Everything Sourdough

The popularity of sourdough bread has risen recently, seen in an increase in bakery sales and home bakers making sourdough bread in their home. Sourdough bread has a unique flavor, texture, and potential health benefits.

Traditional sourdough bread made with wild yeast and bacteria has several benefits over bread made with commercial baker’s yeast. Because of the organic acids produced by the Lactobacillus bacteria, sourdough has a lower pH than standard bread. This not only gives it a desirable “sour” flavor and longer shelf-life, but also makes the bread kinder to your gut (Marti, et al., 2015; Siepmann, et al., 2018).

The low pH of sourdough bread, combined with its long fermentation time, allows nutrients, like carbohydrates and proteins with a more complex structure, to get a “head start” on digestion by partially breaking down into smaller units. For these reasons, sourdough has been shown to be more digestible than standard bread fermented with baker’s yeast (Rizello et al., 2019).

Sourdough fermentation also reduces levels of certain FODMAPs, which are a type of carbohydrate that causes bowel irritation in some people. The low levels of this type of carbohydrate in sourdough makes it much more digestible for certain consumers (Menezes et al., 2019). Sourdough has also been shown to produce less gas and bloating overall, and this may also be due to its low-FODMAP profile (Rizello et al., 2019).

Research has shown that some minerals may be present in a more available form in sourdough bread. Flour is a source of minerals such as calcium, sodium, zinc, and magnesium. However, these minerals can be sequestered in a molecule known as the phytate complex, which must be broken down for humans to absorb the minerals. While baker’s yeast is unable to break down the phytate complex, sourdough organisms can break down the complex very effectively. This could increase the amount of minerals available for absorption in the human gut (Leenhardt et al., 2005: Nionelli & Rizzello, 2016).

The target audience for Everything Sourdough is adults 16 and up, some have health issues, some just looking to learn a new life skill.  Each participant left the workshop with one cup of starter, directions for specifically feeding the starter, and recipes to make with the starter.  There were sourdough bread, cookies and cracker samples for all to taste.  Participants were amazed at the versatility of sourdough.   80% of participants have used the starter from the workshop to make bread or other item using recipes given at the workshop.  80% of participants use the discard to make baked goods. 30-40% of participants bake bread or other items once or twice a week. 80% of participants said they shared information about sourdough with friends or family. 30% of participants said they gave a starter to friends.

 I gathered the above information from a follow-up survey 4 months after the workshop. Participants shared photos with me of their baked goods and information such as what they bake and how often.