- Oncology researchers make too much of very little.
- deadly delays in newborn blood testing. Do hospital employees = government employees?
- University of Western Australia refuses request for data because requester “made inflammatory statements on [his] weblog . . . including attacks on the character and professionalism of University staff.”
- Benefits of fermented food. “Once all the grains in her diet were fermented, she began to feel normal — for the first time in years.”
On the subject of bread, popularly demonized in Dr. Perlmutter’s book “Grain Brain,” as leading — along with glutinous and simple carbohydrates — to decaying brain health, dementia, and Alzheimer’s:
Does a bread with a “starter culture” in it count as fermented? I’m thinking of the wonderful breads from Acme Bread here in Berkeley. I am hooked on Cranberry-Walnut.
does (fermented) bread count as fermented food?
Maybe. I suppose there are a lot more bacterial fragments in bread than in non-fermented food and maybe these bacterial fragments help protect you against dangerous bacteria. I don’t know.
Talking about bread. I tried the fashionable “no-knead” bread recipe last year and had good results (that’s just flour, salt, water, and a very small amount of yeast with a very long rising period). When Cooks Illustrated offered a new take on that recipe specifically to increase the taste of fermentation, calling their loaf “almost no-knead bread.” That recipe adds beer and vinegar and produces a delicious loaf. As everyone liked the result of my experimentation, I bravely ordered sourdough starter and gave that a go, but didn’t have much luck until I cut the amount down to about 2 tablespoons (considering it part of the liquid in the recipe) and kept the 1/4 teaspoon of yeast that was in the original recipe. (Remaining sourdough starter can be frozen with great success.) That process created a very flavorful loaf. Reading your blog post about the importance of feeding the good intestinal bacteria, I replaced two tablespoons of the King Arthur European-style bread flour that I have been using with high gluten corn flour as recommended and let the dough rise for a full 24 hours. Everyone loves it.