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Julia Watson's avatar

Isn't it a light-bulb moment of delight when you realise that if all you do is go back to loaves created by old fashioned proving methods, you can eat bread again!

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Kate Walker's avatar

YES YES YES! I am constantly telling people they're not gluten intolerant, they're reacting to the Chorleywood method, and no one believes me!

OUR BELLIES ARE NOT PROVING DRAWERS!!!

The vast majority of people I know who struggle to digest bread but aren't coeliac have zero issues with homemade loaves of any ilk proved properly. The scant remainder are unfortunate souls with genuine allergies or intolerances.

PREACH, SISTER! 🙏🙏🙏

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Julia Watson's avatar

I love the vision of our stomachs as proving drawers!

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Beatrice Shushan's avatar

We here in Southern California are very happy to have a bakery, Prager Brothers, who make sour dough the old fashioned way. I realized that what I had thought was gluten sensitivity is actually a sensitivity to all the chemical additives in commercially made bread. Now I enjoy bread daily yet am pain free.

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Karen Beckman's avatar

Thank you for clarifying the difference between sourdoughs. You article answers many bread related questions and is an eye opener on commercially available loaves.

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Julia Watson's avatar

While modernisation is supposed to deliver progress and in the food area deliver greater accessibility at cheaper prices to a greater number of people (and profit to manufacturers), too often old established processes are steamrollered at the expense of nature - the nature of how ingredients behave and how our stomachs react.

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Julia Watson's avatar

Don't know that book. Thank you for the pointer. I'll look it out. I remember those compressed white bread balls. Except they were grey. I was always so envious of school friends who had sliced white because it was so good with peanut butter.

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Sophie's avatar

I love the idea of white bread for cut fingers!

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Patricia Davis's avatar

Your bread looks delicious! Love the nibbled edge. Well those commercial sourdough imitators. Little stinkers! I don’t know if you read fiction but I enjoyed “Sourdough: a love story.” It’s a fun read set in San Francisco—that intriguing intersection of foodie obsession and futuristic technology. I never knew white bread could be pressed into action as absorbent bandage!!! Such a clever girl. Haven’t had in my kitchen for decades. It was a staple in my mother’s. My cretin older brother used to take fresh white bread and roll it into a ball and eat it. Even young me thought that didn’t sound like a good idea!

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Lex Drennan's avatar

That explains so much! Aside from real bakery bread just tastes BETTER, I’ve never been able to work out why it doesn’t upset my stomach.

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Julia Watson's avatar

Ah the secret strategies of the industrial food complex! Once you know it makes it hard to unknow

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Lou Tamposi's avatar

Ah, do we love soda bread in our house. We make ours with the jug of kefir that I can’t drink fast enough to outpace production.

But, Julia — please don’t skip the cross marks! That blesses the bread! And, then, after scoring, you must poke a hole in each quadrant to let the fairies out!

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Kate Walker's avatar

FREE THE FAIRIES

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Julia Watson's avatar

What a lovely piece of detail! You're right about the cross. I did do one but far too faintly. Next time, I'll go deeper. And remember to free the fairies.

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Sound practice well-being's avatar

But it’s always worth getting checked for coeliac disease because undiagnosed coeliacs causes a lot of long term damage. Better safe than sorry.

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Julia Watson's avatar

A very sensible point.

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