One of my all-time favorite foods is bread, but like many of our favorite foods, not always the best for us when it comes to our health – especially what’s available as our options today. As most of us know, most all bread is a processed food-like product, it’s not real food (we don’t find slices of bread hanging from plants or trees, right?). It’s man-made. And our man-made options for a quality bread today are few and far between. When I do have it, its always on my reward day (I’ll always have bread in my Italian DNA for the occasional indulgence) where my body can handle the nutritional stress processed bread provides; as most bread we find in the grocery store today uses highly refined flour, is heated and nearly, if not totally, void of vitamins, minerals & enzymes – or dead food.
In fact, do you know why we see on many brand name grain/bread packaging (as well as milk) the words “Good Source of”, “Fortified” and “Enriched”? Usually with Calcium, Vitamin A, D, E, etc. attached to it…
Nutshell: It’s because these critical vitamins & minerals for healthy body/cell function are destroyed during the refining process (even though these phrases on packaging may look like something “extra special” for the food, triggering us to buy [clever deceptive Big Food], they’re not, it’s because it’s dead). They figured this out in World War II when over 50% of the soldiers enlisting for the war did not pass a physical for health. The government was stumped and wondering why so many people could be so malnourished and in poor health. Besides poor soil quality from conventional farming practices soil scientists realized and pleaded with congress about in 1936, the malnutrition was traced back to the early 1900’s when processing of food (including pasteurization) became prominent pre-World War I. Processing and canning of foods was a solution THEN for the war so we could ship foods in mass quantity across seas. WWI was our first major war where we sent millions and millions of troops across seas, whereas before that, major wars were fought on the homeland where we lived and our food supply was more readily available for soldiers. Processing and canning of food THEN was a solution for foods not spoiling and lasting longer periods of time so they can be shipped across the world – it was a solution to feed millions of soldiers. Yet they didn’t realize and figure out until the 40’s that the processing of the food decades earlier destroyed much of the nutrition in it, literally giving us soldiers that were so malnourished, they were turned away from enlisting in World War II.
As a result since the 1940’s, foods began to be “fortified” and “enriched” with cheap synthetic (not from nature) lab-made vitamins and minerals, and they still are even to this day. Why? Because the food is enzyme, vitamin & mineral nutrient-dead. You’re eating dead food… and what do we get when we chronically eat dead, processed food? We get chronically ill, diseased & eventually, dead people. You are what you eat.
Grain, and the bread made with it, back in ancient times used to be stone-ground (actual big ol’ stones), much of it sprouted, and some varieties were even made through a fermentation process (sourdough for example). Bread was minimally processed and it actually had some healthy qualities to it (in terms of nutrition still being intact) that many of our ancestors in different parts of the world relied on as a nutrient source. The highly refined grain bread we mostly find on grocery store shelves today is nothing like it; especially the non-organic stuff from poorly grown, nutrient-depleted grain (from nutrient-depleted soil). It’s what I call C.R.A.P. – Chemically Raised/Grown Agriculture Product… it’s a food-like product disguised as food and designed as a food industry for-profit staple… not for-health.
But what if we could make a raw, 100% real food bread with it’s enzymes and nutrients intact?
A raw bread we could use for one of those All-American meals: the sandwich?
A raw bread that doesn’t fall apart and slices great? (my goal for this recipe!)
A raw bread that is recipe-friendly:
- paleo*
- vegetarian & vegan
- gluten-free
- dairy-free
- egg-free
- ReBoot Protocol (week 2+)
and made with real food ingredients?
Is it possible while still tasting good?!
I give you the latest NYCT real food remix recipe for homemade raw “low-baked” bread…and probably one of my favorite real food remix recipes on this blog to date.
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