12 Steps to Whole Foods

Replacing White Flour with Whole Grains
The ancient methods of using wild yeast were vastly superior, because modern quick-rising yeasts do not all
die in the short, lower-temperature baking process. Therefore, yeast can continue to proliferate in the gut,
giving rise to proliferation of yeasts, molds, and fungus. Even worse are the mycotoxins, the waste products of
yeast, molds, and fungi. Of particular concern is Candida albicans, a yeast overgrowth in the hundreds of feet
of digestive tract and the blood, in about 95% of Americans according to most estimates.
Yeast thrives in warm conditions and explodes with growth when sugar is added. Thus the “perfect storm” for
health problems is created with the modern diet of commercial yeasts in every bakery product and sugar in
most of our foods. Along with a yeasty environment, harmful bacteria also thrive, and these organisms create
acidic waste products that flood the bloodstream and overwhelm the capacity of white blood cells.
I have asked several natural health-care practitioners and nutrition experts what they think the worst nutritional
threat is to the public health. White sugar and flour? Excessive meat eating and processed meat full of
carcinogens? Trans fats and refined oils? Or something else? Knowledgeable practitioners tell me that yeast
overgrowth is the most significant, most destructive part of the modern diet, because along with sugar and acid
conditions and chemicals, it’s exceedingly hard to heal health problems with yeast overgrowth in the body.
Yeast is very possibly the most destructive problem in the modern diet, contributing to the explosion in
autoimmune diseases, infectious disease, and allergies.
And yeast very well may be the least known problem among the general population, even among those who are
health conscious. Many people I know who try to eat fruits, vegetables, and whole grains and limit fast food
and junk food have no idea how destructive yeast is and have, in fact, never heard about the history of bread
making and yeast as I have described in this chapter. For those who want more information and scientific
background and evidence behind these very important nutritional issues, I recommend Dr. Gabriel Cousins’
Rainbow Green Live-Food Cuisine and Dr. Robert O. Young’s Sick and Tired and The pH Miracle.
In this chapter, you will learn to make sourdough bread with whole grains. When added to whole-grain flour,
sourdough starter begins to ferment the grains and predigest their proteins, in much the same way that we
learned about dairy products and vegetables benefiting from culturing in the last chapter. Thus sourdough
bread is much easier on your digestive system than commercial-yeast breads, especially if you have difficulty
digesting the gluten protein. Further, breads made from sourdough are lower on the glycemic scale, their sugars
being absorbed more slowly into your blood stream.
What you will need, then, is some high-quality sourdough start. All are not created equal, because when you
import Norwegian sourdough starter to the U.S., for instance, the start picks up yeast spores from the air and
eventually becomes identical to a U.S. product. If a company is making a sourdough starter in a building with
commercial yeast, that commercial yeast will eventually populate the sourdough starter. These are all
frustrating issues in purchasing a start.
When I first published this manual, I went through a series of providers of good sourdough starter for wholegrain
breads. They are not easy to find. Because those providers became obsolete, we now maintain a page
called Sourdough Start on GreenSmoothieGirl.com, under the Robyn Recommends tab. Please go there for upto-date
information on where you can obtain a starter.
The sourdough starter is a fermented grain product, and when you feed it, it will keep in the fridge indefinitely.
However, you should keep it fresh by “feeding” it with equal parts water and flour at least once a week. When
you make bread, never use all of your sourdough start. Whenever you use some of it, “feed” it by adding 1 C of
flour and 1 C of pure water, stirring well and letting it sit on the counter until the mixture is bubbly. Then return
it to the fridge. You may do this every day, or every few days, to build up your supply of starter for your next
252 12 Steps to Whole Foods
© Copyright Robyn Openshaw