I found this post on another raw forum, and I found JR's search for a raw version of bread quite illuminating and educational. You might enjoy this article.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Rawtimes Bread - The latest greatest failure
by JR Ellis of Rawtimes

Raw dehydrated sprouted leavened bread. I made hundreds of batches and
spent years on it. Yep, I give up. I did learn a lot, most of which I
should already have known, but I don't think I will try again. I no
longer want to make bread. Now that I understand exactly what bread
is, I don't even want to eat it anymore.

Yes, I have given up on bread. Severen Schaeffer said it best, the
question is not can man live by bread alone, but can man live by bread
at all. I really understand what he meant. Sure we all know that
elmers glue is made from milk proteins, but I didn't remember that
paper mache is made from flour. For my last failure, I have a real
understanding on a macro and micro level as to what happens during
sprouting the wheat, what happens when bread rises, what happens when
bread is cooked, how we digest it and how we eliminate it, and how it
compromises the quality and length of our lives. Yes, I am an expert
on bread.

Around fifteen years ago, I became a vegetarian, and then a year later
learned about raw food. I read all the books, and aspired to buy all
the gadgets. I was disappointed in my dehydrated grain attempts; they
were as cement. I accepted the fact that grains and nuts should be
sprouted for some vague arguments like: enzyme inhibitors had to be
discarded or neutralized, and that there was some intangible life
force in the food that should serve as the most valuable component of
food. But I didn't really know it. I didn't understand it. I just
repeated what the grass roots books said. Now I know better.

My background in chemistry: namely university studies, private lab
work, and independent reading; have fueled my confidence in the
following assessments [culled from my personal experiences]. When
wheat is sprouted, the gluten (80% of the wheat protein) is broken
down into smaller proteins and amino acids. Gluten is a huge molecule
consisting of thousands of amino acids. It is the storage of amino
acids for the newly maturing plant. As in the yolk of an egg or the
milk of a mother; gluten serves as a dense reserve for the protein
needed to build the new life. When activated by water and temperature:
the seed starts to break down the gluten into simpler proteins, and
the starch into sugars, [to feed the growing baby plant.] If you eat
the seed in its dry dormant stage, you will eat gluten and starch. If
you eat the fruit, you get amino acids and sugar. But if you eat the
seed, you are burdened with having to digest it before you digest it.
Most people are cooked food eaters and don't have the energy to
completely process it. So it both accumulates in, and tires the body.
This condition, if left unchecked and permitted to continue on a daily
basis, guarantees a tired life and a cancerous death. The energy
required to process this, renders people stupid; stupid enough to be
able to fool themselves into lying about the most basic universal truths.

Anyway, back to wheat. The gluten in the bread, these huge molecules,
have fascinating stereochemistry. They coil and expand as you knead
the dough. They set up tertiary bonding within and with other gluten
molecules, forming a net. The net becomes so dense, in a glue-like
way, as to be able to trap the escaping carbon dioxide that the yeast
produces as a byproduct of anaerobic respiration. It seems that the
yeast feeds on the sugar in the starch, and this activity makes the
bread rise. However, when you sprout the bread, the gluten decomposes,
and the dough made from this flour [made from dehydrated sprouted
wheat] will not rise. Bread is a miracle of gluten. Like popcorn,
cotton candy, cheese, and soufflé; bread is a fascinating production
of human science. There is nothing like gluten for making this fluffy
phenomenon. I had many ideas for starting out with sprouted wheat
flour, and trying to reproduce this quirk of nature. There were other
glues and adhesive binders that I added, including just adding some
gluten. It's easy to isolate the gluten. You make dough and run water
though it. Everything else is water soluble and washes away, and then
you are left with the pure gluten. So I added gluten. I worked with
gluten for a while before I started to hate bread. The gluten is very
hard to clean, it dries like cement, and it is sort of disgusting to
think of eating it.

As I started to get close to making bread, I realized that I didn't
want to eat it. I tried many different ideas for other additives and
combinations and low temperature cooking too. I felt I could at least
make healthier bread, but then I decided that I don't want to. Eating
bread is really gross, especially the standard types. The huge
molecules of gluten must be processed when you eat it. The first thing
you have to do is break up the gluten. In order to do that, you must
dissolve it in solution. But due to its macro glue-like nature, it
requires emulsifiers. To understand emulsifiers think of oil and
water. Put them together in a glass and they separate into layers.
They don't mix. Everyone knows that. You can shake it up so it becomes
homogenous, but it quickly separates again into two layers. Like
vinegar and oil, you can add an egg yolk and shake it up, so that it
will retain the mixture much longer. An emulsifier is a large molecule
that has one end that dissolves in water, and one end that dissolves
in oil. The two emulsifiers that come to mind for bread would be bile
and mucous. Bile is injected into the intestines to keep the gluten in
solution so that it can be broken down, but because of the lack of
predigestion in the first phase of the stomach (due to baking the
bread and killing the enzymes), and also due to the unnaturally
tremendous amount of concentrated gluten, it is very incomplete. The
gluten is absorbed into the body in a similar way to large fats and
cholesterol, rather than simple osmosis or diffusion. Then the body
must continue to break down the gluten by continuing to digest it in
the blood and cell deposit reserves. The white blood cells must now
use their enzymes to finish eating the bread instead of properly
controlling the flora and fauna of the body. Mucous is the emulsifier
of choice, which is why so many people call foods like bread and milk
very mucous producing. By continuing to overload the system everyday,
nonstop, the body never seems to be able to process it all in a timely
manner, leaving garbage all throughout the body. In time, these
pockets become bigger, and are sectioned off, and eventually form
lumps and bumps and eventually cancer. Cancer is not a disease; cancer
is the mechanism of postponing the processing of poisons. If it
weren't for the tumors, the animal would be dead much sooner. It is
only after it becomes too late, and people are ready to die that they
look for a false cure.

I have had some experience with being able to judge the differences
with sprouted and unsprouted grains, mostly with flax seeds. I have
made hundreds of batches of flax seed crackers, and tried different
sprouting times. When I am clear and honest, I can feel when the flax
is not sprouted enough. It makes me feel a little nausea. Cooked food
eaters are always nauseous; they are just used to it. They don't
notice it; like the smell of smog, the din of motors, the coldness of
strangers, the torpidity of thought, the damaged ego, and repression
of sex.

In conclusion, if you want a recipe for wheat, I recommend culva. You
sprout wheat berries, and mix them with walnuts, honey and cinnamon.
My grandmother taught me that with boiled wheat, but it works great
with sprouted too. As far as bread goes, don't look at me.

jrellis, firepriest



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/13/2008 08:56PM by Bryan.

Very interesting and informative, thanks a lot!.

Yeah, great post! This certainly rings true for me -- I cannot eat wheat (wheatgrass is okay though).

bryan,

did you ever get to meet the guy? i did. at harbin.
QUITE memorable!

fruitgirl

yes. everyone that eats cooked food is cancerous and on the edge of disease(oh and dumb because of that). just like everyone that eats raw food is orthorexic.

He does seem a bit, I don't know, strident? Like an ex who broke his heart really liked croissants or something. Curiously, the recipe for culva sounds a lot like kutya, which my people, the Ukrainians make as a ritual food at Christmas-time. It's boiled wheatberries, ground up poppyseeds, chopped walnuts, and honey. I have to make some to take to my cousin's for Christmas Eve, where it is the first dish eaten, solemnly and at the sighting of the evening's first star. In ancient times; it has been consumed for thousands of years, I suppose the wheat was sprouted and everything else was freshly gathered. So I am going to attempt to make a sprouted wheatberry, raw version of kutya for myself, and see how it goes. Hope my innards don't seize up!

Ha ha iLIVE...very cute. I have to agree with you and Tamukha here. While there's certainly no disputing his wealth of knowledge, he does go a bit overboard on the generalizations and gloom and doom I'd say.

Still enjoyed the interesting info though...much of it quite valid.

~lanie

"Beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing lies a field. I'll meet you there." ~Rumi

Lanie,

Love the Rumi quote!