Tag Archives: bread

Bread – what’s left unsaid

Posted on January 8, 2011 | 13 comments

Look, if you are not in the mood for cooking (a state I know) then make sure basics, such as bread, are doing you good.

Bread gets messed-around with. This sticky label, from the 2009 Real Food Festival, lists ingredients that might be found on bread – but are never listed.

The label said:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“!!!WARNING!!!

This ‘bread’ may be made using the following:

Amylase, hemicellulase, phospholipase, peptidase, xylanase, protease, oxidase and other enzymes, some of animal or GM origin.

The law says bakers don’t need to declare them.

DISCLAIMER

These stickers are only for use in your own home. The Real Bread Campaign, Sustain and The Real Food Festival take no responsibility for any consequences, legal or otherwise, of you using them elsewhere such as wrappers of factory bread, supermarket shelves or advertising posters.”

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As Michael Pollan says: if they are more than five ingredients on a label, avoid.

The long list of enzymes above are “processing aids”. In other words they are used to make the bread rise faster, look nicer, last longer.

But because these processing aids are not classified as food ingredients then – by law – they do not need to be listed on the label.

Whaaat? You eat them but they are not food ingredients?

It reminds me of adulterated food sold to the Victorian poor…

My real bread came from the Better Food Company in St Werburgh’s, Bristol where I also got marmalade made by their chef (as good as homemade…hey, it’s January, time for marmalade-making again) and organic butter from Nature’s Genius in Fishponds, Bristol.

Yes, the bread cost more than supermarket bread but I got more food for my cash. My grandmother would say money spent on un-nutritious food is money wasted. And I agree. Do you?

13 Comments

Posted in food, health, organic, producers, rant, sustainable, vegetarian

Tagged Amylase, bread, Bristol, enzymes, hemicellulase, is bread healthy?, Nature's genius, not on the label, oxidase, peptidase, phospholipase, protease, Real Bread Campaign, Real food festival, Sustain, what chemicals in bread?, xylanase

Judges Bakery – real bread

Posted on April 28, 2008 | 6 comments

Judges bread stall

I had a glamorous moment at the Real food festival when I bought bread at the same time as Trudi Styler. She has an organic farm and had just taken part in the festival panel with Zac Goldsmith, of the Ecologist, who also chanced by.

So there I was checking out Craig’s organic bread at Judges stall and suddenly I was surrounded by celebrities.

I’ll do the goss then get on to the bread.

Judges is owned by Craig Sams and Josephine Fairley. Their relationship gave birth to Green & Black’s chocolate – it’s a great story, soon published.

Before marrying Josephine (a top editor), Craig made healthy eating accessible. You could buy wholefood peanut butter in the supermarket in the 1980s thanks to his company, Whole Earth.

My gratitude goes back to 1968. I was a teenage Londoner who went to Seed, Craig and his brother‘s macrobiotic restaurant in a Paddington basement.

Later, (and living communally) I could buy brown rice from their organic and wholefood shop, Ceres, in Notting Hill Gate.

Later again (now with a child in 1978), I would buy the most delicious health-giving bread ever from the Sams’ bakery.

That brings me to the present. The Sams’ bread today is just as bread should be. Real, substantial, and tempting.

No wonder it has flavour and texture. Judges’ organic loaves rise slowly overnight before being baked.

(Most commercial bread is whipped into a frenzy with air and additives).

Slow dough breads are easier on the digestion too. During the slow rising, enzymes have a chance to start breaking the bread down.

The pic below is of two Judges’ loaves from the Real food festival at my friend’s breakfast table.

It reminds me how at home I felt there. (We go back to the 1970s too.)

6 Comments

Posted in food, producers

Tagged bread, Judges, sourdough

Real bread

Posted on February 7, 2008 | 5 comments

Spelt bread stall

I live in several places at the moment and today it’s Bristol’s turn. Hello city, I say, saluting its stone buildings, built to impress. I am at its medieval trading centre and, time travellers, Corn Street is still buzzing centuries later.

Every Wednesday, Bristol’s farmers’ market takes over the historic street and here’s the glorious thing: its stalls are bursting with real food bounty.

I buy fresh halibut from David Felce, the fishmonger (see mini pic below). I won’t talk about fish right now. (Except to say I pan fried the halibut gently for five minutes in olive oil. I usually use butter so that was an experiment. Served it with purple sprouting broccoli. Yup, it was good, she says smacking her lips after dinner. Simple and seasonal.)

The god of convenience has blessed me. My local Bristol farmers’ market also hosts the best bread in the world.

The Common Loaf Bakery uses spelt and rye, flours that have not been hybridised out of their natural existence like wheat has.

I bought a four-seeded (sesame, linseed, sunflower and poppy) spelt loaf and a spelt fruit bread laden with figs, prunes and raisins soaked in sherry, plus hazelnuts, dates, cloves and nutmeg. Not to mention the Celtic sea salt.

Hand crafted artisan bread. It doesn’t get more real than that. (I love those Christians with Hebrew names who make the bread, and keep the price down by living as one family. Respect.)

While in Pie Minister, Bristol’s pie shop, I pick up a copy of Fork.

Promising “no celebrity chefs,” its strap line says: the real food magazine.

Sounds just down my street…