One Degree – for me it’s two, but that’s pretty good

Yesterday my Vegan Pledge group went on a field trip to Whole Foods.  I usually shop at the Whole Foods in Durham, but the planners for the Vegan Pledge had us meet in Chapel Hill.  We toured through the store and learned about different products and got shopping tips. When we hit the baking isle, I was ecstatic to see One Degree sprouted flours.  When I say ecstatic, I yelped like a kid in a candy store and immediately grabbed a bag of Sprouted Whole Wheat Flour.

I was so excited to find this flour, I looked for it at Whole Foods in Durham at a food coop and was thinking I would have to order it on-line. Honestly, I think the people in the store thought I needed some medical intervention.

I was even more excited when I learned that One Degree has an idea I love and I didn’t know anyone was doing.  I think I love the idea since I wrote about it recently. If you notice in the picture there is a QR code.  I almost jumped up and down like someone on the Price is Right when I scanned the code.  The clouds cleared, a bright beam of light shone down upon me, and harp music played in the background as I looked on my iPhone to see information about where the wheat in this bag was grown!  Imagine that – technology really helping us know how many degrees separate us from the food we eat!  So this wheat came from Alberta, Canada, whoops – that is why I say two degrees.  That is a long way from me in North Carolina.

But, the good news is it made wonderful bread.  I’m thinking about a piece now as an after dinner snack.  If you don’t know about it, sprouted grains and flours are healthier, contain more protein, and have lower carbohydrates. The bread is a little chewier than typical American sandwich bread, but it’s so yummy!  The bread rose freakishly and sort of looks like an alien life form (see below) but it is tasty and filling.  Here’s a picture:

Now, while this bread is kind of ugly, I do want to say one more thing about bread.  As readers know, I bake my own bread.  But I’ve had a problem, the loaves were lopsided.  It turns out the oven wasn’t level.  After leveling the oven, my loaves looked better:

 

…hunger for bread.

This week I am taking a slight departure, though not entirely.  I was out of town over the weekend and had a busy week last week, so I never made it to the market.  But I realized that baking bread deserves a post.  Here’s today’s loaf:

So first, let me give credit.  The recipe comes from a great website: http://whiteonricecouple.com/recipes/wheat-oatmeal-sandwich-bread/.  I modified and skipped the molasses and substituted honey. While Molasses works great in whole wheat bread, I wanted more control over the source of sweetener in the bread.  But, otherwise the recipe is great, easy to follow, and has helpful tips for first time bread makers.  Everyone should try it, baking bread is not as hard as you might think.

Why does this relate to this site?  Let me review the ingredients:

• 1 c (240ml) Water – I don’t count this in the locally sourced items.
• 1 c (240ml) Milk – Local milk is readily available here; I use milk from a local dairy.
• 1 pkg (1 T or 10g) Active Dry Yeast – hmm this deserves more thinking
• 3 T (20g) Honey – Local honey is most places; I have honey from Durham.
• 2 1/2 c (350g) Whole Wheat Flour – Another point deserving more discussion.
• 2 c (300g) Bread Flour – Again, more to talk about
• 1 c (120g) Rolled Oats – Yet more to talk about
• 4 T (60g) unsalted Butter, melted and cooled slightly Butter should be available, haven’t seen it
• 1 T (15g) Sea Salt –  I don’t count this in the locally sourced items.

Starting with the yeast, my first question is whether yeast is cultured locally.  I don’t know of anywhere or anyway to get local yeast.  I think yeast is interesting.  The most relevant point here is that yeast is somewhat emblematic of how we distance ourselves from food. When I learned to bake bread, we used live cakes of yeast.  Now I don’t think that I could find live yeast in any local store.  All the yeast I can find is Active Dry Yeast. This kind of yeast has to be brought back to life through re-hydration.   So not only is the yeast removed and distant, it has been dried to suspend its activity until we use it.

Flours are interesting for a different reason.  At one time in this country, even not far from my home, there were active mills grinding grains into flour.  In fact, there is a mill that still does occasionally grind flour not far from my home.  But in general, operating mills are rare and offering a very limited selection of milled grains.  Admittedly, this loaf used good old King Arthur Flour.  But, I do know that I can get locally grown and milled whole wheat flour.  However, I am lucky that I have that option.  I could make the same argument about oats.  The bigger question there is why are grains grown in fewer and fewer places?

While I have been focused some on the ingredients, why worry about bread?  There are a couple of answers.  First, bread is a staple in most of our lives.  I’ll toast a piece for breakfast and might make a peanut butter sandwich for lunch.  The real point though is that baking bread is not that hard and I can control what is in the bread.  Just to make this clear, check out this list of ingredients from a really healthy version of store bought whole wheat bread:

WHOLE WHEAT FLOUR, WATER, SUGAR, WHEAT GLUTEN, YEAST, RAISIN JUICE CONCENTRATE, WHEAT BRAN, MOLASSES, SOYBEAN OIL, SALT, MONOGLYCERIDES, CALCIUM PROPIONATE (PRESERVATIVE), CALCIUM SULFATE, DATEM, GRAIN VINEGAR, CITRIC ACID, SOY LECITHIN, WHEY, NONFAT MILK

There sure are a lot of things in this bread that I am not confident I would choose to eat.

As a final word,

The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.
Mother Teresa

Read more at brainyquote 

If the hunger for bread is not so difficult to remove, lets all work on making that happen. That way we can work on the more difficult, but more important problem.