Breaking bread: How bread fell out of favor



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ALDEN WILLIAMS and JULIAN LEE

Wendy Smith gave Stuff a tour through the Totally Gluten Free bakery in Christchurch

Traditionally, life without bread has not been a life at all. It has fed the diet of billions of people around the world for 10,000 years. But we start to reject it.

During the Roman Empire, Juvenal used the phrase "bread and circuses" to describe the main method by which emperors controlled the masses.

It is said that a lack of bread helped trigger the French Revolution by the starving French peasants in 1789.

Vladimir Lenin inspired Russian mobs to overthrow the government with the phrase "Peace, earth, bread "During the Communist Russian Revolution in 1917.

  Baker Totally Gluten Free Dwayne Bakery Allport

ALDEN WILLIAMS / STUFF

Dwayne Allport, Baker's Gluten Free Bakery

This is a vital symbol in Christianity in the form of the Eucharist where Jesus Christ offered his body in the form of bread. In the Lord's Prayer, Christians ask God to "give us our daily bread"

In Judaism, eating bread during Passover symbolizes the Jewish escape from slavery in Egypt.

life itself to thousands of generations, is, at least for some, something to be disdained.

The claims are well known. The bread makes you sick. It makes you fat. Our bodies are not designed to eat it.

  The totally gluten-free bakery in Christchurch

ALDEN WILLIAMS / STUFF

The totally gluten-free bakery in Christchurch.

Although there may have always been those on the fringes who preached against high carbohydrate foods like bread, the reaction against bread is relatively recent, starting with the emergence of diets. low carbohydrate and no carbohydrates like Atkins, Zone and South Beach at the turn of the century (replaced more recently by the paleo diet that also avoids bread.)

Diets come and go, but a more sustainable "problem" with bread has turned out to be one of its fundamental components, gluten in wheat flour. Gluten is a protein compound composed of glutenin and gliadin; in contact with water, these proteins change shape, bind together and create the elastic "bubble" we call gluten. It traps the air, allowing the starch of the bread to rise.

Unfortunately, gluten is a major problem for people with hereditary celiac disease. Their intestinal walls are damaged and can not treat it. When celiacs eat gluten, the immune system attacks the intestinal mucosa.

Celiacs suffer from various symptoms, including fatigue, irritable bowels, other intestinal problems and nausea or vomiting

The opinion that gluten intolerance in non-celiacs For example, an article of the l & # 39; Newcastle University published last year has put in In an appropriate lawsuit,

Smith says that a small part of the anti-gluten crowd is just trying to follow a trend: "Some people just do it for a diet craze. They think that they will lose weight. "

But she points to the number of seniors who shop at her bakery, which she says are unlikely to be influenced by Hollywood trends, but may have worked over the years that she believes The reason is that our diets contain more gluten than ever, and not just in the bread. "agent, which means that it is widely used in processed meats, sauces (including soy sauce and pasta). ), bandages, processed foods, snack foods, cooking stock, even ice-cream and baked beans

  ingredients not found in ordinary bread.

ALDEN WILLIAMS / STUFF

Gluten-free bread requires measurements exact exotic ingredients that are not found in ordinary bread.

Ironically, do not use gluten in pastry is expensive.

loaves cost about as much as those in the supermarket , if Not a bit cheaper: ordinary white bread costs $ 6, two or three times more than regular bread in a supermarket.

Smith says that there are three factors: the price of specialty flours (mainly imported), the use of expensive xanthan gum, essential to provide the structure and texture that gluten would produce otherwise, and the tedious and tedious process of gluten-free cooking

"If you're having a temperature change, your flour becomes wetter, so you must have less water in it. are aware of everything that's going on, "says Smith.


– Stuff

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