Book Review: Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day

I’ve had a love/hate relationship with bread. I’ve always wanted to be a good bread baker. Maybe its the fact that my grandfather was a baker. It might be in my blood. But there are many frustrations: I’ve never really made a great loaf of bread. Usually they are too dense. I also am gluten intolerant to some degree, and for some reason, fresh bread bothers me more than store bought. It gives me hiccups. Yes, hiccups. (it didn’t make sense to me until a lactation consultant that I was presenting with at a conference shared that hiccups in the womb are often a sign of food allergy — usually pasturized cows milk).

So I tried sourdough. Still dense, though I loved the tang. Some people said that sourdough is more easily tolerated, but the hiccups still came. And they hurt. Probably because in order to get the dough dry enough to knead, I had to add a lot more flour.

Sometimes it seems easier to give up bread. But I keep coming back to the urge to make it. I can’t stand all the chemicals in store bought. And I want reasonably whole grain bread for my kids if I can’t have it for me.

When I started learning about more traditional ways of preparing foods in Nourishing Traditions, one of the basics was that many traditional cultures soaked their grains before using them. Traditional cultures often prepared their bread doughs, with or without yeast, and then stored them like that, preparing a loaf and baking it or cooking it over the fire when they were ready. I had met a Middle Eastern gentleman in Pasadena at the farmers market who prepared his breads that way. He didn’t add yeast, they were given a whole week to rise naturally. He claimed that gluten intolerance was a result of our preparing our breads too quickly.

See, grains and seeds have something called phytates. Phytates are great for preserving the seed until the Spring rains come and break down the shells and allow the seed to begin to grow into a new plant. It isn’t so good for eating. The phytates keeps us from getting at the nutrients that are in the grain, and also could cause us to react to it. But soaking allows the phytates to be released by activating the enzymes that are present in the seed that digest the phytates. This is called sprouting and should be done with all grains, nuts, and seeds.

When you can’t soak the grain before you make the flour, the next best thing is to allow the flour to soak and ferment. That’s why sourdough is better…but adding the flour to make it kneadable reintroduced the same problem.

Not to be discouraged, I picked up a new book recently. It’s called Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg, M.D., and Zoe Francois. The method is a semi-sourdough. All ingredients are mixed together in a bin and set out for at least a few hours. The dough is kept more wet than your average dough. Between this and adding vital wheat gluten to the bread, the bread sets up the gluten protein structure without kneading. It uses yeast, but really not a lot, and even the amounts prescribed in the recipes can be cut back. Once it has set out for a few hours, the dough can be refrigerated for up to two weeks in a container, as amounts for individual loaves or other projects (pretzels, muffins, bagels, buns, rolls, etc.) are removed and baked. It doesn’t have to be as big as mine – really only about 5 quarts is enough if you are not doubling. While I’ve enjoyed using my Kitchen Aid mixer to mix everything up, I’ve found it is just as easy to mix it up in the container, and you don’t even have to wash the container (if you’re not using a dough with egg), since the remaining dough helps along the fermentation process for the new dough.

When ready for a loaf, just pull some dough out of the container and take five minutes to shape and allow to rest on the counter for an hour and a half or so before putting that bad boy in the oven. No kneading. AT ALL. And as time passes, the flavor of the dough gets more and more sour from fermentation. It honestly is incredible.

The time investment is just that: about ten minutes of prep time once or twice a week to get the dough made, and less than five minutes to shape a loaf before letting it rest and then bake. And from what I can see, this should be better, because since the flour soaks, the phytates should be mostly removed.

The recipes are whole wheat, though some unbleached flour is in some of the doughs. There even are gluten free recipes included, just in case. So that way, I didn’t feel like the cost of the book was entirely wasted, though I tend to go without rather than spend a lot of time risking subpar encounters with substitutes.

I baked the master recipe, and I have to say it was excellent.  It had a nice but not overpowering sour taste to it, the texture was excellent, the crust wonderful. I felt like a bread baking success for once. And it was easy. I’ve baked about four other loaves now from that recipe, and one batch was probably too wet, so the rise wasn’t as good, but the flavor was still wonderful.

A couple of days ago, I tried the pumpkin brioche, but baked it in a regular loaf pan, and it has been a big hit, especially with a slathering of honey butter. I made two loaves from that batch, and can’t wait to make it again because we want to try the recipe they have for using it with doughnuts. That is another plus. Lots of options are offered for the doughs, and with each recipe, the authors list several doughs that will work with it.

There are a few chapters devoted to method, ingredients, and equipment. The chapter sections for types of bread are:

* The Master Recipe

* Whole Grain Breads

* Breads with Hidden Fruits and Vegetables

* Flatbreads and Pizza * Gluten-Free Breads and Pastries

* Enriched Breads and Pastries from Healthy Ingredients

Best of all, thus far no hiccups. No foggy-headedness, either. And I am enjoying myself.

Now, the authors really aren’t trying to be “Nourishing Traditions” types. They advocate the modern line of low sodium and vegetable oils. There isn’t a word about phytates in the whole book, but from what I see, it fits in rather well, sometimes with only a few modifications. I have increased the salt amount in subsequent batches and I would not hesitate to use butter, lard, or coconut oil in the recipes that call for a fat.

Amazing Black Bean Brownies

Yesterday, I made these black bean brownies for a party I was going to.  They are incredible, and gluten-free.

I did revise it some, though.  I had a friend who also needed them to be dairy-free, so I used coconut oil instead of butter.  They behave very similarly, in fact, sometimes I prefer coconut oil when it comes to baking.

I don’t like walnuts, so I was just going to leave them out, when I realized there were so many because half of them were supposed to be ground up to help with the texture, so since I had seen a sunflower seed brownie recipe in the Nourishing Traditions Cookbook, I just decided to substitute 1/2 cup of sunflower seeds instead.  It worked out very well, though probably would’ve worked out better had I thought of that when I was actually mixing the beans and such up in the food processor.

The flavor doesn’t really set until they are cold…but after that, they are amazing.

Sumac-ade; That Cool, Refreshing Drink….

We  have a huge soccer field out behind our house, and bordering the farm on the other side, is a grove of  wild bushes, trees, and such; some of which are some very fruit-laden sumac bushes. A couple of weeks ago, my husband and I were walking around the edge of the field, and he commented that he knew there was stuff we could do with it….so we went in and Googled it.

Now of course, we were immediately confronted with some information about Poison Sumac, which looks very nasty, but seeing how Poison Sumac grows in marshes and is white, not red, this didn’t seem to be a problem, but it did make me alert to the Poison Ivy that definitely IS growing directly underneath this Sumac.

I did find this article though, and it was full of information for making Indian Lemonade, or Sumac-ade, so we decided to give it a try.

I can see why this was so popular in days gone by.  It is INCREDIBLE and easy, and loaded with Vitamin C.    Basically, you just soak about 6 or so berr clusters in a pitcher for 12-24 hours and then strain.  It’s tart, so you can add some agave syrup, honey, or maple syrup.

Getting Started

Hi, my name is Lora, and I am not mainstream.

Looking back, it would be a LONG story to tell you how I got here.  It could be my mother’s strokes which were all after times when her OB/GYN would put her back on Provera after other doctors had pulled her off of it.  It could be my own experience with the Birth Control Pill, which transformed me into a raging loon.  It could be my struggles to be diagnosed and treated for Poly-Cystic Ovarian Syndrome and Hypothyroid, two syndromes which I had all the symptoms, but doctors hesistated because I would be 1 or 2 points off on the tests…even though whatever normal was, my body clearly wasn’t acting that way.

It also could’ve been my son’s dairy allergy.  It is so easy in our culture to eat without thinking, I would really put the starting point at that.  All of a sudden, I was forced to eat, to evaluate my eating habits, and to tell my self “No you can’t have that, because Chris can’t have that.”  Since he was allergic to dairy and soy, my milk was the only option for quite a while, and after him, for my daughter, too.

Another moment which pops into my head was one of the last La Leche League meetings I led before I moved to Indiana.  There was a woman who came to the group who was a nutritional therapist.  She worked with cancer victims and other people who were really sick, treating them through their diet.  She was talking about sprouting nuts before you ate them to make them alive, and other such things.  I thought she was a complete nut herself.  Little did I know.

Once I moved to Indiana, I was without a doctor who was supportive, and symptoms seemed to get worse.  I started reading Mary Shomon’s book  Living Well with Hypothyroidism.   I tried to make an appointment with a thyroid doctor that was on her list, three times,  but could never get a return call from the front office (I hate how automated doctors offices have become).  So I gave up, and noticed another doctor quoted often in her book – Joseph Mercola His clinic was in Chicago.   I could do that.

I read his books, went with his program (while it was still on my insurance plan) and his nutritionist was telling me about raw milk and how my kids might not react to it, and how I might not as well.  And grass-fed meat.  And sprouting grains.

I couldn’t do all of that at first, but I could eat mostly fruits, vegetables, and meat..staying away from the foods that they said I was reacting to – dairy, soy, wheat, and sugar.  I’d also managed to give up diet soda.  I’d been drinking Pepsi 3-4 times a day or more since I was three.  In 3 months, I lost 20 lbs., taking things day by day, as the emotional therapist told me.  Unfortunately, the nutritionist wasn’t with that plan as much and on our last scheduled counsel, she congratulated me and said “Now never drink another Diet Pepsi again.”  With that everything collapsed.  Not only did I now feel alone, but I wasn’t ready to think about beyond today again.  I went out and got one immediately.

Since then, it has all been a struggle.  But I started hearing more of the same things, such as the values of lactofermented foods and such on my Lutheran homeschooling list.  I must not have noticed too much, but they were talking about Nourishing Traditions, a cookbook by Sally Fallon and Mery Enig.  I’ve learned so much.  I’ve come a long way.

I make kombucha weekly, have made kefir, lactofermented sourkraut, I found a source for raw milk, and last year, we started buying grassfed beef, pork, lamb, and chicken.  It’s a struggle, but we do it, and food has been so much more enjoyable…at least when I’m not living in a fog or struggling with depression.  Then it is Wendys, Sonic, and McDonalds.  I’m working on that.

This year, I finally got into that endocrinologist, and he’s treating my PCOS and hypothyroid, based on my symptoms, not on my numbers (however, my numbers clearly show I have PCOS now).  I am taking medicine for those, because they seem to help, and I am functioning better with them.  But I am also working on eating the food that I actually buy.  I love the farmers market, we started a garden last year, and that has helped, too.  I’m still overweight, with acne, and a tendency to get depressed, especially in the Winter.  But who knows what the future holds.

Thanks for reading.