Document: organic bread without gluten
What is Gluten?
Gluten is a large molecule responsable for the elasticity of kneaded dough.
It is constituted of a mixture of proteins,known as gliadines, found in wheat (also in rye and in einhorn).
During the bread-making process, the relatively water-tight, elastic network formed
by the gluten in the dough, retains the fermentation gases and allows the bread to rise.
The gases trapped by the gluten, give the bread it's characteristic "holey" texture, once baked.
In the absence of gluten, the fermentation gases would escape.
In this case, the dough fails to rise,and the resulting bread is unleavened, or what's known in France,as a « galette ».
It is commonly held that only cereals containing gluten - wheat, rye and einhorn - are apt for baking bread.
(i.e. bread with a soft crumb, made up of airy cells; or in other words, leavened bread).
Remarque:
Through our specific bread-baking methods, the Paline bakery proposes a gluten-free bread,
that is naturally risen from a natural leaven.
100% organic, 100% natural leaven, 100% gluten-free.
This bread is one of the most difficult to make and requires a unique savoir-faire.
Gluten and Gluten.
As mentioned before,gluten is a mixture of several proteins.
The mixture varies depending on the type of cereal, the variety, and the conditions in which it was grown...
Gluten varies:
- In quantity: For example rye and einhorn contain a small amount of gluten compared to wheat.
- In quality: The gluten chains that make up a macromolecule can be more or less long, and more or less elastic or resistant.
Bakers and Gluten.
To make bread (unlike making unleavened bread or galettes, like our neighbours in many parts of the world) the presence of gluten in the dough is imperative.
Bakers have always looked for cereals rich in gluten ,that can be used for baking bread.
In this way ensuring - if the bread-making procedure is properly carried out - a well-structured dough, and a well-risen finished loaf.
In the last hundred years, varieties of cereals have been selected for bakeries, almost exclusively on account of their gluten properties and their yield in gluten.
And this at the expense of other more tastey, or more nutritious varieties, and also at the expense of traditional, locally grown cereals.
The process of selection has speeded up in the last thirty years,coinciding with the mechanisation of the baking industry, and the change in types of bread proposed by french bakeries.
The increasing presence of gluten in the varieties of wheat, enables the fabrication of even whiter white bread.
Ces fabrications qui persistent encore malheureusement dans bien des mauvaises boutiques sont le résultat d'un pétrissage intensifié et d'une mécanisation brutale.
Such bread is commonly found on the market; the end result of the brutal mechanisation and intensified kneading.
In the baking trade, a less sensitive, more resistant, more elastic dough has been introduced in order to cope with the mechanical constraints linked to the use of dough mixers, moulders and dividers...
For these reasons,the quality and amount of gluten present in the food industry and in bread in particular is at an all time high.
Gluten intolerances: the symptoms.
The problems linked to gluten intolerance have long been known and studied.
The symptoms of gluten intolerance are grouped together under the name of Celiac (or Coeliac) disease.
Usual benign symptoms of a gluten intolerance are bloatedness or abdominal distention.
Often combined with tiredness and anaemia.
Find out more
It is interesting to note that there are a growing number of cases of Celiac disease.
Especially if we view this in correlation to the change in the characteristics of the wheat used by bakers.
In simple terms, the higher the amount and quality of the gluten in bread, the more we find intolerances to gluten.
What can be done?
There are multiple actions to be taken, concerning all actors in the agricultural/food industry.
We urgently need to promote farming of old-fashioned types of cereals, that are poorer in gluten
and better adapted to soil, especially considering the environmental significance of locally
grown crops on a global scale.
Similar actions are undertaken ,either by individuals or associations.
La Paline Bakery's farm
Farmers'seed network
The bakeries urgently need to rediscover ways of making bread, that can be applied to cereals with a "normal" gluten content. It is also a matter of urgence for public health to break with methods of over-kneading associated with intense mechanisation, which demand a high gluten content in the dough, and which result in poor quality bread...
What to do if you are gluten intolerant:
Get the advice of a good doctor.
Specialists will be able to help you change your eating habits. Vous devez vous rapprocher de professionnels compétents et envisager de profonds changements dans votre alimentation.
In France there is the afdiag (Association Française Des Intolérants Au Gluten ),for advice and information.
What to do if you are not intolerant to gluten:
Enjoy your sandwiches, and eat intelligently!
