Last month we explored “10 HEALTH BENEFITS FROM SOURDOUGH BREAD” in a post on this site, but the idea that wheat is the bad guy persists. This, of course, is wrong since wheat has been been a staple food for humankind for millennia. And rightly so since it is packed with protein, minerals, B vitamins, and bioactive components that people need.”[1] So with such a long tradition of goodness, how has wheat fallen out of favor?
Shewry and Hey suggest, “The last few years have seen increasing concerns, particularly in the media and lay press, about the effects of wheat‐based foods on health, with the increasing adoption of wheat‐free or gluten‐free diets. These concerns have largely been propagated through the media, particularly the popular press, Internet, and social media, rather than conventional medical and public health channels, and the evidence base is often obscure.”[2]
Becasue of these kinds of reports, people in North America and Europe are increasing adoption of gluten or wheat‐free diets to prevent type 2 diabetes, obesity and allergies such as Celiac Disease (CD), ‘non‐coeliac gluten sensitivity’, and other allergic reactions, only one percent of the population suffer from CD and another six percent of people have some form of gluten intolerance.
That means for the greater portion of the population wheat is still a valuable source of nutrition. However, “concern among the general public about the impact of wheat on health is increasing dramatically, particularly in the US where a third of adults have stated their wish to cut down or eliminate gluten consumption.”[3 This is a tragic response to media reports and food fads that are affecting the dietary intake of nutrients and the bioactive compounds wheat has to offer.
These two researchers continue with this example related to weight gain, “The role of wheat products in the increasing levels of obesity and associated conditions was promoted by the best‐selling book Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight, and Find Your Path Back to Health (Davis 2011), which led to a proliferation of publications on wheat‐free diets and recipes. The scientific flaws in the arguments have been discussed in the scientific literature (Jones 2012; Brouns et al. 2013) but these scientific publications have had little or no effect on the public perception that wheat is bad for you!”[4]
They go on to explain that while books and reports like this make gluten the bad guy, it is usually forgotten that cereal grains, including wheat make a much broader contribution to world diets. They cite one study in Britain known as the National Diet and Nutrition Survey (NDNS) that showed that for Brits eating bread alone:
- Offers 11% of the daily intake of protein
- Delivers 18–21% of dietary fiber (non‐starch polysaccharides)
- Contains 15–16% of thiamine (vitamin B1), 10–11% of niacin (vitamin B3), and 12% of folates (vitamin B9)
- Provides 15–16% of iron, 15–19% of calcium, and a “substantial number of other essential micronutrients to the diets of UK adults”
“In addition,” they report, “wheat (particularly wheat bran) is rich in a range of phytochemicals, including phenolic acids and betaine, which may have health benefits (reviewed by Shewry & Hey 2015). Several studies have shown that gluten‐free foods may be depleted in protein and micronutrients compared to conventional diets (Thompson 1999, 2000; Kinsey et al. 2008; Pellegrini & Agostini 2015; Wu et al. 2015) and food scientists have identified the challenge of improving the nutritional quality and health benefits of gluten‐free breads (Capriles et al. 2016).”[5]
A Short History of Wheat
Wheat consumption can be traced back to ancient times at least 5000 years to the Fertile Crescent. There farmers cultivated einkorn, spelt, and Khorasan Kamut). These early wheat strains dominated ancient Middle Eastern acreage for about four thousand years.
Then a more complex wheat strain called emmer (or farro as it labeled in Italy) was grown. Around 100 BC, durum wheat was domesticated from the emmer family. Durum has become the world’s second-most cultivated wheat variety because it is great for pasta and as semolina, however, it does not make good bread flour.
Peter Reinhart, in Whole Grain Breads explains that since those ancient times more than 30,000 wheat varieties have been developed. Nearly all are direct descendants of einkorn, which “was one of the first cultivated strains of wheat,” he wrote, “mainly because the seeds were large enough to be worth all the trouble.”[6]
“Over the centuries, farming, milling, and baking processes evolved as the uses for wheat products increased and the skills required to meet the needs became more specific,” recorded Reinhart. “Growers, for instance, observed that wheat could be planted during two distinct seasons: autumn and spring. Spring wheat is planted after the thaw, grows straight through summer, and is ready for harvest in late summer or early autumn.
“In contrast, winter wheat is planted in autumn. The seeds germinate, sprout, and grow a few inches before the frost hits, and then as the cold weather sets in, the plants go dormant. In spring, winter wheat comes back to life and is ready for harvest in late spring and early summer. Autumn planting doesn’t work where winters are brutally cold, but where it does work, the wheat takes on very different characteristics than those of the same seeds planted in spring.”[7]
Peter Reinhart in Whole Grain Breads
That one point explains much about Abigail Oven Premium White Whole-wheat Flour. It is a hard, winter wheat that has a sweet flavor and creamy texture when baked. I like it better for bread making that any other bread flour or home-milled whole-wheat I have used.
Tips on Sourdough Baking with Whole-wheat Flour
When using whole-wheat in sourdough bread baking there are a few tricks you need to know. First, since both the germ and bran that are left in whole-wheat flour milling require a higher hydration level the other refined flour, you are going to have to work with a wetter dough.
Martha Levie explains that while white bread flour may only call for 65–70 percent hydration, whole wheat flour will need more moisture than that. At Abigail’s Oven, she uses a 79% hydration level for their wheat bread. And at home I use 85% most of the time. That higher hydration opens the crumb and makes for a terrific oven spring.
All in all, when using whole-wheat you will need to add more water and to get the nutrition you deserve, you will need to slow down the fermentation process.
Whole wheat is packed with more good bacteria and enzymes than white bread flour. This leads to faster fermentation, or bulk rise, leaving the bread underprocessed. This is a problem those with sensitive digestive tracts.
Faster processing also means that you could lose some nutritional benefits of sourdough. A long bulk rise allows phytic acid to be dissolved, which blocks wheat’s bioavailability of minerals and vitamins. Fast processing also leaves many sugars and starches in the bread, which pushes your loaves higher on glycemic. This is less desirable for diabetics and may make the bread useless to their diet.
This is the very problem with commercial yeasted bread. The process of rising moves along too quickly to eliminate phytic acid and to prepare the starches in the flour for slow digestion, which means it spikes just like sugar and ruins so many of the nutritional benefits that wheat has to offer
At Abigail’s Oven, our experience with sourdough shows us that wheat is still the staff of life and we are more suspect of modern milling and baking processes than we are of the grain itself.
ENDNOTES
1 Steer T, Thane C, Stephen A et al (2008), “Bread in the diet: consumption and contribution to nutrient intakes of British adults,” Proceedings of the Nutrition Society 67: E363.
2-5 Shewryand S. J. Hey, “Do we need to worry about eating wheat?”, Nutrition Bulletin, 2016 Mar; 41(1): 6–13
6–7 Peter Reinhart, Whole Grain Breads, Potter/Ten Speed/Harmony/Rodale (Kindle Edition), 2011.
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