Yes, sourdough is nutritious and delicious. Compared to other bread, there are health benefits and you can make a great loaf in your own kitchen with a little patience.
I will be the first to admit that I am a bread eater. I grew up with bread on the table and sitting down to a meal without it, would be almost impossible for me. Bread is revered in the Italian culture and is never wasted. Even the crumbs are saved and put to use.
However, many of us want to limit our consumption of carbohydrates for health reasons. Sourdough bread offers some health benefits that other breads do not such as improved digestion, a lower glycemic index, meaning that it has less effect on blood sugar and insulin levels, a benefit for those with diabetes, heart disease or high cholesterol.
In addition, sourdough is rich in potassium, folate and magnesium that are easy for the body to absorb and process. Sourdough, even commercial loaves, have fewer preservatives than other breads. If you are making it at home, sourdough is all natural and the leavening agent is produced through a natural fermentation process.
If you choose to make it yourself you will need to create your own starter; which is a process and a commitment, but, a journey that in my opinion, is worth the end result.
To make your own sourdough starter from scratch begins with just flour and water that ferments over time and regular feeding of more flour and water. There is a lot of information out there about making a starter. For quick reference, here is a post from Food and Wine, if you are curious to find out more: https://www.foodandwine.com/bread-dough/beginners-guide-to-sourdough.
At my home, sourdough starter arrived as a gift from a friend who began her own starter and shared some with my wife. Although the starter she was gifted requires some attention, the jar that lives in our refrigerator only requires feeding once a week at this point, a much easier timeline than beginning at step one.
We now have a new loaf twice a week and it seems there is always the next loaf rising and waiting to be baked. The baking and proofing, or rising process, takes about 36 hours. This timeline seems daunting but there is little active time in this process so give it a try.
The resulting loaf, baked in a Dutch oven is crusty and worth it both from a flavor profile as well as from a gut health standpoint.
Sourdough bread really is delicious and nutritious. Especially as the weather gets colder there is nothing quite like the aroma of bread baking to warm the soul and naturally the reward of the crusty flavorful loaf.
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Domenico Praticò, MD, holds the position of the Scott Richards North Star Charitable Foundation Chair for Alzheimer’s Research and serves as a Professor and the Founding Director of the Alzheimer’s Center at Temple, as well as a Professor of Neural Sciences at Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University.
For more information on the research conducted by Dr. Domenico Pratico, please visit this link.
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