Why Sourdough?

I came to sourdough through my love of pizza. While learning to make pizza, I was trying to find a healthy dough recipe that still tastes great. For months, I was experimenting with whole wheat. I tried white whole wheat(milled from the hard white wheat berry), soaking the flour before making the dough, adding honey, and even adding orange juice to the mix. Nothing I did with whole wheat tasted anything like what I want pizza to taste like; there was always a lingering grittiness and heaviness to the dough that was unsatisfying.

Feeling frustrated with my attempts at a whole wheat dough, I began researching the health differences between doughs made with whole wheat flour verses white flour. I wanted to find out just how bad for you the use of white flour is. Is it really just like eating spoonfuls of sugar?

I stumbled upon an article that surprised me. Looking into which type of bread has the most positive effects on the body, a team of researchers at The University of Geulth, in Canada, found that sourdough breads made with white flour produce smaller spikes in blood sugar than breads made with whole wheat.

This didn't make sense to me. Isn't sourdough just a flavor added to bread? How could a flavor of bread affect the way the body processes it? I had no idea that the term sourdough actually describes the process through which bread is made, more than it does the flavor of the bread. The sometimes sour flavor is simply a byproduct of the sourdough breadmaking process.

The Sourdough Process

So what is this sourdough process that produces bread so different from all others? Well, the first thing to understand is that while authentic sourdough bread is hard to come by at present, until the advent of commercial yeast in the early 20th century, ALL leavened bread was made using the sourdough process.

What makes sourdough different from other forms of bread is the use of a starter, rather than store bought baker's yeast. The sourdough starter is simply a mixture of flour and water that has been allowed to ferment at room temperature. This sour soup provides the perfect environment for wild yeast (naturally found on wheat kernels) populations to grow to large numbers. These colonies of yeast are what give rise to the dough.

In a symbiotic relationship with the yeast are colonies of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) that are also naturally found on wheat kernels. The bacteria eat the sugars that the yeast cannot, and create the fermentation process that gives the dough its sour flavor. Everything needed to create leavened bread is given to us by the wheat kernel. Just add water.

Flavors

As I said before, sourdough refers to the process more than it does to the flavor of the bread. That said, sourdough breads do tend to have at least some level of sourness to them. The exact flavor of the bread depends on a multitude of variables: how the starter is maintained (how hungry or full the yeast and bacteria are), the ratio of yeast to bacteria in the starter, how much starter is used, water temp when mixing dough, air temp when proofing dough, proofing time, etc. What can always be expected from sourdough is that there will be richness and depth of flavor in the bread that is not found in quick rise breads made with baker's yeast.

Ever had bread that tastes like a saltine cracker? Not unpleasant, but certainly bland? That is the unavoidable flavor of quick rise bread. Not only does the bread lack cultures of wild yeast and bacteria provided by a starter, but it is unable to develop any of its own through a long proofing time after the dough is mixed.

Yet, the vast majority of bread available to consumers is made this way. Sugars and flavorings are added to the doughs in order to try to cover up the lack of natural bread flavors. Ironically, even most "sourdough" breads that are sold in grocery stores are actually quick rise breads with sour flavors added to them, and are not actually fermented at all.

Why Isn't All Bread Sourdough?

Why is this done? Why sacrifice the complex flavors found in the traditional methods of bread making used for millenia? Because natural leavening and fermentation take time. Most of the doughs I make are allowed to proof for at least 24 hours before being baked. Using fast acting commercial baker's yeast and other additives, bread factories can have a dough mixed, proofed, and ready to bake in under an hour.

This time savings makes it much more cost effective for commercial bakeries to produce breads using baker's yeast. If they were to make sourdough bread on that scale, their facilities would have to be many magnitudes larger in order to house all of the proofing dough before it is baked. There is a reason why that loaf of true sourdough bread from a local bakery costs $5.

Health Benefits of Sourdough

Grains, and wheat especially, have recently been associated with quite a few negative health symptoms. While Celiac Disease affects only about one percent of the population, many people claim a sensitivity to gluten. After eating wheat (which contains gluten), people may report experiencing symptoms such as stomach pain, bloating, headache, and joint pain, to name a few.

Not only does wheat contain gluten, but it also contains high levels of phytic acid, or phytates, in the hulls of its seeds. If left present in the grains and ingested, the phytic acid binds to important minerals and renders them insoluble to the human body. Many iron and zinc deficiencies have been linked to phytate consumption.

If grains do all of these terrible things, why on earth would we want to eat them? How has such a toxic seed sustained so much of human civilization for thousands of years? The answer is in the sourdough process.

The sourdough process:

• breaks down gluten into amino acids through longer fermentation times
• produces high levels of lactic acid that create the perfect pH for the enzyme phytase, which breaks down the harmful phytic acid
• depletes damaged starches lowering the glycemic index
• predigests remaining starches, making it easier for you to digest
• increases beneficial bacteria

The grain provides all the ingredients necessary to make a starter, and in turn the starter provides what is needed to detoxify the grain. That miracle is why sourdough is the best choice for bread.