In this post, learn the health benefits of sourdough: from digestion, to nutrition, to prebiotic benefits.
SOURDOUGH EXPLAINED
First, what is sourdough? To fully understand the health benefits of sourdough, and its nutrition/digestion implications, you must understand the science. Sourdough is technically fermented flour, water, and salt. It is used to bake sourdough bread, which does not require a leavening agent, as the fermentation of the dough takes care of that for you by creating a natural rise through the release of CO2 bubbles. Sourdough is how our ancestors baked bread and other baked goods before packets of isolated yeast at the store were even a thing. So cool!
THE STARTER
In order to make any kind of sourdough anything, you first need a sourdough starter. This concoction will be used as a base in all of your sourdough recipes to sour all of the grains over a long and slow fermentation. It is also responsible for actually leavening your sourdough product as it contains wild yeast. The starter is essentially a colony of symbiotic microbes, or bacteria, in a jar of flour and water. It is alive! There are two main components that make up this colony in your starter, and they work with each other:
- Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) – they will produce organic acids, which will go on to change the taste, nutritional value, and digestibility of the sourdough product. They create an acidic environment, which is ideal for yeast, as it is acid-tolerant.
- Wild yeast – grains naturally contain wild yeast since they are harvested from the earth. Therefore your your starter will contain this wild yeast, and thanks to the LAB hard at work, they have an ideal environment to reproduce and go about their business which includes producing enzymes. Amylase and maltase work to break down the complex starches in the flour into simple sugars for the LAB to then feast on. Invertase facilitates the fermentation of simple sugars to CO2, which creates the bubbles and therefore the rise in the sourdough product. Phytase breaks down phytic acid in the grains, which increases the bioavailability of the nutrients within the grains, and also improves digestibility.
As you can see, the LAB and wild yeast have a symbiotic relationship – meaning they work perfectly in harmony together. The LAB create an acidic environment which the yeast loves, which allows the yeast to carry on producing enzymes and freeing up simple sugars from starch. These simple sugars are then consumed by the LAB, which allows them to proliferate, and the cycle continues!
DIGESTION
Sourdough bread, and other products, are easier to digest, which by far is one of the best health benefits of sourdough. Many people who experience GI distress from consuming conventional wheat products can consume sourdough wheat products with no ill side effects. The reason for this is mainly due to the degradation of gluten during the long fermentation process. Specifically, the fermentation modifies glutenin and gliadin, both of which are proteins found in gluten, through the digestion of two of their amino acids – proline and glutamine.
Through breaking down these amino acids, it permanently alters the structures of these proteins, and therefore overall alters the gluten found within the wheat. The coolest part – proline and glutamine are indigestible, meaning our bodies are unable to digest them and break them down on their own. Therefore, the fermentation process quite literally transforms the indigestible part of gluten into compounds that are pre-digested before we consume them.
Prior to the Industrial Revolution, all bread was long fermented by lactic acid bacteria. It was around this time that yeast was isolated for the very first time, and was sold in packets to be used in the making of bread, in order to create a rise. Using isolated yeast, instead of cultivating the natural yeast over a long fermentation, cut down significantly on production time, and therefore created a much more efficient way to bake bread. However, this quick rise process lacked one major factor – lactic acid bacteria. The LAB are solely responsible for the transformation of the wheat; the long fermentation is key to increasing the digestibility of the bread, along with making it more nutritious.
NUTRITION
One of the other major health benefits of sourdough is the increased availability of nutrients. Wheat naturally contains many nutrients – such as B vitamins, Vitamin E, phosphorous, zinc, and magnesium. However, wheat grains also naturally contain a compound called phytic acid. Phytic acid is an antinutrient, meaning it decreases the absorption of nutrients in food from our intestinal tract into our bodies. This acid binds to nutrients in the gut, preventing them from crossing over the intestinal lining and therefore from being absorbed and utilized.
Phytic acid is naturally present in grains, beans, and nuts – nature’s way of keeping them from spoiling. But here’s the thing: it’s likely our bodies were never meant to consume large amounts of phytic acid. This theory is probably why our ancestors always soaked or fermented their grains prior to consuming them, as this helps to break down the phytic acid – which not only makes a more nutritious end product, but aids in digestion as well.
GUT HEALTH
Another major benefit of sourdough is the fact that it provides prebiotics for the gut. Prebiotics are essentially food for our intestinal microflora, which helps them to flourish, proliferate, and thrive. Just like the simple sugars that feed the lactic acid bacteria in your sourdough starter, sourdough bread products provide food for your gut bacteria to consume and thrive off of.
We can consume probiotics through foods or supplements, which help to diversify and fortify the colony of bacteria in our gut, whereas prebiotics are the food these bacteria will consume. This food, in turn, helps those bacteria to proliferate and multiply, which also contributes to a rich and healthy gut microbiome. If you’d like to learn all of the parameters of a healthy gut, from the microbiome to your intestinal lining, watch this video I did here.
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