How much of an impact do two slices of bread make on your health? Plenty!
That is, if you make the decision to replace the slices of modern commercial bread you eat each day on your sandwich with slices of wild, long fermented sourdough bread.
And, do it every day.
Look, we all know that the modern industrial food system is completely broken and almost all contemporary food production is working toward one goal: to make multinational food corporations a ton of money. Unfortunately, this is almost always at the expense of our health because this sort of food processing reduces the safety, nutrient density and/or bioavailability of food. So, here we are modern humans with big bodies and brains that require incredible nutrition, in the right form, to properly nourish ourselves but have limited access to truly nourishing food. Since every part of our modern food system has been bastardized, making the necessary changes in our diets to achieve optimal health requires changing the way we think about, process, and consume almost everything we eat.
It can be overwhelming – believe me, I know.
We think about food constantly and we are committed to creating the change necessary in our food system to truly nourish ourselves, our family and our community. To accomplish these goals we have made all sorts of changes in our home that we have also formed the foundation of the Modern Stone Age Kitchen including cooking entirely from scratch, replacing all industrial nut and seed oils with high quality animal fat, butchering, cooking and eating nose-to-tail, eliminated all refined sugars, utilizing a sourdough approach to anything containing wheat, nixtamalizing all maize, soaking and/or sprouting seeds and nuts, fermenting vegetables, fermenting dairy, reducing our oxalate intake, etc.
Necessary? Yes.
Overwhelming? YES, even more so.
But, we didn’t make all of these changes overnight. Far from it!
In fact, it has taken us almost 20 years to fully implement some of these changes.
And, of course, we are continuously still working on implementing additional changes. This is truly a lifelong journey and not a destination.
So, if you are just beginning on this journey, where should you start?
Start with the food you eat every day and make a change there. Replace that food with the safest and most nourishing version possible. Then do it again tomorrow. And the next day. And, every day week after week. Month after month. Year after year. That sort of frequency compounded over that amount of time results in real, meaningful change.
It might just be as simple as a sandwich
For many of us the food that we eat every single day is a sandwich – especially when it comes to our kids. In the conclusion of my book I wrote: “What if you made just one loaf of genuine sourdough bread each week, and every sandwich your child took to school was made from that bread? That’s approximately 2,340 sandwiches (or almost 5,000 slices of bread) over the average American kid’s K–12 school career. That’s 2,340 opportunities for your child to eat a food that maximizes nutrition and bioavailability—and that came from your own hands and heart — rather than a store-bought, processed, nutritionally bereft, artificially fortified and flavored alternative. That weekly loaf of bread translates into meaningful, long-term change in your child’s health, and in how you reclaim your agency in this complicated, confusing modern foodscape.”
Where can I get real, traditional, slow-fermented sourdough bread?
And, we can help!! If you want to make incredible, health sandwich bread at home here is a link to our recipe for Sissa Sandwich Bread. If you are just starting out and want some help learning how to make sourdough bread we have several options for classes to get you started including an on-demand sourdough bread class so you can get baking right now! And, if you want to purchase bread for your sandwiches we have you covered there too at the Modern Stone Age Kitchen (plus we ship it)!
Remember, this is just the start. Once you have implemented this change then it is time to move on to the next one. Perhaps that is fermenting vegetables. Or, making your own yogurt from local milk. Or, even home butchering.
Not all yogurts are created equal….
I have one slice of your sourdough bread each morning with breakfast, usually topping it with avocado or peanut butter. Obviously, I don’t want the bread to go stale, so I freeze the loaf and remove one slice each day. Is it ok to freeze your sourdough bread, or is there a better way to preserve the loaf?
We freeze ours too as we don’t go through it that quickly and it ensures freshness! Definitely freezing is the way to go! All our bread freezes great – even the fougasse.
There is actually research that suggests the carb count drop by 31% when you freeze bread. Check out #4 in this article: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/4DfZMpv7BYJ3kGXdHxdxkKp/10-things-you-may-not-know-about-carbs#:~:text=Because%20just%20like%20cooking%20and,fewer%20calories%20from%20the%20bread.