Feb 27, 20208 min read

Why Canadians Need To 'Break Bread'

The grocery store staple we’ve forgotten how to make ourselves.

Chris

February 27, 2020

Breaking bread. A term from another time when friends, colleagues, allies would literally ‘break a loaf of bread’ to share and eat, “to engage in a comfortable, friendly interaction.” (Urban Dictionary)

Eventually, the bread became figurative, and today the term is used in the context of describing a “social interaction where something is shared” (Urban Dictionary), but there still remains an underlying meaning of the term that we should reflect on, which is Canadians need more friendly interaction with each other.

Slow down. This isn’t a political blog, I promise. I am simply reminding Canadians to make time to put the phone away for a few hours, ask the kids to turn off Boobtoob and the vids and make some bread together. Share stories with each other and share the joy of fresh, baked, simple-ingredient bread. And you probably have all the ingredients in your kitchen already.

I had a wonderful moment with my stepson one weekend when I asked if the kids wanted to learn how to make bread. He took a real interest in watching the yeast do its work and the change in consistency as the bread dough took shape. We had a few laughs as I tried to best explain the gassy reactions that were taking place in our soon to be breakfast toast. He displayed much-deserved pride when the loaves of bread we’re wafting their aromas around the kitchen later that afternoon.

Sure, making bread at home can be a great family-bonding activity, but equally important is the simplicity of the ingredients, the reduced grocery bill, and your reduced “carbon footprint” (if you’re concerned about contributing to carbon emissions). We’ll explore the triple threat of baking bread starting with what’s in your food. The following ingredient list compares a store-bought loaf to the Canadian Girl’s homemade crusty bread recipe:

The store-bought packaged loaf of bread I am using for comparison is the brand I used to buy when I sourced my bread from the grocery store. The first six ingredients not including the potato flour are all you need in bread (and is all the Canadian Girl recipe includes). What are the rest of these ingredients found in processed bread and why are they there?

Potato Flour

Potato flour is combined with other flours to produce a moist crumb.

Soybean and/or Canola Oil

Fats like oil or butter are used in bread dough to alter the texture and help the bread stay softer for longer. However, it has also been suggested that because oils and fats are shortening agents, they ‘shorten the strands of gluten’ in the dough. Shorter strands mean fewer air bubbles are held in the dough producing likely a dense but soft bread. French bread is usually made without the fat giving it an airy texture.

Calcium Propionate

Calcium propionate is the first of a few ‘preservatives’ in this bread. I understand the requirement for packaged bread to have a preservative to slow spoilage. It is unrealistic to think they could bake, package, ship, store, and sell that bread before getting moldy without a preservative.

This particular preservative occurs naturally in butter and some kinds of cheese. It has been deemed “safe” by food and drug agencies, but so have other more potentially questionable ingredients in this product so that doesn’t give me solace.

Sodium Stearoyl-2-lactylate (SSL)

SSL is an emulsifier, which is an ingredient that helps avoid separation especially oil and water. This keeps products like dairy, salad dressings, and soups keep their form and is used in processed baked goods as a foaming agent to trap air bubbles in the dough.

There are many other ingredients below that act as an emulsifier but SSL also strengthens the dough, can replace sugar and some fats, improves efficiency of fermentation and slicing of the finished bread product, slows down the staling process and some believe it even improves taste!

Don’t get too excited. Some studies tested direct contact of the substance which can cause slight skin or eye irritation and if inhaled can be irritating to the respiratory tract. It’s the dose that makes the poison.

Soy Lecithin

Here is emulsifier number deux! This ingredient is also found in salad dressings and tea bags and even can be found in chocolate and health supplements. The ‘lecithin’ refers to a mixture of phospholipids (which is part of plant and animal cells) and oil. Lecithin is commonly sourced from sunflower kernels, rapeseed (canola), milk, egg yolks, and in this case, soy.

Besides issues with overconsumption of soy spiking estrogen levels (in women and men), soy is most likely grown in the US and therefore is GMO and likely contains pesticides and solvents. On average soy lecithin contains 35% soybean oil. During production when the lecithin is derived from the soybean oil, it is common to bleach it using hydrogen peroxide after drying.

(Vegetable) Monoglycerides

Annnnd another emulsifier. Yeesh, they sure are afraid of that bread dough separating.

Monoglycerides also improve loaf volume, create a softer crumb, and strengthen the dough. The bread companies put this in the bread to cut corners. Their recipe isn’t full, soft or strong enough so they add an ingredient most Canadians can’t pronounce to get the job done, and we let it happen.

May Contain Added Wheat Gluten

You have to laugh at “May Contain” statements. This might be in the food we made for you, but we aren’t quite sure so we are going to cover our behinds and say maybe it could be in there from maybe cross-contamination or perhaps from the air, who knows – we don’t – enjoy!

Wheat gluten is typically added to bread doughs when whole wheat flour or other low-gluten flours are used to increase the strength of the dough. I find it strange however that this is a white bread loaf with wheat flour so why the need for more gluten?

May Contain Diacetyl Tartaric Acid Esters of Mono- and Diglycerides (DATEM)

DATEM is a dough conditioner and all together now… an EMULSIFIER and is found in many fast food bread products. It is derived from soybean or canola oil and can be a hidden culprit of the dreaded trans fat. Using a redundant ingredient with such negative attributes is counterproductive and adds cost. You have to ask yourself why this company chooses to include this ingredient at all.

May Contain Sorbic Acid

Found naturally in a kind of berry, sorbic acid is made synthetically for processed foods as an antimicrobial preservative.

Using a natural source of sorbic acid may be sensible if you need a preservative. I find that with a family of five for breakfast and lunches, we can easily consume a couple of fresh loaves with no risk of spoilage. I do freeze loaves of bread to make my baking days further between, and just allow a loaf of bread to defrost overnight, and only remove one loaf of bread from the freezer at a time.

The next benefit of making your own bread is an advantage of making anything from scratch at home. The price we pay for processed foods is largely about convenience and less about the cost of ingredients. Even with the additives of store-bought bread, the cost per loaf does not correlate with what is in the package. The following is a break down of the cost per loaf, demonstrating that it’s worth making time for homemade bread:

It’s no wonder we’re paying so much more for store-bought food. The supermarket can be a tricky place. You think you are looking at two competitor products on the shelf but look to the company website and you find they own many of the other leading brands as well. This is what can be referred to as an economic booboo. Without true competition, what drives better product development and lower prices?

In December 2017, the Globe and Mail reported, “Loblaw admits to bread price-fixing scheme spanning more than 14 years.” The scheme permitted an increase in packaged bread prices and included the parent of Loblaw, George Weston Ltd., owner of Weston Bakeries, who confessed to participating in the price-fixing plot as well.

The article goes on to state, “Loblaw and George Weston provided information under the [Competition] Bureau’s ‘immunity and leniency’ program, which gives incentives for parties in exchange for ‘cooperation against others involved in the cartel,’ bureau spokesman Marcus Callaghan said.”

He referred to it as a cartel.

The cartel offered Canadians a $25 Loblaw gift card for the trouble, which had a registration and lengthy retrieval process. It cost the company $150 million. How much did they earn on the inflated price of the products over 14 years?

You can minimize your potential of being a victim of price-fixing scandals, artificial ingredients, and even make an environmental impact by baking your own bread at home. If the bread you consume didn’t get made in a commercial oven, transported by train or truck, or doesn’t require plastic and dyes to make packaging, you are making a real change. Small things matter.

If you don’t have the time to make bread every week, take a stroll to your closest farmers market. You are more likely to find food grown close to home, and you can get to know the people who picked your apples, made your cheese and baked your bread. It’s a wonderful opportunity to get out and do something Canadian and break some bread with friends, either figuratively or literally.

Canadian Girl’s Crusty White Bread

3 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp salt

¼ tsp active dry yeast

1 ½ cups hot water

Pinch of sugar

Add-in ingredients (optional)*

*Option ingredients include ¼ cup diced onion, 1 tbsp of minced garlic, ¼ cup 1cm cubed cheese, any other topics you want to try, and any combination

Directions:

Sift 3 cups of flour into a mixing bowl. If you have a stand-mixer with a dough hook attachment, this is where that tool will make your life easier.

Sprinkle in 1 tsp of salt.

In a wet measuring cup, sprinkle ¼ tsp of active dry yeast into 1 ½ cups of hot water (not boiling). Add a pinch of sugar.

Start the stand-mixer to first stir your salt into your flour, then slowly pour the entire contents of the yeast water mixture into the bowl. Be sure to let every drop land in your flour mix.

The dough hook will start to collect your dough in a stretched dough ball form. When you can see that all the flour and water have been incorporated, transfer the dough into a medium bowl and cover with clear wrap. The dough should be very soft but holds together.

Now go do something you love for four hours. That dough has some growing up to do.

… 4 hours later …

Lay some flour out on a large, clean surface. You’ll need enough flour for a pizza crust size area for when you stretch and fold over the dough. Take the dough out of the bowl and on to the floured surface. Knead the dough out and fold it over itself always changing the direction you fold. If you are adding in toppings, this is when you will fold them in. Do this 8 to 12 times, flouring as needed, and then place back in a clean bowl lined with parchment paper (not wax paper!)

Cover the bowl with a clean tea towel and let sit for thirty-five minutes. In the meantime, preheat your oven to 450F and place your bread pan or Dutch oven (see footnote) in the cold oven to come to temperature with the oven.

… 35 minutes later …

Carefully place the parchment paper with the dough inside into your pre-heated Dutch oven or bread pan. Cover a bread pan with aluminum foil (I like to lightly oil the top of my bread, so the foil doesn’t stick) or place the cover on the Dutch oven and bake for 30 minutes.

… 30 minutes later …

Uncover the bread, and if you want to do an egg wash this is the time. Replace in the oven as quick as possible for 10 to 12 more minutes. You want the crust to be a light golden brown.

Take the bread out of the oven and leave in pan for 5 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.

Footnotes

You can bake your bread in a glass bread pan, aluminum bread pan, or a Dutch oven. This will not change the temperature or time of your oven. Just ensure you cover open bread pans for the first 30 minutes of baking with aluminum foil.

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