Sourdough, Rice and Pasta: New Frontiers

Sourdough and day-old white rice. Are these foods now modern day contemporaries in today's kitchen? Since the series on starches, grains and fermentation began, I am forever changed. Sourdough, the 'health' bread in our lives, along with rice and pasta, too, have become dietary allies. ... What was O.K., is no longer. What wasn't healthy, now seems to be. ... Life can be so strange, at times.

Gluten is our modern day nemesis, I slowly began to realize while researching fermentation, starches, and the modern loaf of bread. But it did not start out that way, however. ... Gluten has been a part of the bread making  process from the beginning and was treated with respect, back in the day. Today, in the guise of bread, buns or doughnuts, gluten's presence can now be 'sharply' felt - if shown no respect. The gut - not the mouth - seems to be the place where our health begins. 

 

While industry justification can be made for gluten's inclusion in some so-called 'healthy' multi-grain breads for that soft light feathery crumb texture, the rise in gluten intolerance and celiac disease should have brought about gluten's removal as 'an extra in the movie called bread', long, long ago. ... Is anyone listening, anymore?

It would seem that modern agricultural, with its companion milling, processing and baking methods have put us here. But wait. A look inside the eye of the storm would also show us that gluten lies deep within the belly of many other products, born without it, yet somehow needing its help, along the way. Why are wheat flour, corn syrup solids and other modified starches found in sausages, deli meats, tomato sauces, salsas, alongside the worst of them all: glucose-fructose? Why? There is no sanity to adding gluten into food. Is its purpose to aid and abet the bread in its appeal to us, the trusting, naive consumer? But gluten's adverse health effects are widely known by now. Oh-My.

In the making of bread, time is a critical element, for flavour and texture, of course, but most of all - for health. Time's significance seems to have been seriously misjudged and overlooked. Its mission  helps to alter gluten's deleterious effect on us as the dough is allowed to rise, proof before baking. ... The industrial machine responsible for bringing bread to the marketplace is trimming time and employee shifts, speeding up the proofing/baking process while adding a host of additives to mask the deficiencies of this modern bread. 

 

Reformulating recipes to get baked products to market, quickly, seems to be the name of this sinister marketing game. ... Since 2500 B.C., an ancient bread called sourdough has been available. Until now, I was not aware of its significance to health. Could this baked product be the truth we've been looking for? Never has sourdough meant so much, it seems to me. When bread was made properly, there was no gluten intolerance. Now fast tracking its creation has called into question the viability of this centuries old baked food called bread. Yes, bread is real food. 

Sourdough is the bread with a tale to tell, the unvarnished truth in the story about starches and fermented foods. ... (Our middle son loved it - decades - ago when I began buying it on occasion. Did he know something I did not, back then?) ... What sourdough bread has is a healthy reputation brought about by a mixture of small amounts of flour, water and yeast - called a poolish, a biga or starter - being left at room temperature for hours, perhaps days, to start the process of leavening or fermenting and the addition of more flour that leads to sourdough bread, the greatest taste thrill ever. Though sourdough is generally a more costlier bread in the bakery, its health rewards are well worth it. The gluten strands in it slowly break down into their basic component parts called amino acids, during its proofing and rising stages of development and while in the oven, too. These digestible strands are now compatible to our digestive system rendering sourdough bread suitable for gluten free diets, I discovered. Who knew? 

 

Our bodies are trying to tell us something when they struggle to function. When bread making processes are greatly shortened, we all suffer the consequences of this miscue even of we are unaware. The internal delicious world of bread needs time to work its magic and become the star it is meant to be, without all the preservatives and the drastically shortened time in which it is created. Then we have day old rice, another remarkable ally in our diets. 

 

Rice that is 12 hours 'old' then reheated has incredible amounts of resistant starch helping us to maintain  health and a healthy weight while aiding in fat burning, too. The list of rice benefits is endless. The body absorbs less starch, hence fewer calories. Bananas are like that - starch resistant - as they help to control hunger, too. All of this means fewer calories, not absorbed. Who knew? The same theory applies to day old cooked pasta. Starch absorption is reduced by 60%. Wow! What an revolutionary idea! So cooking the pasta or rice in the morning for dinner, makes so much sense. Decades ago, I learned to love 'frying' leftover pasta, in a bit of oil, on low heat till 'done'. It was my favourite meal of all! 

The lesson in bread-making is simply a matter of time, waiting for things to develop and evolve. Has sourdough's magical, methodical and mystical brew with its resultant health benefits been grossly misunderstood? ... (Momsey now knows!!)  Then we have rice and pasta, whose case for exclusion in our diets have been widely known and accepted. We can have all three. The beneficial properties of rice, pasta and sourdough have been there from the beginning but in our haste to eat quickly and without thought, we have come to this rocky road of health. We must learn to slow down where it matters - in the kitchen. Take time. Be patient. Health will be ours to inherit. 

I began a solitary journey, months ago, when Lucy, my  24 year-old editor, said she was making sauerkraut with a schedule that defies the imagination. ... The floodgates to discovery were opened. It would seem to me that years ago we were eating gluten free. We simply did not know it, at the time. Then the recipes changed slowly and without much consumer consultation. With Thanksgiving coming soon, Momsey will be using sourdough bread as the basis of stuffing. I will be replacing  breadcrumbs I have used with  a new and improved homemade variety using sourdough. The news is great. ...

We have come full circle. Gluten-free, day-old rice or leftover pasta never tasted so good or felt so yummy. Our bodies were right all along. Maybe, just maybe, we can have it all. It just has to happen at  home, in the kitchen,  at the right time, with a bit of thought and beginning on Monday. Oh so yum.