What is the difference between regular bread and sourdough bread?
You may have known sourdough bread mainly from vacations to Germany. But nowadays the solid, somewhat sour-tasting bread is also on the rise in the Netherlands. What exactly is it, why is it so popular and is it healthy? 7 questions and answers about sourdough bread.
Why is sourdough bread so popular?
Recently, websites and in newspapers and magazines have often been talking about baking sourdough bread yourself. You also see it more and more in supermarkets and at the bakery. All this attention has a number of reasons. In the first place, many people have time to spare during this period of staying at home. Time they want to spend on a new hobby. For example, baking sourdough bread. In addition, sourdough bread has a super healthy image. If only because it was previously mainly for sale in health food stores.
What is the difference between regular bread and sourdough bread?
The ingredients of most breads are: flour or flour, water, yeast and salt. But instead of yeast you can also use another leavening agent: sourdough. Desem is nothing but a batter of flour and water, which you let rest for a few days at room temperature. The paste ferments and it bubbles and increases in size. This is because lactic acid bacteria, acetic acid bacteria and yeasts are formed in the fermented paste. We call this bubbling porridge the sourdough or starter. With this leaven you can make a bread dough together with flour or flour, water and salt. We call the bread you bake from it sourdough bread. Besides the leavening agent, there is another big difference between yeast bread and sourdough bread: the rising time of the dough. A yeast bread usually rises for one to several hours. A sourdough bread often takes more than 24 hours. Finally, the sourdough bread is more compact than regular bread and has a robust crust and a full, somewhat sour taste. And another nice side effect, the sourdough bread has a longer shelf life.
Is sourdough bread healthier than regular bread?
The main component of bread is a ground grain: flour or flour. The type of grain determines how healthy your bread is much more than whether it is yeast or sourdough bread. For example, bread made from whole wheat flour (the whole grain) is healthier than bread made from white flour. Wholemeal bread contains more fiber and more vitamins and minerals than white bread. In that respect, there is no difference between yeast bread and sourdough bread. The amount of carbohydrates and calories is also very similar. Sourdough bread is made through fermentation. And fermented products are known to make a positive contribution to the microbiome (all bacteria) in your gut. But so do the fibers from whole-wheat bread. Sourdough bread is not necessarily healthier.
What about phytic acid in sourdough bread?
Phytic acid is found in all types of whole wheat bread. It inhibits the absorption of calcium, iron and zinc in particular. Some of the phytic acid in whole wheat flour is broken down by yeast and sourdough as the bread rises. The longer the rising time, the more is broken down. And there is an advantage of sourdough bread. The sourdough bread has a much longer rising time, so more phytic acid has been broken down. There are also indications that other vitamins and minerals are more readily available from sourdough bread. But this seems to depend very much on the precise bacterial composition in the leaven used. And because sourdough is not a standard product, little really good research has been done on it.
Is sourdough bread more digestible?
There are people who get intestinal complaints from regular bread, but not from sourdough bread. The exact cause of this has not yet been thoroughly investigated. The longer rising time may also play a role here. There are also indications that certain sourdoughs can partially break down gluten, which could explain fewer complaints in people with a gluten intolerance. More research is needed to really say anything about this. So it’s a matter of trying if you get complaints after eating regular bread.
Where can you buy a sourdough to bake your own sourdough bread?
That’s difficult. It’s not an ingredient you’ll easily find in the supermarket. In Germany, however, sachets of sourdough are for sale. One option is to get a portion of a starter from someone. If you search on Facebook or Marktplaats, there are countless people who offer a sourdough starter. Another option is to make your own starter. You use part of it for a loaf of bread, while you ‘feed’ the other part again so that you get enough starter again to take part of it for the next loaf. Once you have a working starter, you can sometimes use it for years. With this you can bake delicious bread daily or weekly and there are more and more sourdough baking books for all kinds of variations on sourdough bread.
Is sourdough bread actually something new?
No absolutely not. The story goes that it was discovered by the Egyptians about 3000-2000 BC. They used to bake flat bread from ground grains with water. Apparently they forgot to use up some leftover batter. That remained, and the bacteria and yeasts developed in it. By using up the leftovers, a miracle probably happened before their eyes: the bread rose and got a completely different taste and structure. For a very long time, sourdough was the only way to make a leavened bread. Until one could isolate the yeasts and add them separately to bread. The bread rose more and faster as a result.
