will find some links to the studies in the article here. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/about-sourdough-bread  Here is another short blurb  https://www.uoguelph.ca/news/2008/07/sourdough_bread.html  At the end of this article, you can click on an arrow and it shows the sources  https://www.webmd.com/diet/sourdough-bread-good-for-you.  I can't find it now, but do recall reading a large study, I think it was in England , where they followed people for various conditions, and asked them whether they ate white bread, whole wheat , or sourdough  and sourdough correlated ( though of course there was no showing that it caused ) better health outcomes in general, than the first two. 

As with a lot of research, there are other studies which don't find demonstrable benefits https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5707687/

Tarm's picture
Tarm

New here.  Only been baking breads serious for a short time but have a decent amount of knowledge dealing with the fermentation process and bacteria yeast general fungi..  The confusion and issues IMO are the use of terms that are not clear nor properly descriptive. 

Sourdough = wild yeast bacteria is just a poor choice.

Sourdough which is describing the sour flavor note of bread is suppose to mean wild sourced yeast and bacteria.  Yet you can make sour flavored bread using commercial yeast.  You can also make sweet bread with certain wild starters that are aggressively active.

To make sourdough with commercial yeast is as simple as making a starter with a small amount of idy or ady etc.

Further, 90% of the yeast and baceria strains found wild starters come from the flour used.  Understanding that every fermented dough that uses commercial  yeast also has all those wild yeast and bacteria strains that are already in the flour there and active as well.  Only way around this would be to use irradiated or UV sterilized flour or some way to kill the organisms in the flour itself.  

 

So all bread has wild strains in it and the difference between sourdough and sweet dough is fermentation over all activity that produces a given below neutral ph that creates a sour flavor to the bread produced.

As for the effect the fermentation has on the actual wheat flour digestibility and nutritional profile if given the same fermentation activity there would be little difference.  no real need to go deep into the science of all the yeast bacteria processes and effects on the grains used wheat in most cases.

The one area where wild starters especially those handed down over generations to even millennia, is diversity of yeast bacteria.  While you get majority of strains from the flour you also pickup some from the people making the dough, the enviornment it's made in.  Various grains made into flour especially over generations and sourced from different geographical locations will be incorporated into the biome of the starter.  Strains will adapt thus becoming new strains.  Some will be competed out or to lower % of the whole.  Each strain can produce different compounds as its consuming converting sugars alcohols etc.  By adding a huge amount of powerful comnercial yeast can push out and significantly lower other wild strains.  As a general rule keep lab created strains out of wild cultures is a rule follow.

Because of this I collect starter samples if possible when I run into someone that has had it handed down over a generation or more.  Same for if I go to different regions around the world.  Have some from 50yr up with the oldest dating back almost 1000yr.  Trying to get a sample from one sourced from Egyptian relics vessels that was dated 4500+yrs.   Those strains should mate very well with einkorn wheat.  Be interesting to see how the dough and bread  produced is effected differently or not.

 

It important to consider these bacteria and yeast end up all over our enviornment so while of course cooked bread ihas very little if any surviving biotic that starter and flour is floating thru the air all over the home it becomes part of the enviornment.  Not to mention the bakers hands and then all over the body transfered to many things including frsh veggies fruits dairy products.  All then consumed.   It's the same transfer as letting kiss play in tge dirt and in a biodiversity garden etc.  Point being it ends up in our enviornment and becomes part of use in varying degrees.

 I always thought it was odd people making a claim of best reason to only use flour you ground that day was loss of vita8min when most of those are oxidized when exposed to the high heat of the oven.  Sure it's better but not to the degree some claim.  Frankly the way our wheat has been hybridized and now GMO has far greater effect IMO.  Seems everytime scientists think they know better than nature when it comes to our food nurtients it's a disaster.  Just look at the study done by UT comparing the nutrient profile of fruits and veggies from 1950 to present day.  Oranges vit A would take 21 today to equal one from 1950.  Apples vit c 1950 would take 100 today. Yes 100.  Onions and potatoes have lost most all there micro nutrients vs 1950.  It's not rocket science the closer the product is to its natural source the better for health with of course some obvious exceptions.  Somethings of course must be processed to some degree to be safe to eat.  Soaking cooking beans etc.

One thing we know for sure from the research done on the human gut biome is more diversity = better health and resistance to pathogenic domination.  Thus anything we can do to add to our bacteria diversity the better.  So in this specific way yes wild starter bread can be healthier all other things being equal.

Consider that we have more cells and genetic material in our bodies of bacteria than we do our own human cells and dna material.  Much of our overall health comes from the compounds released from our bodies and specifically our gut bacteria.  Most people have no idea how powerful our gut biome are in determining our overall and acute health.  Most of the allergies you see today come from gut health and diversity going back to our birth and infant diets and those of our mothers.   This all points to wild starters especially those kept over longer periods as adding to health thru biodiversity of the biome.

 

 

 

 

Tarm's picture
Tarm

Sorry my spell check seems to have made a few unintended changes.  Kiss was suppose to be kids etc.

gavinc's picture
gavinc

Wow! Such a lot of information packed into one post. Perhaps you could assign some reliable sources to all the assertions you have made to give your comments some credit.

 

Tarm's picture
Tarm
  1.  Certainly.  In the map below does not include the other continents. Understand that under those species each have numerous strain subtypes sometimes numbering 50 or more each can have varying effects  much as there are pathogenic and beneficial strains of Escherichia.  Science is still behind and constantly reclassified and renaming strains as tech advances along with constant mutation of strains creating new strains as morphology changes.  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK8477/?report=reader

 

As general info,  Ialso should add that extracting info from research papers is a skill.  The abstracts are very singular focused and exclude huge amounts of findings.  They actually are of little use and can even be unintentionally misleading.   It is best to pull the full text and read the Discussion and Conclusion sections as well as any charts etc.  I am sure many know this but for those that are new to reading research papers or may not know this I wanted to add it. suggestion.

Sadly in the last 20yrs there has been a plague of corruption, falsification, increasing poor execution of research.  There has always been poor designed and executed research but usually all held to high ethical values. Today this is sadly no longer the case.  Luckily as the research into sourdough microbes has little large $$$ associated with it my personal belief is this research is not effected.  Just a warning for others that may use published research for increasing knowledge or as a factor in making personal decisions. 

Support ref

https://participatorymedicine.org/epatients/2012/03/former-nejm-editors-on-the-corruption-of-american-medicine-ny-times.html

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199306033282207

Simple search will yield hundreds if not thousands of supporting ref.

 

Supporting Ref requested for last post above

 

 

 

****The formatting got transfered from my research notes and I can not seem to find the format buttons on here for text size and justification. 

 

 Sourdough Microbiome Comparison and Benefits Siew WenLau, AnnQiChong,NyukLingChin* , Rosnita A. Talib and Roseliza Kadir Basha 2021 https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2607/9/7/1355/pdf

Galli, V.; Mazzoli, L.; Luti, S.; Venturi, M.; Guerrini, S.; Paoli, P.; Vincenzini, M.; Granchi, L.; Pazzagli, L. Effect of selected strains of lactobacilli on the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties of sourdough. Int. J. Food Microbiol. 2018, 286.

#Article sumnary of research#(thought this was interesting given we also have an explosion of published research papers in 2021 because of the societal interest) https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-science-of-sourdough-how-microbes-enabled-a-pandemic-pastime/

 

Influence of Geographical Origin and Flour Type on Diversity of Lactic Acid Bacteria in Traditional Belgian Sourdoughs 2007

De Vuyst et al., 2014Gänzle and Ripari, 2016Minervini et al., 2014Ripari et al., 2016Van Kerrebroeck et al., 2017)

Lui XZhou MJiaxin CLuo YYw FJiao SHu XZhang JLū X (2018)  Bacterial diversity in traditional sourdough from different regions in China

 

The Diversity and function of sourdough starter microbiomes Elizabeth A. Landis, 

  1. Angela M Oliverio
  2. Erin A McKenney
  3. Lauren M Nichols
  4. Nicole Kfoury
  5. Megan Biango-Daniels
  6. Leonora K Shell
  7. Anne A Madden
  8. Lori Shapiro 
  9. Shravya Sakunala,
  10. Kinsey Drake,
  11. Albert Robbat,
  12. Matthew Booker,
  13. Robert R Dunn,
  14. Noah Fierer,
  15. Benjamin E Wolfe Is a corresponding author

A review of sourdough starters: ecology, practices, and sensory quality with applications for baking and recommendations for future research

 

DiCagno, R.; Rizzello, C.G.; De Angelis, M.; Cassone, A.; Giuliani, G.; Benedusi, A.; Limitone, A.; Surico, R.F.; Gobbetti, M. Use of selected sourdough strains of Lactobacillus for removing gluten and enhancing the nutritional properties of gluten-free bread. J. Food Prot. 2008, 71.

 

Thirty years of knowledge on sourdough fermentation:  A systematic review

HanaAmeura1AndreaPoloaRaffaellaDi CagnoaCarlo GiuseppeRizzellobMarcoGobbettia

 

EMBO Rep. 2020 Aug 5; 21(8): e51069.Published online 2020 Jul 31. doi: 10.15252/embr.202051069PMCID: PMC7403703PMID: 32734701Healthy soils for healthy plants for healthy humansHow beneficial microbes in the soil, food and gut are interconnected and how agriculture can contribute to human health    Postler TS, Ghosh S (2017) Understanding the holobiont: how microbial metabolites affect human health and shape the immune system. Cell Metab 26: 110–130    Not sure how much ref material you want on enviormental, gut, plant mammalian microbes and there effect on human health.  It's a rather huge area of research now.  When we first started a online research think-tank to discuss  the effects on human health of bacteria targeting our gut per 2k there was almost no research.  Now it's one of the hottest areas of research and industry.  With that said it does get considerably off topic or more correctly highly specific and technical of the focus sourdough bread health benefits vs .....
gavinc's picture
gavinc

Tarm, thanks for taking the time to supply these notes and references. Certainly food for thought and I will peruse them over the next few days.

Tarm's picture
Tarm

Again I apologize for the terrible formatting.  I do not see an way to edit my post or I would attempt to fix it.  I hope it's  legible.