Bread is made with flour, water, salt, and one crucial ingredient: time. Bakers often choose between using baker's yeast or sourdough to leaven their dough. Recent research reveals that this choice affects more than just flavor. The extended fermentation time required for sourdough not only enhances taste but also significantly improves the bread's digestibility and nutrient accessibility, offering additional health benefits.
RESEARCHING DIGESTIBILITY
Firstly, what sets sourdough apart from regular baker's yeast? Sourdough is a natural leavening agent created from a mixture of flour and water. Within sourdough, a community of natural yeasts and lactic bacteria flourishes. The presence of these living microorganisms throughout the dough's fermentation process significantly enhances the bread's flavor complexity, texture and thus digestibility! They transform the carbohydrates and proteins in the flour into peptides, amino acids, lactic acid, acetic acid, and CO2, or simply put: they convert the flour's carbohydrates and proteins into flavor, volume and better accessible nutrients for your body.
New research indicated that sourdough fermented bread can even be easier to digest too, and that this is due to the longer fermentation process (1, 2). Digestion is the process by which our body breaks down food into smaller molecules that can be absorbed and used for energy, growth, and repair. This process takes place in the entire digestive tract passing mouth, stomach, intestine and colon. In principal, our body needs hours to digest food in general. Some foods are easier and faster passing through the digestive system(3). The complexity of digestion lies in the food matrix and how certain nutrients like carbohydrates and proteins are interacting with eachother. For flours in breads this is particularly importnat as the fermentation in the sourdough bread has already started a part of this digestive process and breakdown of matrices. This causes more vitamins and minerals to be released and moreover, breakdown long and complex carbohydrate and protein structures into smaller parts like different starches, peptides and amino acids (1,2). These degredations help your body to have easier access to nutrients. Moreover, it helps new flavours to develop. Lastly, the research demonstrated that people consuming sourdough bread had a higher satiety feeling and thus feeling of fullness (1).
Our Sourdough Librarian Karl De Smedt met up with sourdough-expert Professor Marco Gobbetti to learn more about the benefits of sourdough. Prof. Gobbetti compared the digestibility of three breads; one with just bakers yeast, one with both sourdough & bakers yeast, and a third with just sourdough. The conclusion? “Sourdough fermented breads are more digestible than those started with baker’s yeast alone.” Gobbetti goes on to explain, “We demonstrated in a unique way, by examining the emission of gas during digestion, the transit of the bread in our intestinal track, and the absorption of nutrients, like free amino acids, that the sourdough bread was more digestible then all the other types of bread.”
In Gobbetti’s studies the sourdough fermented breads had a lower ‘GI-index’: A low GI-index food means that the release of energy happens more progressively over a longer period of time and therefore causes a lower insulin peak. In other words: our body needs more time to absorb sugars, meaning we don’t feel hungry again as quickly and have less high blood glucose peaks(1).
Interestingly, even though people feel “full” for a longer time, sourdough bread doesn’t occupy the digestive system for a long time and therefore does not make the digestion process a long and laborious affair1.
The sourdough breads in the experiment delivered a higher ‘Free Amino Acids’ content, for a longer period of time than regular breads. Free-form AAs are single amino acids, which need no digestion. They are, in essence, ready to be absorbed by the body causing less energy to be spend on digestion of the protein they originated from.
It is clear that science is helping us to better understand the benefits of natural fermentation. The benefits of long fermentation and sourdough on health will gain better understanding, and consequently gain traction. Following Puratos’ Health & Well-Being commitment to “provide consumers with outstanding products that help them enjoy a healthy diet and fulfil their well-being needs” we started developing a product range that supports the digestive health of the final consumer. We are delighted to announce that a new product based on established technologies is just few months away.
DISCLAIMER: The information herein is presented in good faith and is based on our best knowledge, nevertheless
it is important to remember that local regulatory situations don’t always match scientific findings. In some countries, sound scientific evidence published in peer-reviewed journals is required to back up package health related claims. In other countries, these claims can only be used if they match health claims criteria approved by local authorities.
No responsibility/warranties as to the completeness or accuracy of this information are taken by Puratos Group NV and/or its affiliates. Note that this information is supplied upon the condition that the persons receiving it will make their own decisions and legal/regulatory assessment prior to its use. This material should not be used as a substitute for a legal/regulatory advice from a professional familiar with your particular factual situation.
Source:
(1) Rizzello, Carlo Giuseppe, et al. "Sourdough Fermented Breads are More Digestible than Those Started with Baker’s Yeast Alone: An In Vivo Challenge Dissecting Distinct Gastrointestinal Responses." Nutrients 11.12 (2019): 2954
(2) Costantini, A., Da Ros, A., Nikoloudaki, O., Montemurro, M., Di Cagno, R., Genot, B., ... & Rizzello, C. G. (2022). How cereal flours, starters, enzymes, and process parameters affect the in vitro digestibility of sourdough bread. Food Research International, 159, 111614.
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