Thursday, November 4, 2010

Cheesy Herb Pullapart and HAZARDS OF WHITE FLOUR


We all love the smell of freshly baked bread whether it's fresh from our own kitchen or from a bakery. Everybody who bakes will definitely try to get their hands work with yeast and at some point they might get addictive to the fresh breads. I know atleast 80 percent will agree with me fresh breads are always good, but there is something we must remember about breads.
  What our fresh bread is made of? ? ? ? ? ?  Most of the time in home or shop bought it's White flour.
 We love the look, smell and taste of freshly baked white bread, but how did the white bread come????
What is the process behind the white flour???????? Which I completely forgot after coming to Germany. I have been making breads....... with only white flour for the last few months. A few backs when I was talking to one of my friend she said all your baking and blogging is good but try to avoid white flour, which alarmed me. Although it's not possible to avoid white flour completely for some bread, it's definitely possible to substitute with whole wheat at least more than half a level. A bread made with whole wheat may not be as appealing to whiteflour, but it makes your body feel inside good.
  
Hazards of white flour: The information about this white flour is from here.

A wheat grain kernel is composed of three layers: the bran, the germ, and the endosperm layer.
The bran is the outside layer where most of the fiber exists. Most of the nutrients and fats are in germ layer. The endosperm is the starchy middle layer.The natural nutrition associated with whole grains exists only when these three layers are eaten together. Old time stone mills ground the flour slowly, and the resulting flour had all three layers mixed in. (This result is called "100 percent stone-ground whole-wheat flour").
But in mass production flour mills, stone grinding isn’t efficient enough, so high speed, high temperature steel roller mills are used.
These high speed mills remove the bran and germ, and the resulting flour is made up of mostly the starchy endosperm layer.
Ironically, much of the bran and germ "waste product", which is the most nutritious part of the grain, is sold as animal feed.
The resulting white flour contains just a fraction of the nutrients of the original grain, with the heat of the steel rollers also playing a role in the nutrient destruction.

Chlorine and Alloxan


Not content with applying pesticides and ditching most of the nutrients, the flour manufacturers then subject the starchy flour to a chlorine gas bath.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) identifies chlorine gas as a flour-bleaching, aging and oxidizing agent that is a powerful irritant, dangerous to inhale, and lethal.
The flour manufacturers use a form of chlorine gas to bleach and artificially "age" flour. The goal, of course, is a clean, white product. The chlorine gas reacts with the flour, oxidizing, whitening it and reducing the gluten.
But it also converts an dough additive called xanthine into a toxic substance called alloxan. The alloxan is an unintended byproduct.
So what is alloxan? Alloxan is a toxin which destroys pancreatic islet cells, resulting in diabetes. In fact, Alloxin is specifically used in research labs to induce diabetes in rats and mice for study purposes.
After the chlorine bath, we get nice, white flour completely devoid of any natural vitamins. And since all the natural vitamins have been destroyed, the bleached flour is mixed with synthetic vitamin and mineral supplements to "enrich" it.
These synthetic vitamins are made from petroleum, elemental ores, bacteria, fungi, and ferrous iron, which is created from sulfate refined out of high sulfur crude oil.


The same applies to white sugar, which undergoes so many process. Any food which by itself created by God is good for health but when it undergoes all the process created by man it loses it's goodness and results in all these hazards to health. I know when most of our diet depends upon grain it's hard to avoid it totally but we can reduce the consumption and use whole grain foods which are available in market and less processed foods.

Right after reading all the hazards about white flour and the processing we are going to recipe made with 100 percent whole  wheat which is considered as less hazard.


Serves 2
Preparation Time: 20 minutes
Cooking Time: 35 minutes + rising time

Ingredients:
Whole wheat flour- 150 g / 6oz
Dried yeast- 3/4 tsp
Warm water- 75 ml/ 3 oz
Salt- 1/2 tsp
Olive oil- 2 tsp
Honey- 2 tsp
Cheddar cheese- 2 tbsp grated
Garlic- 2 cloves grated
Fresh chopped herbs- 1 tbsp( parsely or coriander or chives)
Method:
Prepare the dough:
Mix the whole wheat flour, salt and yeast together in a bowl. Add the honey and warm warm water to make a smooth dough. Place the dough in a clean oiled bowl, cover with a cling film and allow it to rise in warm place for 1 to 2 hours until double in size.
Prepare the loaf:


Mix the cheese, herb and grated garlic together. Divide the dough in to 10 equal parts. Roll them like small discs. Dip one disc in the cheese and herb mixture and place the other disc on top. Repeat the same with the remaining dough. Grease and line a 1 lb loaf tin. Place the discs inside the tin. Cover with a cling film and allow it to rise for another 20 minutes until puffed up.

 Preheat the oven to 200 degree celsius. Bake the loaf in the preheated oven for 35 minutes or until golden brown top.
I served the bread with Tomato souffle which I made for sweet punch, you can serve with any curries or stew of your choice.

This bread goes to Champa's Bake Off and Yeastspotting

31 comments:

Champa said...

Nice one. Thanks for the entry. I have a book which has something very similar to this. They have shown a trick of keeping the loaf pan upright and putting the layers as stacks. SO that you don't have to struggle to keep their shape.

My Kitchen Antics said...

looks divine

Pavani said...

looks yummy n delicious bread...

Pushpa said...

Delicious bread,looking so good...

simplehomefood.com

Unknown said...

This is a really informative post. Bread looks fabulous..Thanks for sharing!!

Rachana said...

The bread looks perfect.

Suja Manoj said...

Looks lovely dear..fresh home made bread are always the best..

Amritha Kalyani said...

looks perfect.. your baking is great.. i really admire your pics and posts.

Torviewtoronto said...

delicious combination cheese and herb

Karen said...

Wow...this bread looks amazing. I love the surprise of cheese and herbs in the middle. Yum!

Unknown said...

great post!! lovely cheesy herb bread..perfectly baked.Thx for sharing the hazards of white flour with us..

harini-jaya said...

I am totally with u on using 'ONLY' whole wheat and not white flour!

Priya Sreeram said...

looks awesome and soooooooo very healthy!

Hamaree Rasoi said...

Bread looks wonderfully made. Thanks for sharing us the information about white bread.

A very happy Diwali to you and your family.

Deepa
Hamaree Rasoi

Coral said...

Nice recipe ...

I too believe white flour is not good for our specially for kids health.

Priya Suresh said...

Bread looks absolutely stunning..

Kalyani said...

nice clicks ........ Looks delicious .......

Dimah said...

This looks absolutely fantastic!

Nitha said...

Bread looks perfect. .thanks for this informative post..

Faith said...

Now this is what you call a great bread.. looks wonderful! You're such an amazing baker.

tigerfish said...

Hey, any one can cook but not any one can bake! :) ..ok...I cannot bake.

Namitha said...

Awesome is the word....fantastic bread

Unknown said...

That is informative post, bread looks awesome :)

archana said...

Looks really good, i am sure it tasted nice too.

Mary @Delightful Bitefuls said...

Now that is one beautiful bread! AMAZING!!!!

Mary xo
Delightful Bitefuls

hema said...

Hi, a very nice article on hazards of whiteflour.we take white sugar and whiteflour for granted and do not realize their ill effects.
I am a health conscious person too and try to substitute white flour with whole wheat flour as much as possible...
www.chefhema.wordpress.com

Nammi said...

yumm, another cheesey bread to try!! yay! have a nice week end !

Home Cooked Oriya Food said...

Nice bread! Even better read on the risks of eating white bread!

ജയരാജ്‌മുരുക്കുംപുഴ said...

adipoli......

Angie's Recipes said...

Looks very delicious! Nothing beats a fresh homemade loaf!

Pavithra Elangovan said...

Hey Ayeesha I missed this post and I am very concious abt this too.. I always use unbleached flour if we need to use the white flour.. something better right :) by the way loved ur post dear.

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