Baking Bread

The Captain needs a break so as first mate, I will step up and do a little blogging. When you get into this life of no fructose and trying to eat as little processed food as possible some things can be a little challenging. One of those was finding bread made with either no sugar or just dextrose. It is actually a little scary to read the ingredient label of most breads on the shelves of our stores. Even this staple of life seems to be a chemistry experiment. I understand why, as they need to make it last but after I read the label It just doesn’t look that appetizing. Commercially we have found a few, mainly sourdough breads,that meet the criteria. Last summer we would splurge sometimes and buy Panera’s sourdough which is sugar free and if you go through the bakery department sometimes you will find some there too. For the most part though, I have decided to make our bread.

I actually got interested in making my own bread after reading a review of the book “Artesian Bread in 5 minutes a Day” by Jeffery Hertzberg MD and Zoe Francois. They have a method of making bread that is a little different but I gave it a try and we are very happy with the results. This won’t work for everyone as even though you only handle the bread for a couple minutes there is some rising time and baking time that you do have to be around for, so I think the 5 minutes a day part is a little misleading. It definitely would work for those that work at home, are at home mothers or like us are retired and are around a good portion of the day. 

I don’t feel it’s right to give you the recipe but I did link to the book. I will show you the steps and a little about the equipment involved.

First you need a food grade container with a lid. I use a 4 qt.food grade container,  the book calls for a 6 qt one. The 4 qt. seems big enough to me. The bread is actually mixed in this bucket and then left to rise for 2 hours. At that time it goes into the refrigerator with the lid on loosely. You can make a loaf from this after the 2 hours but it really does better if it has been left in the refrigerator for a few hours or overnight. When you are ready to bake, pull off a piece of the dough and form a ball. No kneading is necessary and they explain in the book how to handle the dough. I place my loaf on a floured piece of parchment paper and cover with plastic wrap. It then needs to sit and raise for about 90 minutes.  After 90 minutes you preheat the oven with a pizza stone on the middle rack and the oven set at 450 degrees. Just before baking you will brush it with a little water and make a couple slits with a serrated knife in the top of the loaf. After the oven/ stone have pre-heated you slide the dough onto the pizza stone and in a broiler pan below it you add a cup of water that adds the element of steam to the baking. Bake the loaf on the parchment paper for 20 min then slide it off the paper directly onto the stone and bake for another 20 minutes. After all this, out comes a beautiful loaf of homemade bread. Delicious!

It seems like a lot of work but the mixing only takes about 10 minutes and getting it ready to bake less than 5 min. The rest is just waiting time. 

Like I said, this will work for some and maybe not for others of you. I love the process and the product so it is what I have chosen to do. I did consider a bread machine also but because I have the time this works for me. I think if I had kids at home and was working, the bread machine would be a good alternative. Then a little research to find a non-sugar recipe.

There are some challenges to living with out processed sugar and some of them take time. What I hope is to show you some of the ways I have found to deal with these changes. Even though I usually have the time I really don’t want to spend everyday cooking and baking so I am working on some future posts to how you how I get around some of that too.

Captain’s Log: More from the captain’s inbox

 

Our temporary fall home. Campbellsville KY

Many of you didn’t have any questions, but that’s never stopped the captain from answering them anyway:

So maybe I’ll give up sugar for a bit and see how it goes. Like after Thanksgiving. Or Christmas. Or next year.

It’s your life, but if you want to see lasting results you need to make some permanent changes. Sugared soft drinks are the largest contributor to added sugar in most people’s diet, so if that’s the case for you, start there. Use diet soft drinks if that helps, but after a couple of weeks you’ll want to quit using artificial sweeteners also. Without fructose containing sugars in your diet, you’ll find the artificial sweeteners will taste different, and not in a good way.  All for the good.

So if I give up foods with added sugar, I’ll lose weight. Right?

Maybe. Probably not quickly if you do. There is some good news here, however. Because fructose is metabolized by the liver as a toxin, the resulting calories don’t affect your appetite as calories from glucose and fats would. So calories from fructose are extra calories if you tend to keep eating as long as you’re  hungry, like most people. Once your appetite starts responding to all of the food you eat, you’ll have a much better chance of eating only as much as you need. For example, one of the hormones responsible for regulating your appetite is secreted by fat cells. The more fat you have the sooner you’ll feel full, so it should be easier to lose weight if you start out overweight. Theoretically.

So I don’t need to count calories, I just need to eat when I’m hungry?

Yep. Let your appetite tell you when to eat and how much to eat, as long as you limit the fructose in your diet to whole fruit (no fruit juice, no added sugar other than glucose).

What about exercise?

Gillespie (Sweet Poison, Big Fat Lies) makes the case that increasing your activity also increases your appetite, making it a wash for losing weight. There are health benefits to an active life, but if weight loss is your goal modifying your diet has a much bigger effect than increasing your activity. Your activity level drops as you gain weight because you gained weight. You didn’t gain weight because your activity level dropped. So if you feel like it , go for it, but don’t feel guilty if you don’t work out.

When can I go back to eating donuts?

Up to you but it’s not just obesity we’re talking about. Even skinny people can develop heart disease and type 2 diabetes, both of which have a direct link to excess fructose. There is some evidence that fructose is addictive (Janie sure thinks so, just from her experience) so there’s that too. You don’t have to wonder what will happen if you go back to eating foods with added sugar, you’ve already been there.

So how do I know if sugar has been added to a package food?

Easy. Just find the nutritional information, skip all of it, and read the list of ingredients right below it (the fine print). There isn’t any useful information in the nutritional information, including the amount of sugar, since we are only concerned with added sugar. Look for anything in the ingredients that looks like sugar, including sugar, cane sugar, fruit concentrate, honey, high fructose corn syrup, any other syrup... you get the idea. Dextrose is all glucose, so it’s acceptable. I think corn syrup is glucose also, but I still don’t like to see it as an ingredient.

Actually, this doesn’t sound so difficult. Just eliminate food with added sugar. And eat whole fruit instead of fruit juice. Anything else?

Sure. I haven’t even mentioned seed oils yet, because that’s another topic entirely. Maybe next time.

Cheers.

Captain's Log: The captain is in

The captain likes to take time time to answer questions, even if they're from imaginary readers. Here's a sample of my imaginary inbox:

If you're so smart, why are you so fat?

Good point. And the captain is glad you had to bring that up. What does a retired engineer and fake captain know about nutrition anyway? Well I'm glad you asked. I've been trained to think logically, but that doesn't mean I can't be fooled or that my education gives me some sort of advantage. It may even be a hindrance. My cousin sent me an interesting article from the Boston Globe on why facts are often ignored, especially by people who know they're right.  

If we don't question the things we know, how will we ever learn anything new? But back to your question. There is some information out there that seems to indicate that added sugar, specifically added fructose, contributes to heart disease, diabetes, and obesity. I have a family history for all of these, and it's only been six months since I quit eating food with added sugar, so cut me some slack. After a lifetime of abuse, it's going to take some time.

So if sugar is so bad for you, why haven't I heard more about it?

Because you don't watch Last Week Tonight with John Oliver on HBO. Here's the show on sugar if you missed it: 

There are numerous other sources of information on this topic, but some of it gets a little confusing. There are articles on why high fructose corn syrup is no worse than any other sugar and I totally agree. It's not the source of the sugar that's the problem, it's the amount of fructose those sugars contain that's being added to you diet. HFCS doesn't contain any more fructose than ordinary table sugar (cane sugar).

If fructose is that bad for you, the government would be all over it.

It took almost a hundred years for the FDA to come out with warnings about tobacco, even though there was overwhelming evidence that it was bad for you much earlier than that. Big sugar is big business.

Well, I'm not going to quit eating donuts. I don't care what you say.

Spoken like a true addict. Listen to yourself. You're exhibiting symptoms of addiction and that's exactly what it is. That's why moderation may not be the best way to go here. Treat your addiction like an addiction and just quit. No cheat days. None of that stuff. See the John Oliver video.

Well the captain ran out of wine, so that's all for now. Cheers.