Fresh baked bread!!! Am I right? The smell, the taste, the texture, the memories…
I remember when bread was a staple in our home and somehow made an appearance at almost every meal.
I also remember when I started working and training in the fitness industry and bread became the bad guy… the very bad guy! I’d have to have a “cheat day” to enjoy a piece of toast.
Now I am older and wiser…. I have also studied nutrition, worked with many clients and learned to listen to what my body is telling me, when it’s being subtle (I used to wait until it was SCREAMING!). I understand balance. Balance in the body and balance in how we approach nourishing ourselves. It has to be more than just the food we eat; how we feel about the food and ourselves while we eat are key factors in our nourishment.
So bread is not the bad guy! There is no one food that is the bad guy…whole food that is… there are lots and lots of pseudo foods out there chemically engineered in labs that need not be consumed ever! That’s a topic for another day though.
Back to bread. When I am choosing foods for myself and my family I am always thinking quality. This is number 1 for me. When I began exploring nutrition, this very quickly became about looking into the past. When my grandparents were young the quality of their nutrition was far superior to ours, so how can I recreate this now? There was more homemade and local that’s for sure! So let’s start there… homemade bread! Not just flour, water and add some yeast though… let’s go to where nature does it’s thing - leave the yeast out and watch it be created by making a sourdough culture. This amazingly delicious food is simply flour, water and maybe a little salt. If you’re patient mother nature will take care of the rest.
This sounds simple enough and I know that if we take the time to master the craft it is, but that’s not realistic for me at this point in my life. And that’s why I am incredibly grateful for community. There are quite a few places in Calgary that take the time, have mastered this craft and are making it available to us. The key when buying a loaf of sourdough bread is to ensure there was no yeast added into the dough. It is often good to ask the baker if possible.
Where I buy bread -
1 - Sidewalk Citizen - This place is phenomenal and it’s not just bread. It’s all sourdough!!
2 - Ladybug Cafe - It’s sliced and it’s thick.
3 - SkyeFire Bakery through Blue Mountain Biodynamic Farm - the rye sourdough is perfection. And Blue Mountain delivers it right to my door every week
4 - YUM Bakery - They do bread and buns sourdough.
Although I cannot say sourdough bread is a super food it certainly is a nourishing food from the sense of warming my heart as I cover it in grass-fed butter and dip it in a homemade soup or grill it with 2 year aged cheddar in the middle for my littles (and me!). Comfort foods are not a bad thing. I am all about finding the most nourishing ways to enjoy delicious foods. A good quality sourdough is easier to digest because the fermentation will have started to break down the “pieces” that are often hard for our bodies to properly digest - gluten! This works well for many but not everyone. Again we are very lucky that there are people in our community who have taken this on and are now creating incredible gluten free sourdough.
Where to find gluten free sourdough -
1 - Nourish
There are others but I have found they are not as consistent….yet. Stay tuned as this will be a growing trend, I believe.
Grab yourself a loaf of fresh baked bread from one of these local gems, lather it up with butter or however you like and enjoy!…From time to time.
Although we no longer have bread in our home all the time and it definitely is not a staple at meal time I feel zero guilt or stress when I enjoy a piece of one of these deliciously nourishing local creations covered in grass fed butter. And yes the butter is important! As we are no longer fearing bread we also do not want to be fearing fats (healthy, non hydrogenated kinds). Combine your good healthy fats with your fermented grains.
