"Life Without Bread"

A Jay said:
Eliza Plank said:
Hey everyone. I am new here. i read this interesting topic and i wanted to share my experience with you. Since year 2014 i have started gluten free diet which also include life without any kind of white bread. Now I am only consuming rye bread. I think it is impossible for me to live without any bread.

What makes you say that?

Well I think the more I try the more I understand that I simply can not. You know it happens to me sometimes i decide not to eat any bread and what happens then? I don't bake any I don't buy any and I can stand it for about one week. And then i start subconsciously to think about bread. Over the next week i seek for excuses in order to taste at least one piece of bread. And do you know how I finish? Spending the whole day off eating bread :/
That's what always happens to me.
PS: I am speaking about rye bread with low percentage of gluten because i am suffering from gluten allergy...
That's why i have to live with the fact that i can not live without any bread
 
Eliza Plank said:
Well I think the more I try the more I understand that I simply can not. You know it happens to me sometimes i decide not to eat any bread and what happens then? I don't bake any I don't buy any and I can stand it for about one week. And then i start subconsciously to think about bread. Over the next week i seek for excuses in order to taste at least one piece of bread. And do you know how I finish? Spending the whole day off eating bread :/
That's what always happens to me.
PS: I am speaking about rye bread with low percentage of gluten because i am suffering from gluten allergy...
That's why i have to live with the fact that i can not live without any bread

Does the apparent fact that you have little control over this not make you angry and want to take back control? As others have said, it is an addiction equivalent to drugs. Do you not want to remain free of addiction, no matter how difficult it is? Or do you want to remain locked in the bread prison unable to get out? If it were me, I would be angry at having my thoughts controlled by an external force, so much so that I would endeavor to make it so that nothing outside me can control what I choose to put in my body.
 
Eliza Plank said:
Well I think the more I try the more I understand that I simply can not. You know it happens to me sometimes i decide not to eat any bread and what happens then? I don't bake any I don't buy any and I can stand it for about one week. And then i start subconsciously to think about bread. Over the next week i seek for excuses in order to taste at least one piece of bread. And do you know how I finish? Spending the whole day off eating bread :/
That's what always happens to me.
PS: I am speaking about rye bread with low percentage of gluten because i am suffering from gluten allergy...
That's why i have to live with the fact that i can not live without any bread

If you keep trying, then you may fall off the wagon and eat bread and gluten a number of times. It may take a number of cycles to completely break the habit and addiction to it. What may help during the whole process is to keep reading about why eliminating all gluten and bread is in your best interest via articles and the number of excellent books on the subject. In short, if you have relapses, don't beat yourself up, but recommit and try again until it sticks. Quitting gluten may seems like a small change, but really is a significant lifestyle change you are making, so it may help to look at it as such.
 
Heimdallr said:
Eliza Plank said:
Well I think the more I try the more I understand that I simply can not. You know it happens to me sometimes i decide not to eat any bread and what happens then? I don't bake any I don't buy any and I can stand it for about one week. And then i start subconsciously to think about bread. Over the next week i seek for excuses in order to taste at least one piece of bread. And do you know how I finish? Spending the whole day off eating bread :/
That's what always happens to me.
PS: I am speaking about rye bread with low percentage of gluten because i am suffering from gluten allergy...
That's why i have to live with the fact that i can not live without any bread

Does the apparent fact that you have little control over this not make you angry and want to take back control? As others have said, it is an addiction equivalent to drugs. Do you not want to remain free of addiction, no matter how difficult it is? Or do you want to remain locked in the bread prison unable to get out? If it were me, I would be angry at having my thoughts controlled by an external force, so much so that I would endeavor to make it so that nothing outside me can control what I choose to put in my body.

It really does depend on what you want. Do you want to stay addicted and controlled by your desire for bread, or do you want to break free of that and be in control of yourself? It seems like you want to get rid of bread, and if so then you can use the anger and frustration you feel as a fuel or motivator to keep you 'going against the grain'. You can also share your struggles with your journey here, and get the support and encouragement that you might have been lacking when you tried to kick the habit the first few times.
 
Eliza Plank said:
Hey everyone. I am new here. i read this interesting topic and i wanted to share my experience with you. Since year 2014 i have started gluten free diet which also include life without any kind of white bread. Now I am only consuming rye bread. I think it is impossible for me to live without any bread.

It may look that way now that you may be addicted to it, but your taste in bread will change once your body adapts and begins to work properly. I've been on the paleodiet for several months and I found over the past two weeks that bread smells different that it used to. It smells chemically and not appealing whatsoever, it's very strange. I work in a restaurant and they bake their own bread everyday, i used to like their brown and focaccia bread but now I wince at the smell from a meter away.
 
Having heard some interesting factoids about bread consumption - that US families way back ate 1 loaf a week, rather than in a day or two - i read the following article with this idea in mind.

Essentially, fermented bread was recommended for all, and apparently only labourers could stomach unfermented and that bread was used instead of a plate and the wealthy would consider giving it to the poor, or their pets...which also goes to show that it probably wasn't considered the ideal source of nutrition. Then the recipes it provides below also call for fermentation. Also, the fact that they decided that white bread was preferable reminds me of someone who said that, in Asia, they didn't spend all their time de-hulling rice for fun, surely there was a reason for it - possibly digestion, like the comment about labourers.

I may be wrong but it's an easy, interesting read. Personally, i miss croissants/pastries, and crackers for pate and butter, but bread always made gave me brain fog, made me bloated and i always considered it a snide way of limiting the good stuff, the filling! I used to read sandwich packets which said: '50% bread, 10% whatever' and felt pretty cheated.
http://www.medievalists.net/2013/07/04/bread-in-the-middle-ages/

Bread in the Middle Ages

July 4, 2013 By Medievalists.net

Bread in the Middle AgesKings, knights, monks, peasants – everyone in the Middle Ages ate bread. It was also the food that caused bitter religious disputes and could make you go insane.

The history of bread dates back as far as 22 500 years ago – it was the staple of life for the ancient Mesopotamians and Egyptians, and was eaten throughout the Roman Empire. It was made by grinding cereal grains, such as wheat, millet or barley, into flour, then kneading it with a liquid, perhaps adding yeast to make the dough rise and lighten, and finally baking. Bread comes in all shapes and sizes, but in his book Bread: A Global History, William Rubel notes that Europe has had a “loaf-bread culture” for the last 2,000 years, while flat bread remained popular in the Middle East and Africa.

By the beginning of the Middle Ages the preference was to eat white bread made from wheat - medieval physicians also recommended it as being the healthiest – but poorer peoples would bake darker breads with oats or rye. If one needed too, people could also add rice, peas, lentils, chestnuts, acorns or other foods into the mixture. In medieval France, most people would eat a type of bread known as meslin, which was made from a mixture of wheat and rye.

Writing from Baghdad in the 10th century, Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq, gives his thoughts on the best kinds of bread to eat:

Wheat bread agrees with almost everybody, particular varieties made with a generous amount of yeast and salt and allowed to fully ferment and bake well. Such breads are lighter and digest faster. Jizmazaj (thin bread with tamarisk seeds) and ruqaq (very thin bread) are by comparison less nourishing and digest much faster. Bread baked in malla (pit with hot ashes and stones), tabaq (large flat pan) and any other similar varieties that do not ferment or bake well are hard to digest and cause stomach aches. Only people used to strenuous labor can eat them more often.

Terrence Scully notes “that bread was the basis of the medieval diet” and the amount that people ate throughout Europe was remarkably similar. He finds that records from England, France and Italy that workmen, soldiers and even patients in hospitals were supposed to get about two pounds of bread per day.

Like today, breads made in the Middle Ages came in all shapes and sizes. For example, in the Polish city of Wroclaw the people could buy and eat breads such as common white bread, common rye bread, black rye bread, wheat rolls, bagels, crescent rolls and flat cakes. Besides using bread just for food, medieval people often used it as their plates: known as trenchers, these were breads that were cut into thick flat slices. Then others foods like meats or thick sauces would be served on top of them. Once the meal was finished, the bread could then be eaten, or, if you were wealthy or generous enough, was given to the poor or to animals.

A medieval baker with his apprentice. The Bodleian Library, Oxford.
Religious strife

Bread is a key part of the Christian religion, as Jesus gave it to his disciples at the Last Supper. The Eucharist, also known as Holy Communion, is one of the principle parts of a Christian mass. However, there has been a dispute between various Christian sects on what kind of bread to use – leavened or unleavened. Eastern churches believed that only leavened loaves (bread made with yeast) could be used as Eucharists, while the Roman Catholic church made their pieces of Holy Communion from wafers of unleavened bread.

The question over what kind of bread to use remained a deep theological dispute throughout the Middle Ages, and occasionally lead to violence and condemnations of heresy. In the year 1053, Roman Catholic churches were closed in the Byzantine capital of Constantinople and their unleavened consecrated bread was trampled upon in the streets. One Byzantine church leader denounced the used of unleavened bread, writing “You call bread panis; we call it artos. This is from airoel, to raise, signifies a something elevated, lifted up, being raised and warmed by the ferment and salt; the azym, on the other hand, is lifeless as a stone or baked clay, fit only to symbolize affliction and suffering.”!! :lol:

See also the depictions from the Jewish Birds’ Head Haggadah on how Matzah bread was made.


How to ask for bread with your hands

medieval breads from the 15th centuryThe Benedictine monastery of Cluny had strict rules against talking in parts of the monastery or during particular times of the day. The monks still had to communicate with each other, and they developed a sophisticated form of sign language. An eleventh-century text describing the Cluniac sign language reveals that they had a rich vocabulary related to food, including these references to bread:

For the sign of bread
make a circle with the thumb and
its two adjacent fingers, because
bread is customarily round.

For the sign of bread, which is
cooked in water and which is better
than that served on most days,
after making the general sign for bread,
place the palm of one hand
over the outside of the other as if
oiling or wetting.

For the sign of marked bread, which is
commonly called torta, after
making the general sign of bread,
make a cross through the middle of the
palm, because bread of this type is
generally divided into quarters.
Painting by Matthias Grünewald of a patient suffering from advanced ergotism from approximately 1512–16 ADSt. Anthony’s Fire

Bread was usually safe to eat, but a disease did exist, called Ergotism, which was caused by consuming rye bread that had been infected by the Claviceps purpurea fungus, also known as ergot. While it was easy to spot the signs of the fungus in rye – it turned the grain black and waxy – people did not correlate this with the disease. Others may have suspected that the unusual rye could could cause problems, but did not want to waste the grain that took months to grow.

The Annales Xantenses reports that in the year 857 “a great plague of swollen blisters consumed the people by a loathsome rot, so that their limbs were loosened and fell off before death.” Ina Lipkowitz explains that the

victims suffered from hallucinations, insanity, vomiting, and gangrene of the hands and feet due to constriction of blood flow to the extremities. Those afflicted felt as if they were being burned at the stake as their fingers and toes split open and dropped off, one by one. A late medieval chronicler wrote of an “invisible fire that separated the flesh from the bones and consumed it.”

It was said that 40 000 people in northern Germany were killed by the disease in the year 994. In the eleventh-century a group of lay people created an order to take care of people afflicted by the disease. They declared Saint Anthony of Egypt to be the patron saint of the order, and the disease became known as St.Anthony’s Fire. Ergotism is much rarer in the modern world, but outbreaks have occurred in less developed countries even in recent years.
Table of weights and measures, possibly for calculating the prices of bread or wheat, with a drawing of a balance and weights. - British Library The Assize of Bread

Throughout the medieval world there were regulations about how to make and sell bread. Because this food was so central the people’s lives, authorities needed to make sure that even the poor could afford to buy it. In some places, the government would make sure that the price of grain did not rise too much (although this might lead grain sellers to ship their merchandise elsewhere), while in England the Assize of Bread was created in the 13th century. These laws set up price controls for bakers, which would allow someone to buy at least some quantity of bread for a penny. Every year at least the size of this bread would be set according to the price of wheat and other grains – if the grain supply was expensive, your penny would only get you a small amount of bread; if grain was plentiful, than the size of the loaf would increase.

This system would last in England for over 500 years, although bakers occasionally tried to cheat by selling bread that did not meet regulations. In fourteenth-century London, for example, bakers were caught selling bread that had been mixed with dirt or chalk or even had an iron-bar inserted into it to make it weigh more. See this lecture by Barbara Hanawalt on Fraud among the Victualers in Medieval London, which included much about bad bakers:

Medieval Bread Recipes

Wroclaw Trencher Bread

In Poland, the use of trenchers was popular in the Middle Ages. The Polish city of Wroclaw kept bread laws that specified how this bread would be made. In her book Food and Drink in Medieval Poland, Maria Dembinska has used their records to recreate the recipe for this bread:

Ingredients:
8 cups (1kg) of stone ground rye flour
7 cups (875g) of stone ground spelt or whole club wheat flour
2 cups (500ml) thick beer
1 cup (250 ml) active beer barm or 1/2 ounce (14g) dry yeast proofed in 1 cup (250 ml) lukewarm water
4 cups (1 litre) water at room temperature
2 tablespoons of salt

Directions: Combine the flours in a mixing bowl. Measure out 7 1/2 cups (950g) and put this in a large work bowl or bread through. Combine the thick beer, yeast and water. Add this to the flour and stir to create a slurry. Cover and let stand overnight until foamy. Combine the salt with the remaining flour, and stir down the slurry. Add the salted flour to the slurry and knead into a ball of dough on a well-floured work surface. Knead for at least 20 minutes, vigorously striking the dough from time to time with a bat or long rolling pin to break down the glutten. Set aside, cover, and let the dough rise until doubled in bulk. When it is fully risen, knock down and knead again, breaking it with a bat or rolling pin as before. When the dough is soft and spongy, mold it out into 9 or 10 round loaves (each about 12 ounces or 375 g to allow for water loss during baking). Cover and let the loaves rise in a warm place until they are roughly 6 inches (15 cm) in diameter.

While the loaves are rising, preheat the oven to 400 degrees F (250 degrees C). When the loaves are fully risen, set them on a greased pizza sheets and cut a small sign of the cross or some other preferred pattern into the top of each loaf. Set the loaves in the oven and bake for 15 minutes. Then reduce the temperature to 375 degrees F and finish baking the bread for 10 to 20 minutes or until it sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom. Cool on a rack. Do not cut the bread until it is room temperature.

Nabatean water bread (Khubz al-ma’ al-Nabati’)

Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq was commissioned to write a cookbook on the dishes and foods eaten by the Caliphs, nobles and people of Baghdad in the 10th century (probably around the 940s). Among the 600 recipes he details is several the deal with bread. Here is one that makes a specific type of flat bread:

Take 1 makkuk (7 1/2 pounds) good quality samidh flour and sift it in a big wooden bowl. Mix with it 3 uqiyyas (3 ounces) yeast, and add 30 dirhams (3 ounces) salt that has been dissolved in water and strained.

Knead the mixture into very firm dough, as firm as stone and press it well. Continue pressing it while rubbing the bottom of the dough 120 times with water in doses of 4 dirhams (1 tablespoon) each until it develops a consistency which is a little firmer than that of the zalabiya dough (about the same as pancake batter). Cover the dough and let it ferment. With the help of some oil of hulled sesame seeds divide dough into portions and shape them like firani (round and domed thick bread).

Light the tannur and wait until the fire starts to smolder gently. Wipe clean the inside of the oven [with a piece of cloth]. Rub each portion of the dough with 2 dirhams (1 teaspoon) sesame oil or zayt anfaq (olive oil extracted from unripe olives) then flatten it by hand and stick it the inside of the smoldering oven. This recipe will make 15 pieces of bread.

When you are done sticking all the portions in the tannur, cover it with its lids for a short while. As soon as the breads are set, sprinkle them lightly with water, about 1/2 kuz (1/2 cup), and return the lid as it was before. Wait for a short while, then remove the cover, and open up the bottom went hole to expose the breads to more heat. As son as they brown, take them out. Scrape their backs with a knife and wipe them with a small amount of water. Stack the breads, enclose them in a damp piece of cloth, and set them aside for an hour or so.

Serve this bread whenever you need it, it will be the best, God willing.
 
Gaby said:
The disruption of CCK and related hormones (PYY, adiponectin) in the signaling cascade of digestion is a really big deal. Not only is the digestive process severely damaged, much of our satiety signaling is taken offline as well. We cannot properly digest our food, we are always “hungry,” and the very food we crave, refined grains and sugary junk, happens to be the cause of the problem.

Saw the following article today that shows clear connection between the diet and various psychological states, such as PTSD:

Low adiponectin levels may lead to development of PTSD symptoms
http://www.news-medical.net/news/20160512/Low-adiponectin-levels-may-lead-to-development-of-PTSD-symptoms.aspx

Individuals with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) relive past traumas again and again, bound in a virtual prison of their memories.

Researchers in the School of Medicine at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio now report a biological mechanism that might explain why these individuals are less able to extinguish the fear of past dangers.

The Health Science Center has filed for patent protection on the finding because it may eventually lead to a drug to treat PTSD, which affects an estimated 8 percent of the civilian population and up to 15 percent of U.S. active-duty and retired service personnel.

The new research centers on the hormone adiponectin, which is secreted by fat cells called adipocytes. The scientists studied a mouse model of PTSD.

Ability to unlearn fear

These mice were trained to associate a setting, such as a box, with a mild unpleasant stimulus. As expected, they showed a fear response when re-exposed to the setting.

Mice deficient for adiponectin and its receptor formed fearful memories just like healthy mice, but when placed again in the same setting minus the unpleasant stimulus, were slower to let go of the fear.

Injecting adiponectin prior to this training prompted faster learning to overcome fear, the measurements showed.

Low level in PTSD model

"Once the threat is no longer there, the fear should go away, but in PTSD it keeps flashing back," said study senior author Xin-Yun Lu, M.D., Ph.D., professor of pharmacology and a member of the Barshop Institute for Aging and Longevity Studies at the UT Health Science Center. "In the PTSD animal model, the circulating adiponectin is low, data suggest. If the genes encoding adiponectin and its receptor are disrupted, the mice extinguish fear responses much slower. If adiponectin levels are elevated in the brain, the mice get extinction faster."

Adiponectin impairment is implicated in metabolic diseases such as obesity and type 2 diabetes. The new research, published May 3 in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, shows the hormone has a role beyond its metabolic control, Dr. Lu said.

"It is interesting that this hormone promotes fear extinction," she said. "Increasing adiponectin levels or activating its specific receptors might facilitate extinction-based exposure treatments for PTSD and other trauma- and stress-related disorders."

Promising, but still years to go

Dr. Lu said people who have low adiponectin levels might be more prone to developing PTSD symptoms if they are exposed to a traumatic event. She noted that it will take years of work to learn if adiponectin can be translated into a therapy for human PTSD.

"To date, medication treatments for PTSD have been of limited benefit," said Alan L. Peterson, Ph.D., ABPP, professor of psychiatry at the UT Health Science Center and director of the STRONG STAR Consortium and the Consortium to Alleviate PTSD. "Dr. Xin-Yun Lu's work holds significant promise for the development of new, more effective medication treatments for PTSD."
 
Funny how it works. Now, curiously enough due to Global Warming myth, there is another good reason to stop eating gluten and corn. A new UN report states that extreme weather causes plants to produce more harmful substances, like aflatoxins and prussic acid.

And considering the fact that due to increasing cataclysms there are going to be food shortages, the picture doesn't look good. Unless that's how they prepare the public, not to mention pushing for the production of GMOs that "can withstand extreme weather".


As they struggle to deal with more extreme weather, a range of food crops are generating more of chemical compounds that can cause health problems for people and livestock who eat them, scientists have warned.

A new report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) says that crops such as wheat and maize are generating more potential toxins as a reaction to protect themselves from extreme weather.

But these chemical compounds are harmful to people and animals if consumed for a prolonged period of time, according to a report released during a United Nations Environment Assembly meeting in Nairobi.

"Crops are responding to drought conditions and increases in temperature just like humans do when faced with a stressful situation," explained Jacqueline McGlade, chief scientist and director of the Division of Early Warning and Assessment at UNEP.

Under normal conditions, for instance, plants convert nitrates they absorb into nutritious amino acids and proteins. But prolonged drought slows or prevents this conversion, leading to more potentially problematic nitrate accumulating in the plant, the report said.

If people eat too much nitrate in their diets, it can interfere with the ability of red blood cells to transport oxygen in the body, the report said.

Crops susceptible to accumulating too much nitrate in times of stress include maize, wheat, barley, soybeans, millet and sorghum, it said.

DROUGHT, THEN RAIN

Some drought-stressed crops, when then exposed to sudden large amounts of rain that lead to rapid growth, in turn accumulate hydrogen cyanide, more commonly known as prussic acid, the report said.

Prussic acid - one of the ingredients used in some types of chemical warfare - interferes with oxygen flow in humans. Even short-term exposure can be debilitating for people, McGlade said.

Plants such as cassava, flax, maize and sorghum are most vulnerable to dangerous prussic acid accumulation, the report said....

EUROPE AT RISK

The UNEP report said Europe will be at growing risk from aflatoxins in locally grown crops if global temperatures rise by at least 2 degrees Celsius. The world is currently on a path to a more than 3 degree Celsius temperature rise, scientists believe.

An increase in toxic compounds in crops is likely to impact heavily on the world's health system, which are already struggling with the effects of food insecurity, Dorota Jarosinska of the World Health Organization's European Center for Environment and Health said in an interview with the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Alex Ezeh, executive director of the African Population Health and Research Center, said the increase in toxins in crops was a big concern.

"Toxic crops can lead to neurological diseases among humans but the greatest challenge is the incidence of cancer," he said in an interview.

The report proposes a list of eight ideas farmers and agricultural experts can adopt to try to limit damage from more crop toxins, such as mapping contamination hotspots and building better evidence about what is happening now with the toxins in their area.

Scientists also suggest that developing crop varieties designed to cope with extreme weather could help reduce the levels of toxic chemicals in food.

"Research centers with the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research are developing seeds that are suitable in various regions that have been hit by climate change," McGlade said.
 
Merci pour vos échanges très intéressants...

Thank you for your very interesting exchanges ...
 
Getting OFF of bread is nearly like getting OFF of HEROIN! It took me weeks to wean myself off and since a year my health, my mind, my overall outlook on life have improved radically!

It is incredible how hard it was for the first months. I would dream about bread and pastries. But now I only eat 2 or 3 slices of bread a month. No more croissants, niet! My mind feels sharper, and I never feel hungry as I used to!
 
romochar said:
It is incredible how hard it was for the first months. I would dream about bread and pastries. But now I only eat 2 or 3 slices of bread a month. No more croissants, niet! My mind feels sharper, and I never feel hungry as I used to!

It is difficult in the beginning but it disappears after a while. However, if you keep having some from time to time, it will take much longer to become free because you keep feeding the related circuitry in the brain. All it takes is to do what it doesn't like for some time and after that you will not think of this drug (because it is) anymore.
 
@Eliza Plank

Bread is a rich source of B vitamins and maybe a need for this group of nutrients is part of why you crave bread so much? You could try B vitamins supplementation or, better, just eating more food providing them (liver etc.)

Also, if you typically eat sourdough-based bread, it may be also about its probiotic values, so you could try to compensate by consuming other probiotic foods, like sauerkraut.
 
@Eliza Plank

Bread is a rich source of B vitamins and maybe a need for this group of nutrients is part of why you crave bread so much? You could try B vitamins supplementation or, better, just eating more food providing them (liver etc.)

Also, if you typically eat sourdough-based bread, it may be also about its probiotic values, so you could try to compensate by consuming other probiotic foods, like sauerkraut.

I don't crave bread anymore, though it was never a huge draw for me even when I was a carbivore. It was pleasurable to eat, but I didn't wake up thinking, "Must find bread!" After a few months I lost interest in it altogether. Since beginning the keto diet some years ago now, I do find that I get bread/carb cravings after I've been sloppy and allowed some into my diet, (like being on a road trip and consenting to a couple of sandwiches or a plate of fries or something.) But that always makes me feel unwell and I drift off it again rather quickly.

You may be right about the B vitamins, though. I have a lot of eggs in my diet, which are rich in B12.
 
I too have quitted eating bread and i feel good. Instead of it, i eat oat meal every morning. If you need a replacement for bread, i'd recommend oat meal.
 
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