
Could This Baker Solve the Gluten Mystery? - rosser
http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2014/02/toms-kitchen-100-whole-wheat-bread-doesnt-suck-and-pretty-easy
======
vanderZwan
So. My girlfriend is Lithuanian, I am Dutch. We met when she was an exchange
student in the Netherlands. The thing she hated the most about our country?
The bread.

It's kinda like described in the article: comparatively, we got the fluffy
factory stuff, they have black bread, a very dense sourdough made from rye.
When I say dense I mean _dense:_ one slice of their bread equals three of
ours. It stays good for a whole month instead of a week. It has flavour that
takes a bit of getting used to but once you are, then the Dutch bread is
indeed quite boring by comparison.

I suspect it's because they have a much more traditional (and quite delicious)
kitchen in general - I'll let you guess the reasons for that.

~~~
karolisd
I'm Lithuanian and I think we have the best bread.

But what are the reasons for the more traditional kitchen? I haven't thought
about it.

~~~
memracom
The Baltic countries, Russia, Ukraine, and Central Asian countries are all
aboriginal countries. They have preserved their traditional culture and all
the lessons learned over many generations.

In contrast, Europe is mostly immigrants from the east, and people's conquered
by the Goths and Romans who lived in slavery for hundreds of years and lost
everything except the ability to just barely survive.

~~~
sabbatic13
I'm afraid your knowledge of history is almost completely inaccurate.

The "Goths" were just a few dozens Germanic tribes who moved West and
conquered territory which was already occupied by Germanic tribes. Now, before
the latter Germans started pushing West so hard, ca. 500 BCE, there were Celts
in a lot of these regions, but 1) current Celtic populations don't show any
evidence of "Aboriginal Bread"; 2) Celts are very closely related genetically,
culturally, and linguistically to both the Italic and Germanic peoples; 3)the
Baltic peoples are Indo-European too. They aren't "aborigines," and certainly
not culturally distinct and exemplary of some multi-millenial cultural
continuity distinct from the Germans or Celts or Italians or Greeks or
Albanians or Iranian or Indo-Aryans...etc. The non-Indo-European and non-
Finno-Ugric Neolithic peoples of Europe disappeared under waves of IE and
Finno-Ugric immigration everywhere (except possibly for the Basque).

The only non-immigrants are people who stayed very near the North shore of the
Black Sea, but it's nonsense to claim that because they didn't move much in
5.5K years, they remembered how to make their ancestral bread, while no one
else did. That area itself saw waves of immigrants (both IE and non-IE) and
was basically part of the East-West highway, so the opposite scenario is much
more likely.

Moreover, while the Romans enslaved people from various conquered populations,
they did not enslave whole regions or tribes or clans or what have you.
Prisoners were taken here and there, but large populations and their cultures
were not lost to slavery. In addition, all those Germanic tribes and other
conquered peoples _were_ most of the Roman Empire eventually. They didn't get
enslaved or absorbed, nor did they conform much. They just took over.

One might also point out that the Northern and Western European diets never
conformed to the Mediterranean.

------
vanattab
The title seems to be link bait. What exactly is the gluten mystery this guy
is solving? All I found in the article is that he is making whole wheat(%100)
bread that has less gluten which as far as I can tell is not at all a mystery?

~~~
rm445
The fact that people without Coeliac Disease buy gluten-free bread seems
pretty mysterious to me.

It might not to you, but if you can't say for sure whether it's (a) just a
fad; (b) actually the secret to a great and healthy life; or (c) partly a
reaction to modern mass-baking techniques (as the article posits), there's at
least a little mystery.

~~~
steverb
My wife has Celiac's and all I can say is that I am very glad that gluten-free
has become a bit of a fad. There is a much larger variety of gluten free foods
than there were 6 years ago when she was first diagnosed, and the prices of
many of them have dropped by half.

Not to mention all the foods that had no real reason to contain wheat but had
it added as a filler or something and have now dropped it.

Life is much easier for us now.

~~~
Ryanmf
Indeed. The minor change for me has been that the slightly annoying question
I'm most likely to be asked on any given day has transitioned from "What's
that?" to "Oh, you're one of _those_ people?"—which is, at worst, a push.

The major change is that everyone else's favorite fad diet has made my
mandatory dietary restrictions _so_ much easier to manage.

I will say that prepared food is still very much a roll of the dice, as those
who maintain a gluten-free diet by choice tend not to care a whit about cross-
contamination. Hence most businesses catering to them often don't make it a
consideration.

There are exceptions though; I can walk into any In'n'Out and order my burger
"Protein style, allergy" and whoever makes it will change their gloves, cook
everything in an area away from where the buns are toasted, and spread
condiments with a clean knife. One of the many reasons why In'n'Out is not
merely one of the best fast food restaurants in the world, but simply one of
the best things in the world.

------
seandougall
> most industrial bakeries only allow bread to rise for a matter of
> minutes—not nearly long enough to let the yeast and bacteria digest all the
> gluten in the flour, let alone the extra dose in the additives

Nor will they ever. Fermentation is the digestion of carbohydrates. Gliadin
and glutenin are proteins.

ETA: That's not to say that autolyse and a slow rise won't improve flavor and
texture, which they certainly do.

~~~
rm999
I'm by no means an expert on this stuff, but what about this paper?
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1932817/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1932817/)

> In this work, we used a new mixture of selected sourdough lactobacilli and
> fungal proteases to eliminate the toxicity of wheat flour during long-time
> fermentation ... Albumins, globulins, and gliadins were completely
> hydrolyzed, while ca. 20% of glutenins persisted.

~~~
vonmoltke
Sourdough starter is a mix of yeast and lactic acid bacteria. Those bacteria
will, as a side effect of their activity, break down proteins. That study
looked at amplifying this action with additional proteases (which also break
down protein) to eliminate enough wheat proteins to make the dough non-toxic
to celiacs. Since it is driven by bacteria, this action is unique to sourdough
breads.

------
themartorana
Being gluten free (wife as well) I was unfortunately very frustrated by this
article. I was expecting some degree of information regarding how those of us
with gluten allergies might have some hope of eating real pizza again. All I
found was marketing for a wheat lab dabbling in cooking processes to make
better tasting bread. Maybe _lower_ in gluten, but there is zero mystery
solved here.

~~~
gregcrv
I agree there wasn't much information either... But Have you tried lower
gluten flour before ? perhaps from France or Italy ? I know people who are
gluten intolerant in the US but totally fine when they eat bread/pizza in
these countries.

------
memracom
9 years ago I went to Russia, and for the first time I had Russian white
bread. Wow! What a delicious bread! They follow the same basic recipe as the
French, flour, water and yeast, but they bake them in the traditional blocky
loaf shape with the curved top. In North America I won't touch white bread
unless it is genuine French or Italian baking. But even then it is not as
delicious as Russian bread. I remember thinking that if this is what they feed
people in the Gulag on bread and water, it isn't as bad as I imagined.

Kudos to these scientists and lets hope that they can grow a movement for
better wheat, grown for the people who eat it, not for agribusiness interests.

------
powertower
I've heard that the gluten content of what we eat has increased 500% over the
years (they add it to everything now).

Anyways, check out Spelt, the original bread -

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spelt](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spelt)

I don't do well with non-white breads because the bran and germ are kind of
hard on your digestive system with respect to producing an allergic reaction.

But I have not been able to find Spelt that's not whole-grain (it's white and
lite variety seems to be just a reduced bran/germ mixture).

But overall, they say Spelt is allot more soluble and digestible than wheat.

~~~
sp332
But I still don't understand this part of the article:

 _While people with celiac disease genuinely can 't process the gluten in
wheat, they argue, most people actually can... The result can lead to all
kinds of problems in our gut._

So, most people handle gluten just fine, but the article is still asserting
that it causes gut problems?

~~~
jerf
Celiacs can handle effectively zero gluten. Normal people can handle more than
zero, but perhaps not as much as goes into modern bread.

With that last sentence we're coming right up on the frontier of science
(perhaps surprisingly!), so it's hard to be definitive. But it's not
unreasonable to think that quantity matters; it fits the known facts, even if
it's not proved.

As an example of an alternate hypothesis still on the table, the possibility
of an external factor that causes a side effect of increased gluten
sensitivity is not something we can currently rule out either. One such
specific hypothesis I've read is the sudden and large move towards formula
feeding over breast milk in the 70s. And of course there's still one of the
Universe's favorite choices, "a little of all of the above".

~~~
ars
> but perhaps not as much as goes into modern bread.

People can handle food made from 100% gluten. See:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seitan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seitan)
(fried with some soy sauce it's really delicious).

~~~
jerf
Some set of people can handle 100% gluten. Since I am not in that set, it
clearly is not 100% of the people on Earth. We do not know the distribution of
the people in the middle; we have only begun to see that there is even a
question to ask. Science is probably going to need a decade or two to work out
the answer to that. (Alas, the studies can not be fast, as they must work at
human speeds.)

Further, we have also established that there is a non-empty set of people who
can't handle gluten, and often do not realize it for decades at a time.
(Again, I am in that set, so I know it exists. For various reasons this can be
a difficult reaction to work out, even when you have full-blast Celiac as I
do.) This is not making it any easier to work out the distribution. Some of
the people who think they can handle 100% gluten may in fact be having more of
a negative reaction than they realize.

~~~
ars
You implied that "Normal people" can not handle as much gluten as in bread.
And I showed you that not only can they handle the small amount in bread, they
can handle way more.

Now you are trying to back up behind "we don't really know", but actually it's
only a minority that have a problem with gluten.

The slow experiment has been done: We have been eating gluten for millennia,
and only a small number of people had a problem with it. Not eating gluten has
become a fad now.

~~~
jerf
No, I'm saying there is a continuum of reactions, and we have a poor picture
of it. Establishing that there is a non-zero population on one extreme doesn't
establish very much about the distribution.

You appear to be arguing something along the line of "A: Gluten-free diets
have become a fad B: I think that's silly C: Therefore gluten is safe." Yes,
I'm interpolating a bit, but it seems to be your general thrust. There's
substantial but non-determinative reasons to believe the picture may be much
more complicated than that, particularly the rising incidence of celiac
disease (which, as the article says, appears to be a real thing and not merely
better detection, which was my most-likely belief until I read this article).

We've been eating non-zero amounts of gluten for millenia, but a lot of things
have changed in the past few decades; how it is processed, what it is in, even
perhaps things like I mentioned in my previous post, such as a generation
raised on rather more baby formula than before. We have rather poor data, but
_something 's_ going on.

My position has not changed one whit in this conversation.

~~~
ars
> the rising incidence of celiac disease (which, as the article says, appears
> to be a real thing and not merely better detection, which was my most-likely
> belief until I read this article).

Autoimmune disorders in general are on the rise.

We aren't arguing all that much, except for your statement that gluten is a
problem for everyone, but some can handle more some less. I say gluten is
perfectly fine for most, and bad only for a small number.

Meaning there is no reason to try to reduce gluten in food or blame some
nebulous "processing". Or claim that there is more gluten in bread now. All
those things are just part of a fad.

If a person has a problem with gluten then they do. For everyone else it's a
non-issue.

------
rayiner
Gluten aside, the trend away from bread is a good thing. For most people, the
biggest problem with calorie control is eating enough to feel full. In terms
of satiation, bread had poor bang for your buck. Do an expertiment: put
together a 500 calorie meal at Chipotle with and without a bread component.
Maybe three soft tacos with meat, salsa, no cheese or sour cream, versus a
salad bowl with meat, cheese, salsa, and guacamole. For me, the former leaves
me snacky before dinner. The latter leaves me full, even uncomfortably so at
first, the whole afternoon.

------
WalterSear
No, but this baker can.

[http://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/gluten-
pani...](http://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/gluten-panic-
part-1-zbcz1401.aspx)

~~~
205guy
Awesome, I never thought I'd see a link to Mother Earth News on HN. I suppose
plenty of us are interested in DIY homesteading to various degrees, just that
the occasion to link so rarely appears.

What the original article barely touched on, and this one ignores, are the
industrial wheat varieties and chemical additives in industrial breads. It
seems like people have demonstrated that artificially inducing quick rising in
bread increases its gluten. The solution would seem to be to shame industrial
bread and encourage traditional bread.

So why is no one advocating/advertising heritage grain, no-additive, slow-rise
bread? I see a lot of "artisanal" breads in natural food stores, and some of
them taste great, but how are consumers supposed to know they're buying the
real deal.

~~~
WalterSear
"Wheat kernels have contained gliadins for as long as there has been wheat.
For example, two purportedly ancient wheat varieties, 'Kamut' and 'Graziella
Ra', have higher gliadin concentrations than modern wheats do, and other old-
time wheats are also high in gliadins. According to Graybosch, “It probably is
not speculation to say we could actually be consuming less gliadin than great-
grandpa did.” And per-capita wheat flour consumption back in 1900, long before
the rise in incidence of celiac disease, was 67 percent higher than today's
average consumption.)"

[http://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/great-
glute...](http://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/great-gluten-panic-
part-2-zbcz1402.aspx)

------
memracom
The bit about a Dutch Oven reminds me of the time that I baked a Black Forest
cake in one over a campfire in the mountains of British Columbia.

------
dangerboysteve
I've gone back to making my own Bread. It started off as a hobby and I really
got into artisan slow bread making.

And there is is Subway and it's chemical lased bread.
[http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/06/health/subway-bread-
chemical/](http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/06/health/subway-bread-chemical/)

~~~
stcredzero
Chemical laced perhaps? Baking bread with chemical lasers sounds cool, if
inefficient and potentially toxic.

------
kolev
The only gluten my family ingest is Einkorn and in very limited quantities.

------
speeder
I am not celiac, recently I tried to stop eating gluten (for several) reasons,
and when I end eating gluten, I feel like crap.

Or maybe I am a undiagnosed celiac, who knows.

------
joelandren
Allez les Cougs!

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFEh12Fm078](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFEh12Fm078)

