96: Is Sourdough Bread Actually Healthy?

Is Sourdough Bread Actually Healthy?

Sourdough bread, if you look on social media and elsewhere everyone is raving about sourdough bread, how healthy it is, how much better it is than regular bread. And so for today's episode, I wanna talk a little bit more about sourdough because my wife has been experimenting with sourdough for the past maybe two years or so.

So we've been making sourdough bread. And sourdough pizza for our pizza. Uh, monthly pizza night, we use the discard. You know, when we make bread and whatever is left over, we kind of save up. We keep saving up and accumulating, and that's called the discard. And with with that, we make pancakes every so often.

And so let's talk a little bit about if that's really, if sourdough is really healthy, and what part of a quote, unquote, animal-based diet sourdough can have. Welcome to the Primer Shift Podcast. Before we get into that, let's talk about what is sourdough, you know, what is, and how is it different to regular bread?

Well, you know, regular bread traditionally uses a commercial yeast for rising, uh, sourdough is. Uses wild yeasts and lactic acid bacteria, and when there microbes ferment the dough, they produce carbon dioxide and that causes the bread, you know, to rise. And it gives the sourdough this characteristic tangible flavor and chewy texture that many people like.

So much. So the question is, is sourdough than healthier because of all of that? Well, you know, the fermentation of sourdough is not just about. The flavor and texture, it's about transforming the bread into something that's easier to digest and potentially healthier. So for example, you know, during the fermentation, some of the gluten proteins are broken down.

And as also not only the gluten protein, but also the other antinutrients such as phytic acid. You know, those could got, get broken, broken down, not entirely, but to a larger degree. And so you have fewer gluten, you have fewer other antinutrients, and that means the few nutrients that are in bread. The nutrients that are in the foods that you consume the bread with get more readily absorbed.

So let's say you have, you know, a piece of meat or eggs, whatever, and you eat a slice of bread with it. If you do that with regular bread, chances are some of those n micronutrients in the good food, in the eggs or in the meat don't get absorbed because of the antinutrients in the bread that you consume it with.

With sourdough, that reduction in absorption of micronutrients is reduced, so you get more of those. That's a good thing. Sourdough generally also has a lower glycemic index, meaning. Your blood sugar rises slower than with regular bread. That's also generally a good thing. And the last thing is because of the, the antinutrients are broken down and the, the beneficial microbes that are in the sourdough because of the fermentation, um, improve the digestibility.

So it might be easier for you to digest sourdough. Than regular bread. And those three things combined mean that sourdough, yes, is indeed healthier than regular bread, especially if you use the right types of grains. And we get a get to that here in a moment. But one thing to remember is that healthier doesn't necessarily mean genuinely healthy.

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There is nothing really in bread that you need to enjoy Optimal health Bread is, is food that is easy to store, or at least the ingredients are easy to store.

It's relatively shelf stable. It arguably tastes good and it pairs well with a lot of other foods and it's cheap to make at the end of the day. So those are the benefits of of Bread. But from a health perspective, there's nothing in bread that you need. You know, you could never eat bread and be perfectly healthy.

But of course, you know, it, it tastes good and it's easy to make and inexpensive to make. You know, that's why people have been consuming it. And, you know, I enjoy the taste of, of a good sourdough, right? Don't get me wrong, but it's nothing that I would make a central part of my diet. And if you're following before a while, you know that we are on a predominantly animal-based diet.

So we eat a lot of animal protein, animal fat, and we add for text, uh, for flavor. And, and, and. Texture, et cetera. We add some plant foods around that. And sourdough is one of the things we, we have started including in, I don't wanna even use the word moderation because it's a, I think it's a crappy word in the, in the dietary context, but in smaller amounts.

We do enjoy sourdough to the extent that we can tolerate it, and we can tell, and specifically between my wife and I, I can get away with significantly more than my wife if she eats consumes too much sourdough. Then her blood sugar goes nuts. You know, she doesn't feel good. There are a lot of things that her body tells her that this is not good for you, and if I consume greater amounts, I feel the same.

So we always have to find that, that threshold, you know, how much can we eat without negatively affecting how we feel and our health overall. Let's talk about flour choices for a while because you can go to the store, buy just regular, you know, white bread flour and make sourdough and think you're eating something healthier.

But the thing is. As you might expect, not all flowers are created equal. For example, you know, regular store bought flour is typically refined, is void of any nutrients and potentially contaminate, contaminated with glyphosate and other pesti uh, pesticides. So herbicides and pesticides that farmers used to grow that wheat.

And so I would avoid regular store bought flour. You know, the next best option that you can also find in the store sometimes is organic and stone grown. Ground flour, you know, that's better because it has more nutrients and it's more minimally processed and has fewer chemicals because of the organic, you know, label on it.

So that's, you know, the next best option, even better, would be if you home, if you grind your flour at home, get a mill, and you mill your flour at home from organic grains, grains. To preserve the maximum amount of nutrients because it matters how much time you let you let elapse from the time you grind to the time you bake.

So the shorter the timeframe is, the more nutrients, if you want to consider bread a source of micronutrients, which I don't think it really is, but for the sake of arguments, they are gonna be more nutrients in the bread if you use freshly ground flour than anything you can buy in the store. And then the last thing to to consider is.

Instead of using regular wheat, which has gone through a lot of modifications and hybridization and genetic, um, or, or selection, et cetera, um, you know, use ancient grains like iron, corn or kute or some of those that have not been modified there are still in the same, that have fewer gluten to get go, that have more proteins that our body is familiar with.

Because every time you change something you like, be it by selection or GMO, whatever the case might be, you end up with creating new proteins that are unknown to your body and that could potentially trigger your immune system. And so going with with ancient grains and grinding them or milling them at home is significantly better and probably your best option than just buying anything in the store.

Um. What does it take to get started with sourdough? Well, the first thing you need is a, a starer, you know, something that someone has already nurtured for a while. They are, uh, they are, uh, sourdough starters available at, are hundreds of years old. Uh, we get ours from a friend and we've given it to, you know, other people.

Then, so, you know, we continue the process. But you need the sourdough St. Str, you know, that's your, your, your batch, your um, your, your starting batch that contains all the bacteria and stuff that you need then to ferment, you know, the flour that you add to it and the water. Um, you need a Dutch oven, um, to bake the bread.

You need ideally, you know, some sort of a bench scraper to make it easier, you know, to, you need proving ba a proving basket. Um, and you need a kitchen scale. And the one thing most important is you need time. You know, sourdough is not fast food, it's slow food. It takes somewhere between two to three days for the entire process.

You know, you first feed your. You start it, then you, you create the, the, I don't even know what are the terminology, because my wife does all of that. But you create, you know, you let it ferment first, then you go through a second fermentation, uh, et cetera, et cetera. So it takes time. You need to be patient and you need to learn the process, because in the beginning it can feel a little bit overwhelming, you know, just ask.

My wife, she like, you know, this is something, I don't know if you wanna bother with eating bread if it takes, you know, three days to make it, or pizza for, let's have pizza tonight. No, you need to plan ahead three days ahead, you know, before you can have that pizza night once a month. Hopefully not more often.

Uh, but it's, I think if you want, have the best quality bread, if you're into bread, that's the way to go. You, our personal experience has been that. As I mentioned, we can consume sourdough bread in certain amounts. If we go over it, we suffer the consequences. You know, again, plants are not supposed to be part in great quantities, uh, in the human diet.

I, I firmly believe that, you know, if you overdo it, you've suffered the consequences. If you eat, if I eat too much meat. I suffer from nothing, you know, unless I eat like five pounds of meat in one sitting, then obviously, you know, I would feel something. Um, but there is, if I eat meat every day, I'm perfectly healthy.

If I would eat sourdough every day, not so much. So, you know, you get the idea. But specifically between my wife and I, you know, we've noticed difference in how our blood sugar responds. And that's, again, if you don't, if you don't know, if you don't wear a CGM, like the one. I do right now, and my wife does as well.

You wouldn't even, I mean, you can feel it, you know, once your blood sugar goes up and down. But tracking those metrics, you can clearly tell how a food or how your body is responding to certain foods. And with sourdough, we've noticed that specifically. So you have to be careful, you know, just because something is healthier doesn't mean you can just eat sourdough every day and be perfectly healthy.

That's likely not the case. Um, a couple of misconceptions I wanna address in regards to sourdough. You know, sourdough is not gluten-free. It has fewer gluten likely, but it's not gluten-free. So if you are hypersensitive, uh, or really gluten intolerant sourdough might not work for you either. You know, the other thing is that all sourdough bread is equally healthy.

You know, if, so, if you go to a. Whatever commercial bakery, whatever that sourdough you get, there is likely not the same sourdough that you can make at home from organic. Hand melt ancient grains. You know, I would argue that most sourdough bread can find in bakeries, et cetera, are not made with organic, um, flour.

You know, just because that's significantly more expensive and many people maybe don't wanna buy what it's, you know, costs to. Bake sourdough bread with ancient organic grains. So the point here is to wrap all of this up, you know you can enjoy sourdough. I would recommend you experiment with it. Get involved.

Get involved in preparing your own food, and if that means getting involved with, uh, baking your own bread, if you enjoy bread. If you would be eating bread otherwise anyway, then by all means, do that. Experiment with sourdough. See what it takes to create the best quality bread. Uh, you can have, and then experiment on how often you can have that.

You know, I recommend, again, sticking to consuming predominantly animals to meet your caloric intake, to meet your protein intake, to meet your fat intake. But then, you know, experiment and see if you wanna, like the taste, the texture, whatever, you know, if you like the social component of, of, of sharing bread, of breaking bread, you know, um, then by all means, you know, experiment with sourdough and let me know.

How, how it works for you, how you like it. Um, if you're watching this on a platform that supports comments, let me know in the comments. Share it with someone who could, you know, who, who thinks that sourdough is healthy, the ultimate health food, or maybe someone who thinks that no bread is healthy. You know, maybe, you know, give some context, some nuance to the discussion by sharing this clip.

Um, or this podcast if you, if you listen to it on an audio platform. And with that, um, we're gonna wrap it up and I hope I'll see you and hear you. In the next episode, next week.