anti-inflammatory diet vs sourdough...

[cathyw]

one recommendation on all the websites my doctor pointed me at about managing my hand pain is 'anti-inflammatory diet'.

one recommendation on all the anti-inflammatory diets is 'avoid wheat and wheat byproducts'

carlos is a wheat byproduct. a tasty, tasty wheat byproduct. and transforming him into different wheat byproducts and eating those wheat byproducts is a pleasure for both me and my family.

I'm wondering if there's still space for whole wheat sourdough though? whole wheat looks like a 'maybe', sourdough is a fermentation process which seems to be good? is that possibly 'close enough, if you have to, I guess' on the spectrum of wheat byproducts? but that feels like wishful thinking.

...and then of course people made satisfactory sourdough bread for millennia before modern wheat came into the picture. but if I can even find non-standard flours they tend to be kind of expensive, and I'd almost have to relearn how to make the bread.

maybe this is another hobby I never should have taken up in the first place? because now I'm wondering if I need to give it up.

Comments

[treefrogie84]

A friend of mine has successfully parented a GF sourdough since 2020. If you want to switch, I can send her your way? Only if you want to.

[cathyw]

I would definitely be interested in tips? I don't think I have to go totally gluten-free but "how do you bake good sourdough without enough gluten to work with" was definitely one of my obstacles.

[tryslora]

Psyllium husk is the answer you are looking for... much much better than xantham gum for texture, and less pricy (although still not cheap).

[cathyw]

we might have it in the pantry already; husband is supposed to be using it as a fiber supplement.

[tryslora]

Yeah the first time I bought it I remember just picking it up at the store. I buy a big bag of it now online. It darkens bread, because it turns things a wee bit purple. Too much of it can turn things VERY purple.

[cathyw]

not altogether bad if you know to expect it. :)

[tryslora]

Hi hi, I'm the friend frogie mentioned, and my gluten free shoggoth lives in my fridge these days because I can only bake every few weeks. But it plus a yeasted sourdough recipe produce an amazing loaf that is the best wheat-free bread I've found (like, my kids ask for it).

But yes, the wheat-free flours are annoyingly expensive; I tend to buy them in multi-packs online or on sale when I can.

I think I started with the Bob's sourdough instructions for my GF starter, although honestly, if you're not looking to go completely wheat free, you could probably just convert yours to lower gluten by switching up how you feed it. But the recipe I use for the bread might not work as well.

ALSO you are correct: there are a lot of blogs that say the fermentation process destroys enough of the gluten to safely eat. I haven't been willing to try it yet, I'll admit. I started the GF diet because of the anti-inflammatory effects which... did nothing for my pain. BUT. It changed everything about my digestive system so I kept up with it.

So uhhh... short version. Because this is already long.

I started my sourdough with this recipe: https://www.bobsredmill.com/recipes/how-to-make/gluten-free-sourdough-starter/

I started with millet, but maintain with 1-1 from Bob's. I've found that gives me a slightly better baked product than just the millet. I also found that I needed more hydration than they say. So I'd do 4 oz flour to maybe 1/3c water instead of 1/4c. I'm lazy; I don't use purified water, but we do have a filter on the house. I also stopped measuring the flour exactly after a while. My baked goods can be awesome but my process isn't always exact... (whoops).

It took time to get Seymour and eventually Audrey II (after I destroyed Seymour by missing feedings when I went to back to working on campus) to a great level. Since then, I mostly bake pancakes/waffles, cornbread (I'll link the AMAZING recipe I use), and a yeasted loaf. I HAVE done the overnight non-yeasted rise, but neither my son nor husband like the really sour flavor. SIGHS. So I have less experience with that.

This is the sandwich loaf recipe I started with, but have adjusted mightily through trial and error: https://www.bobsredmill.com/recipes/how-to-make/gluten-free-yeasted-sandwich-loaf-with-sourdough-starter

I use a 1.5lb goldtouch loaf pan from Williams & Sonoma mostly because those pans are worth the money. I want to try baguettes and have the cloth for baking, but haven't yet. GF dough has a very different quality to it.

How I actually make this recipe:

Half the weights are wrong in the Bob's recipe. I adjust based on the info on the bags, like 1c of millet is 160g not 120g.

I put the ingredients below in a glass bowl and whisk them together:

1 cup Millet Flour (120 g) [really 160g for a cup] [go half and half with buckwheat for nuttier taste]
¼ cup Psyllium Fiber Powder (48 g)
½ cup Sorghum Flour (68 g) [sub teff if I want a darker bread]
1 Tbsp Honey or Sugar
1/4 c cornmeal (my addition)
1/4 c ground flax (my addition)

Then I add the following and stir quickly. It'll get thick!!

1 cup Millet Starter (275 g)
2 ¾ cups Water (75°F) (651 mL)

DO NOT use a rubber spatula that comes apart. You will lose the scrapy part in the batter. Ask me how I know. Also, be careful, I've broken one on this. IT IS THICK.

Cover and let sit on the counter for as long as you'd like the stuff to hydrate and flavors to develop.


When you're getting ready to bake, THEN dump the (very thick) stuff from above into a mixer bowl. Add:

½ cup + 2 Tbsp Brown Rice Flour (100 g) (I use white rice flour)
2 tsp Active Dry Yeast
¼ cup Egg Whites (I use 1/4c egg substitute)

Get it going and go until it's looking kind of nicely smooth. Stop and let rest for 15 min or so, then add:

2 tsp Salt
2 tsp Baking Powder

Whir up the mixer again and let the dough hook beat the crap out of it for a good 10-20 minutes. The best part is: you can't overmix it! There is no such thing! But you're also not going to get stretch or a window effect or anything. It'll be a blob. A relatively cohesive blob. All the structure will come from that psyllium husk (which is why whisking and hydration are important).

Use parchment in your pan for easy lifting later. Dump in dough. Smooth the top with damp fingers/spatula. Cover and let rise until roughly doubled (1-1.5 hrs).

The baking is... uhh... I go longer than they say. Heat oven to 500F with a pan in the bottom. When ready to bake, toss the bread in, put a cup of water in the heated pan at the bottom, turn down to 450F. Bake 30 minutes. Cover the bread with foil. Bake another hour (I'm not joking--this bread is SUPER hydrated, and soft, and slightly tacky... bake less, and it might just fall apart or be gooey).

This is not like wheat bread. But it's delicious both without toasting and with, makes great sandwiches, slices thin when cooled. My kids eat it. I've made baked sandwiches and french toast with it. It's pretty adaptable.

AND. If you like cornbread, this is the recipe I use ALL the time: https://homesteadandchill.com/sourdough-cornbread/

The only changes I make to that are to lower the sugar because I am stuck not only as GF but very minimal sugar as well (it's fun).

I uh... this was an info dump. Hi. Nice to meet you. Hope this helps.

[cathyw]

Nice to meet you too! I think I've seen you around? we might have some other mutuals somewhere.

and thank you so much for the information. it sounds like 'put carlos on an anti-inflammatory diet' is a good first step, or possibly 'make carlos hibernate, begin nurturing cecil on fancy flour'. (amaranth, millet, oats, and teff were all recommended I think, barley, buckwheat, rye, and spelt (in other words mostly the cheaper and more available ones) were on the 'proceed with caution' list.)

I possibly need to investigate my local "health food" / bulk shopping options, because I have the grinder attachment for my blender and I've been afraid to use it so far but I might need to not be.

[cathyw]

...I follow you on Pillowfort where I am also CathyW. I opened my feed and there you were, the very first post. :)

[tryslora]

HAH hadn't seen this comment yet, but yes, I had just seen you there, too!

[tryslora]

...since I just saw you like a post on Pillowfort, we are connected there!

I can recommend amaranth and millet and teff and buckwheat (not actually wheat, despite the name). Oats, as long as they are grown in a wheat-free field and marked gluten-free are good. Barley and rye contain gluten, and spelt is an ancient form of wheat. None of those are good for me, at least.

Bulk shopping is good if the GF ingredients are segregated from the wheat ones, because otherwise dust gets around. I love Bobs and uhh... there are some other brands that I get big 2lb bags of. If you nudge me, I can remember to take a picture of my stuff on my counter at some point.

Also, if you want to go through my Pillowfort, there ARE posts about this sourdough somewhere. I just. Apparently didn't tag them? Because I was looking for them yesterday when responding to this so I could harvest some handy pictures.

[lizbee]

It might be worth cutting out all other wheat products, and seeing if you still have pain while consuming sourdough, before you change Carlos's diet. I'm on a low wheat diet due to gluten intolerance and inflammation, but I'm fine with sourdough -- I suspect it's not just the wheat, but how the wheat interacts with other ingredients and commercial preservatives that's the problem.

[cathyw]

sourdough involves some amount of fermentation and that might break down some of the problematic components of wheat, is how I understand it? my list has 'fermented veg' as not just a yes but a 'hell yes' and 'yogurt and other fermented dairy' as a maybe where most other dairy is a 'probably not' so 'fermented wheat byproducts' might be less of a problem than regular wheat byproducts.

[iimpavid]

Gluten-free sourdough is definitely achievable. Glutinous sourdough might not mess you up too bad if you get it homemade.

Your mileage may vary with this, of course: I've been on the anti-inflammatory "diet" for years now because of my endometriosis. I've found that there's a sliding scale of gluten consumption that causes symptoms for me. Bread, for example, needs to be homemade because of all the extra gluten put into storebought breads as a preservative. I can get around handmaking some things if I'm able to buy freshly made versions from elsewhere. Generally, avoiding preservatives at all costs decreases my inflammation-related symptoms (not by a massive volume, but a big enough amount such that when I go back to the preservative and gluten heavy foods I notice feeling crappy again).

In any case, good luck!