The Real Problem With Bread (It's Probably Not Gluten) [View all]

[KamaAina]

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/02/bread-gluten-rising-yeast-health-problem

Considering that you can now find gluten-free everything, from Bisquick to bagels, it seems remarkable that our national obsession with the wheat protein that gives bread its elasticity is only about a decade old. Doctors have long known about a relatively rare condition called celiac disease, in which gluten damages the small intestine. But in recent years, best-selling books like Wheat Belly and Grain Brain have popularized the notion that gluten is the hidden culprit behind a host of hard-to-diagnose health problems, from indigestion to fatigue. Once you excise bread and other wheat products from your diet, the books claim, you'll be on the path to everything from top mental performance to a svelte figure....

Wheat Belly's author, cardiologist William Davis, claims that modern agricultural breeding has changed the nature of gluten, turning it toxic. He argues that wheat varieties developed in the 1960s and '70s introduced a novel protein called gliadin that has led to all manner of chronic problems, including obesity and diabetes. Yet Davis' claims have been roundly criticized by grain scientists. For that matter, there's no scientific consensus on how prevalent gluten sensitivity is, what triggers it, or even if it exists at all....

Even so, Jones doesn't buy the notion that the modern breeding he shuns is causing bad reactions to bread. "It's not wheat itself," he says, pointing to a 2013 study by the US Department of Agriculture that found "no evidence" of increasing levels of gluten in wheat over the decades. Rather, Jones believes that the true problem with bread is how we make it. In commercial bakeries, rising time has been winnowed from hours or even days down to mere minutes, thanks to fast-acting yeasts and additives. By contrast, the team in Jones' laboratory, located in a rural stretch along Puget Sound, lets dough rise for as long as 12 hours—and they've found that the longer it rises, the less potent the gluten that remains in the finished bread....

Jones' conjecture—that modern baking, not modern breeding, is responsible for the mysterious rise in gluten-related troubles—has not been proved correct. But then again, neither has any other explanation. Jones plans to continue his research, but in the meantime, with a test population of one, I conducted my own experiments with Jones' method. I had drifted away from bread in recent years; it made me feel uncomfortably full. But when I made slow-fermented whole-wheat bread with a sourdough starter from Jones' lab, I felt great—as I do when I eat loaves made by the increasing number of bakeries that use traditional methods and shun additives. No offense, but that sure beats the gluten-free menu.