VEGAN KITCHEN – The Greatest thing since Sliced Bread !
There was once something so ful-filling , so spiritual in a fresh loaf of bread, the staple food basis of all civilizations since the raising of the pyramids, yet today as appetising as eating a roll of kleenex !
Bread is an unmitigated disaster in the UK these day’s, a tasteless grey misery, an ascetic’s dream and pitiful example of how far austerity had taken hold in abstinence from the normal pleasures of life, and sucking out all satisfaction all nourishment from the pantry.
What nightmare is this laid out before me in the local superstore ? Bread of every description, hundreds upon hundreds of loaves sitting like bricks on a wall of endless shelf life,. white bricks and brown bricks in the supermarket bakery showcase isle, all seemingly with one thing , apart from being bread, in common, they are all loaded with bulking agents and eternally product preserving chemical warfare not to forget to mention an ethics ecological disaster, unseen by the grey stony eyed shoppers who shuffle from white to brown checking prices, picking up putting down, picking up again….
putting down..
the endless, brainwashed consumer walking dead,. bricks of tasteless cardboard…to satisfy grey unthinking unfeeling palettes….
We found EVERY bread except the “Polish Bakery” (http://www.thepolishbakery.co.uk/bread-and-rolls/) breads had the usual bad boy “Palm Oil” packed in them. Yes, Palm Oil in varying types, (so called) sustainable, non sustainable, palm fats, endless palm derived rehashes and along with those, a supporting cast in the horrific theatre of the bland, a ghastly selection of additives, such as calcium propionate, amylase, chlorine dioxide, fats, bleach and L-cysteine hydrochloride are all now crammed packed into our daily bread.
Whats the problem with Palm Oil ? check the link…https://www.fishinaboxrecords.com/palm-oil-how-can-a-product-that-harms-animals-be-called-vegan/)
Polish Bakery, though blessingly Palm Oil free, do still use Mono- and Diglycerides of Fatty Acids, pretty standard these days though we are dubious of as the origin of added Mono- and Diglycerides of Fatty Acids E471 as it still is not 100% clear and so it doesn’t meet our vegan standard for the day, we are going back to baking basics …
Monoglycerides and diglycerides are both naturally present in various seed oils, however their concentration is usually low. In industrial production it blows the low levels out of the window by a chemical reaction between the fats and oils and glycerol. (Lud turns in his grave !) Whether the original oils are animal or vegetable is often hard to decipher. Basically it just ain’t going to be guaranteed to be vegan without constant fixed supply confirmed as vegetable based (non palm) from the manufacturer, and that is not something that is jumping out on the reviews website or ingredients lists out there..
The switch in turning bread into a food processing nightmare started to happen in the 1960’s and the additives have been growing since in number and health risk, lighter yet tasteless long lasting breads, all come at a price, and that price is your health.
What’s in your average supermarket loaf ?
FAT
Keeps it standing up and looking like “bread” when its a long way towards the sell buy date.
FLOUR TREATMENT AGENT
L-ascorbic acid (E300) makes a loaf look bigger than it actually is by retaining gas in the dough !
BLEACH
Chlorine dioxide gas, your white flour just got “whiter” !
REDUCING AGENT
L-cysteine hydrochloride (E920), comes from animal hair and feathers, that’s not vegan but bread should be !
SOYA FLOUR
Well that sounds better right ? soya flour basically helps the production process allowing more water to be added and retained in the dough and as such increasing the size of the bread above expectations. sounds like a consumer scam ?
EMULSIFIERS
lets the dough to hold more gas and therefore grow bigger and make the crumb softer, everyone needs more gas right ?
PRESERVATIVES
Calcium propionate makes bread look ok when left on the shelf for sale for ever basically
Find out more about the commercial Bread scam:
What should be in a loaf of bread ?
Well your basics are: Flour, yeast, water and salt. If you want something more “artisan”, then add seeds ,pesto (vegan version), sun dried tomatoes etc to get a real rustic loaf in any healthy combination that takes your fancy. Shelf life is not a problem with any of these home baked breads we made as they did’nt last 15 minutes after baking.
We took a walk out the supermarket door with a pack of organic wholemeal bread flour yeast and some healthy goodies to bake with and left the commercial palm oil stocked loaves on the shelf.
Whats in our Strong organic bread Flour ? Wheat Flour (Wheat Flour, Calcium Carbonate, Iron, Niacin, Thiamin). That’s about as clean as you are going to get for baking so we are going with that.
A history of AWFUL Bread: http://www.theoldfoodie.com/2011/03/sawdust-bread.html
GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD….Let us turn our backs on darkness and let’s get baking
500g as a rough guide of organic strong bread flour . We tend to mix any quantity and go by the consistency of the dough for baking, but you can use 500g as a guide.then add your oil, we used flavoured oil that had been soaking in Sun dried tomatoes, or Jerusalem artichokes, chilli’s or peppers, anyone will do that add flavour, 4 table spooks on a 500g should do it and throw in a handful of seeds. We used pumpkin seeds.
To make a began dream bread, add b12 and flavour again we use engevita b12 flakes,. then add the sundried tomates and a FULL 10g pack of yeast. Most bread recipes say add 7g but you are baking without all the treatment agents and emulsifiers so add the full 10g yeast pack.
Mix in water and turn until consistency is sticky, on a 500g that’s about a cup full of water, you can also replace water with aquafaba which gives it more lift again but it’s not necessary. salt, pepper and Tumeric.
Why Tumeric ?
It has powerful anti-inflammatory effects and is strong antioxidant, all good stuff, nice and natural too, throw it into the mix. mix it up and drop it in the bread maker on a large wholemeal loaf setting. If you want you can roll it out , add patterns , cut to shape and bake it in the oven (its a 4 hour bake !!) but as far as we are concerned, jobs done so get it in the bread maker and clean up.
While you are waiting for the Bread to Bake. Here are some great quotes on Bread to keep you busy
“The smell of good bread baking, like the sound of lightly flowing water, is indescribable in its evocation of innocence and delight… ― Mary Francis Kennedy Fisher
“All sorrows are less with bread. ” ― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
“How can a nation be called great if its bread tastes like kleenex?” ― Julia Child
“There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.” ― Mahatma Gandhi
“The need of the immaterial is the most deeply rooted of all needs. One must have bread; but before bread, one must have the ideal.” ― Victor Hugo
“The Lion and the Unicorn were fighting for the crown: The Lion beat the Unicorn all around the town.
Some gave them white bread, some gave them brown: Some gave them plum-cake and drummed them out of town.” ― Lewis Carroll
Ecclesiastes 9:7
NOTE:
We will skip the “wine”in the bible quote and expansion below and focus on the bread only as “wine” these days is mostly filtered using fish guts (gross !) and fails to meet the vegan standard.
#Giveusthisdayourdailybread
So there we have it,. enjoy baking people,. don’t accept the lowest common denominator in what you eat,. strive for something more !
Leave the ranks of the Walking Dead and get VEGAN baking now !
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