Flour, Yeast, Gluten, Health.

---

Humans have eaten sourdough since the ancient Egyptians were grinding grains and leavening bread thousands of years ago and most likely for much longer. In nature yeast never exists on its own. It exists symbiotically with other bacteria and fungi in its own yeast eco system. Until the industrial revolution made concentrated filtered yeast possible humans have always leavened their doughs with a complete yeast ecosystem, either with a mother dough or a leftover of some other fermentation process like beer brewing.

While yeast eat sugars and, in the process, creates gas it can only eat simple sugars. A natural yeast ecosystem has an army of specialist organisms breaking down every component of the grain, basically pre-digesting it for you. With industrial yeast you end up literally with raw grass seed paste. Seeds have lots of chemical defenses against being eaten. And if eaten the chemicals help the grain stay intact throughout an animal’s digestive process so they can germinate in the dung. The sourdough fermentation process breaks down these compounds so humans can easily digest them. Yeast bread is poor in nutrition and irritates our digestive tract. Naturally leavened bread is healthy and nutritious. We suspect that in most cases gluten intolerance is in actuality an intolerance to raw grass seed. 

Cows for example have multiple fermentation stomachs where billions of bacteria break down the cellulose. So, in reality they do not eat grass. They eat the bacteria that ate the grass. For centuries humans have used fermentation as a kind of artificial extra stomach to enable them to eat things we naturally cannot. Fermented nuts, seeds, vegetables and dairy are all easier to digest than in their raw form.

If you believe you suffer from gluten intolerance without life threatening effects  you can try consuming slow fermented sourdough. But be aware that many commercial sourdough products are hybrids with yeast and some are even pure yeast with artificially added sourness. 

Our mother dough was made in 2012 over a period of several weeks by catching the wild yeast floating in the Chiang Mai air and we hope our mother dough will survive for decades to come. Because sourdough starter contains at least 100 different organisms each starter is different and produces a slightly different bread flavor. Despite a revival of natural fermentation in the last decade not many commercial bakers use it. It requires more skill, a lot more time (days vs hours) and cool storage space. Both from a health and a taste perspective natural fermentation is superior and we cannot imagine doing it any other way. Furthermore, when pizza purists argue about what is a real authentic Neapolitan pizza while using commercial yeast dough it is just silly. When queen Margherita ate the first Margherita pizza in 1889 commercial yeast was not yet widely available.