Bread Day: When will blipsmell start?

I don't really feel like talking about my day today. Very uneventful. Rather, I'll talk about bread and why it's important to most of us.

On the Guardian website today, I read a really interesting blog by Deborah Meadon, of Dragon's Den fame, whose opinions I thought I'd be diametrically opposed to especially when it comes to food production. I was surprised. She was talking about the declining dairy trade in the UK, with small farmers going out of business or changing to huge industrial super farm methods. She surprisingly argued that this wasn't a good or sustainable economic model, it wasn't always more profitable and that there should be a place for small producers. Less healthy animals don't live as long, they need more medical care and economy of scale doesn't necessarily mean higher profit margins.

Maybe the same is true of bread, one of the most important foods known to man. It's a mix of wheat and water in its most simple form. tastier with a wee bit of salt and I'm too lazy to make the unleavened stuff so I use yeast, fresh if available. I love baking bread and have done so since uni; I lived on a farm miles away from shops, I didn't have a car and it was easier to store flour in bulk than hog the freezer with full loafs. It?s a really social food, everyone smiles with the smell and its very bonding to break bread as a group (Jesus et al. 0022).

So to the economic model again, companies like Monsanto produces the grain which will not seed from year to year, super-farms without hedgerows, animals etc are used to grow the grain, it is milled/processed industrially to within a micromillimeter of its life removing most nutrients, then with the addition of excess yeast, salt, raising agents, flour "improvers" and water it is further processed using the Chorleywood method resulting in what most of us think about as bread. This sponguey goo is hard for our gut to digest, it is full of salt and is pretty tasteless (I must admit, I don?t mind it for a cheese toasty or French toast though).

There is a growing body of evidence to suggest that these industrial methods have given rise (get it?) to digestive illness, such as gluten intolerance and coeliac disease and the chief beneficiaries are shareholders rather than real people. Think about the benefits of using traditional types of wheat, salt and water, local growers, millers, bakers and small shops? We get better tasting, healthier bread, more benefits to the environment and more people with a sustainable livelihood. Baking bread at home is great too, it's cheap, doesn't take long, apart from the proving time, the house smells amazing and kids can learn biochemistry by making it. I'm not an economist, but my guess is that by rejecting industrial baking methods, more individuals will benefit, health services will save money, the environment is less damaged, its educational and faceless corporations lose their market share! Win Win!

So to my bread today. I don't use a recipe, mainly because my scales have broken but also because I find feel and texture are far more reliable than measurement. Most non-industrial organic flours have different water absorption rates anyway so proportions are unreliable. I tend to add the flour to yeasted water until I get it to just the right consistency. Quite a bit stickier than most recipe books suggest as I think this results in a better crust and softer crumb.

This loaf was made using organic biodynamic stroneground granarius flour, from English wheat. The miller Organic Mill in Cumbria is one of a few to use a waterwheel, thus being very environmentally friendly. Yeah, it's about 3 times the price of a bag of Allisons, but it still works out at £1.20 a loaf. A small business benefits, nothing travelled very far, I bought it in the Unicorn Co-op so the staff there benefit and it tastes awesome. Go on....bake a loaf today!

Ps: The Andrew Whitley book is my bible!