New Breads

It’s the New Year! And we’re launching this season with a bread feature. Unusual? Perhaps, given how our continent typically focuses on a “restraining diet” in January. We tend to eliminate all things carb.

But in this issue, we’re zooming in on something much more important: sustainability. You don’t need to deny yourself the “bread of life” if you understand the value of its complexity, the value that has been dashed throughout the centuries but is now respectably finding its way back in.

Looking at trends today, people are opting for alternatives—more gut-worthy bread and carb products that are often gluten free. As a result, small and independent farmers are shifting their attention away from high-gluten, light-textured grains and producing more nontraditional grains. In the process, they’re re-establishing a vast new frontier of good, healthy grains for our consumptive needs while challenging decades of commercially prepared grains.

Today we’re seeing a greater variety of baked artisan blends producing flatbreads, tortillas, naan cakes, sourdoughs, and loaves using alternative grains. Ultimate “yum.” To make these breads yourself using a variety of grains available in many health food and mainstream stores is not as daunting as you might think.

The array of ancient grains is now far more conventional and much more available to those of us longing for more purist wheat ingredients. Switching up grains with our current typical blends reaps the most amazing artisan breads without compromising the flavours we’re most familiar with.

There’s growing evidence we’re saying goodbye to “cake” and hello to “substance” more easily than we thought possible. After all, with a good loaf of substance we tend to eat less, chew more healthily, and process the results with more energy in the pipeline. And as we add finely ground ancient grain kernels to our commercial flour, we’re doing our bodies a service: the nutrient compositions alone give us more sustenance.

Think about thin slices of delicious artisan breads—perfect for toasting to serve with hummus, shaved vegetables, and dollops of fresh quark. Or cut them into coarse cubes for croutons to dip into stews.

Focus on baking bread today using artisan grains from generations ago that are now being recultivated. Recognize them for what they are—the mainstream of good health. What a great way to start a new year!