So I'll be 30 in a few weeks and I've decided that I should start watching my diet/weight. Most of the bread baking I do these days is just routine, high-hydration sourdough. I did some digging around, but couldn't find an answer to the following question: Is the calorie content of bread simply the calorie content of the constituent flour(s)? (Or other ingredients, of course, but here I am just taking about sourdough with flour, salt, and water) I understand that salt does not affect caloric content. Does the starter's yeasts and bacteria feeding on the flour change the calorie count? Is this negligible? Am I over-thinking this?
I think the calorie count is the sum of the ingredients. I had a friend check weight watchers points for different recipes, and they came out the same. I think the impact on weight comes in two ways. First, to the extent you use whole wheat, you may feel fuller eating each slice, thus you will consume less. Second, there is some evidence that sourdough bread will not cause spikes in blood sugar that can be caused by regular bread, and as a result, you will be less hungry later in the day. This study is pretty old, not sure if there is newer one http://www.uoguelph.ca/news/2008/07/sourdough_bread.html
That article is interesting. What is your interpretation of their finding that the whole wheat bread was causing the most negative health issues? Whole wheat bread causing more insulin-related problems..?
I hav asked the same question about fermented beverages such as kombucha tea. But,after all, nothing disappears when it is digested by the yeast, it just changes formula. Alcohol (a common byproduct of yeast digestion in bread and beverages. , still has a caloric count. So when I count calories, I count the calories of the ingredients.
BTW, Wt Watchers points are not necessarily a reflection of calories anymore. They build in a behavioral modification by upping the points on food they want to discourage but not forbid. They used to have an adjustment if it was whole grain but they don' t do that anymore, either. I am in the program, again. I'm figuring out how to work it in-just a matter of not letting it dominate my intake. I bake a lot less but savor a lot more.
Not sure on why the initial finding was that whole wheat caused more insulin problems, this page says that follow up studies were done, but I could not find a link to the actual results. http://www.sourdough.co.uk/sourdough-and-blood-sugar-response-and-diabetes/ Since I use home milled whole wheat, I don't think that the results with commercial whole wheat are all that similar, and it did not seem that he even tested whole wheat sourdough at all, so not sure what conclusions can be drawn about that.