Straight white and some focaccia

After a few bad batches, decided to go back to basics. Decided to go with a simple straight white bread and make some focaccia with the left over dough.
I am currently going through Ken Forkish's Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast and am about to start getting into making a starter. When I first sat down to read the section on getting it going I was taken aback by how wasteful his method seems and took to the forums to find that I'm not the only one.