Our Daily Bread

Our Daily Bread
This summer we went on holiday to the Jura Mountains, and on the last day, the village where we were staying sprouted a glorious organic fair (foire bio), the organic producers all were there, and we had a lovely time.

I made my way to a stall selling bread.

‘Is this bread 100 percent spelt ?’ I said to the baker

‘That one, yes, it’s pure spelt ’

‘Now, does this happen in France?’ I said, ‘I know that many of us northern types and Anglophones suffer from problems digesting wheat, but we seem to be ok with spelt, but here, is it the same?’

‘It does happen in France’ he said with a deep twinkle in his eye, which I have learned to recognise as the sign I am talking to someone out of the ordinary, someone who has something to teach me. (A taste of his apple juice convinced me I was right, especially the lightly spiced sparkling one, divine! He only had one bottle left, and he only makes it once a year!).

‘Oh yes, it’s been around in France for a long time’ he continued. ‘The dieticians tell people to stop eating wheat. But it isn’t that. Since the 1940s we’ve been messing around with wheat, cross-breeding it, now we have wheat with a totally different genetic structure, and it has five times more gluten than the older varieties. This is good for commercial bakers, because they don’t need to work the bread so much, it rises more easily. But, it isn’t natural for us! Try and buy a variety of flour from before the 1940s. Try eating a little, you may find you have no problem with it.’

‘That is very interesting. I didn’t know that! It makes me wonder if people like me, who are ‘sensitive’ or intolerant to things, are in fact indicators that things are going wrong. For example, my mother told me recently that the most prevalent allergy in the USA nowadays is soya. When you look into it, American soya is all genetically modified and relies on chemical fertiliser, pesticides and herbicides. Perhaps the ones who are allergic are the ones who are saved!’

He nodded as he wrapped the bread and handed it over, with a further twinkle.

I took the bread which was a pale malt colour, crusty and dense. I lifted it to my nose and took a deep sniff. Something very strange happened inside me, everything went sort of warped, tears came to my eyes. Richness and depth and nuttiness and sweetness sang together in a beautiful choir of smells. But there was something else, like a long lost memory, a delight experienced under an older sun, a truth forgotten. It is as if everything I’ve eaten which I convinced myself tasted good was based on a memory of what food should taste like, that for the most part I lived on food flavoured by a fantasy of what is good. Some time later I took another sniff, and was in tears again. I hate half of the loaf, alone, with dignity.
When we returned from holiday I found that my Panasonic bread maker had broken even though it is only 2 years old and I’ve always looked after it. It produced three sickly flat loaves the texture of toothpaste. I was very furious about this.

‘ This thing is only 2 years old!’ I ranted ‘How could it break down after only two years? Whatever is wrong with it it’s bound to be expensive and difficult, and I want to make bread NOW, I use it every day, this is our daily bread we are talking about!!’

I do try to listen to the underlying message when I am furious, because I have found there is usually a good underlying reason for my fury. It’s a bit like a psychic gift only much less agreeable for me and those around me. The message is clear

This is our daily bread we are talking about.

Yes, we must we must look into our daily bread. So I took time out of the daily bread-providing process and did some research, here is what I found:

It does seem that our daily bread has taken a bit of a battering since the 1940s:
The grain, the soilWheat grain not what it used to be, as a result of cross-breeding, soil depletion and the addition of chemicals.

Grains have been cross bred to increase yield, be resistant to farmer’s problems, and to fit in with new mechanised methods of mass bread production. Modern grains are less nutritious than the pre-40s varieties.
Soil has been depleted through the use of chemical fertilizers and lack of organic nourishment
Chemicals have been added to soil, grain and plant in the form of insecticides, herbicides and fungicides such as disulfoton (Di-syston), methyl parathion, chlorpyrifos, dimethoate, diamba and glyphosate…

Milling of the breadHigh heat milling smashes out the starch, quick and easy as part of mechanical production, but it distorts the properties of the wheat, some say making it less nutritious, even harmful to the human organism.

Making of the bread
Clive Lawther from Nourished Magazine has a passion for fermentation, ‘from a demon to a god in one fermentation’ he claims. Why don’t we ferment properly any more? Quickness and ease, ‘mechanised bread production has meant ‘quick’ bread making methods don’t allow glutens starches and malts are not given the fermentation time they need to become digestible and release their nutritional value. For quick bread you need more yeast (harder to digest) and chemical additives (accelerants and proving agents)’.Conclusions?We’ve changed our wheat, we’ve weakened the soil it grows in, poisoned the soil and the plant, smashed up the grain instead of milling it and rushed through its fermentation, taking the opportunity to add a few more chemicals along the way. Suddenly it doesn’t seem quite such a mystery that so many of us are having trouble with it. Maybe this sort of thing could explain some of our other modern malady mysteries?

We used to do it in the traditional way, goodness knows how we knew about that,it wasn't conscious I guess, it came into our traditions and was adhered to by successive generations, but it worked. Then we went into mass production, industry, money, power - but we were ignorant about the subtle mysteries of nutrition and health. Now we have more knowledge and choice, our challenge is to render our food wholesome again, without returning to the hardship of the old days, without undoing progress, but by making good progress. We have some work to do don't we?

Personally, I vowed to become old and slow where bread is concerned, finding ways to ferment properly, seeking out old varieties of wheat. Strangely, at this point, the bread in my bread machine began to rise, and the last one I made was pretty much a normal height.