ISSUE 31, April 2012
IN THIS ISSUE:
- Bakerbob Digestion & welcome to experts
- Sue Kedgley Column & Free Big Mamma Oats
- Product Profile, Pancake Pikelet & Waffle Mix
- Judy’s Recipe, Pikelets with Blueberry Sauce
- FREE OFFER Pancake Mix
- This month’s many winners
- Quote of the month
|
| 
| Digestion… one of my favourite and too less discussed subjects.
DIGESTION. Synonyms, absorption… incorporation. Hmmm. That’s important!
I am delighted to introduce the first of our regular expert contributors. Sue Kedgley who will offer a wealth of knowledge for facts and human interest of the food we are offered to eat.
Sue Kedgley was the Co-Convenor of the Safe Food Campaign from 1994 until 1999 and a Green MP and Food spokesperson for the Green party from 1999 until 2010-1. She is the author of Eating Safely in a Toxic World, a book about food issues in New Zealand. She has launched numerous campaigns and worked tirelessly around food and food safety issues for the benefit of all.
Please click here to see Sue's impressive bio of experience and credentials.
Our second regular and equally impressive expert contributor from a Gluten Free perspective is Judy MacDonald, founder of The Gluten Free Goodies Company.
Judy created our popular GFG flour mixes that are supported by hundreds of tried and tested easy everyday recipes (Click here to see the recipes ).
Judy will offer handy hints and great gluten free solutions for the whole family.
Please click here to see Judy’s impressive bio of experience and credentials.
|
|
- Baker Bob
| 
| The importance of eating naturally fermented bread, by Sue Kedgley
I suspect most people, when they buy bread, don’t give too much thought as to how it’s made.
As long as it looks healthy and tastes good, they will buy it.
But there’s an important aspect in the way bread is made that consumers should consider when they buy bread.
And that is whether the bread has been left to ferment, or rise, naturally, or whether it’s been baked mechanically at high speeds, and has not been left to ferment.
This important aspect of the baking process may determine whether you can easily digest the bread you buy or not.
For millennia, bread has been left to rise or ferment naturally, over many hours.
The process of fermentation helps to break down the gluten and yeast in bread, and the constituents in grain, and this makes it easier for people to digest bread.
But these days hardly any bread-makers leave their bread to ferment naturally anymore.
Instead, they use recently introduced mechanical techniques, which dramatically reduce the time it takes to make bread, and the cost of making bread.
The problem is that these high-speed techniques don’t allow the gluten and starches in the dough to be properly broken down, and this makes the bread harder to digest.
Some people believe the high-speed, mechanical bread-making techniques that are used in most modern bakeries, are contributing to the rise in gluten allergies.
Another problem with mechanically made bread is that twice the amount of yeast is often used to make the dough rise quickly, along with a variety of additives and enzymes, and ingredients like hardened fat, which are often used to help make the dough rise quickly and hold the mixture together.
All of these ingredients may make the bread more difficult to digest.
So we are lucky that there are still a few bakers left, like Purebread, that bake their loaves the traditional way, and leave the dough to ferment naturally for around three hours before they bake the bread.
It would be great if consumers could find out by reading a label whether bread has been traditionally fermented or not, but in the absence of any such requirement, consumers have to find out from bakers whether or not they leave bread to ferment.
Another great thing about Purebread is that it’s organic, so there are not residues of pesticides left in the wheat. This is important when you consider that recent government surveys have found high levels of pesticide residues in conventional bread. That’s probably because pesticides are used not only to produce the wheat that is used in conventional bread, but also after the wheat has been picked and is being stored in grain silos.
By contrast, organic wheat is stored in cold storage, and no chemical pesticides are used to grow the grain or in storing it afterwards.
So we are lucky to have organic bakers in New Zealand.
|
Try a fermented bread for FREE (Just pay $6 postage and handling)!
| | Winner this Month -
Ceri is this month’s lucky Breadboard winner. She will enjoy some delicious organic bread of her choice, gluten free Big Bikkies and a Purebread breadboard crafted from sustainable Macrocarpa wood in Te Horo.
ALSO the winner of the $150 worth of great gardening tools from our local manufacturer Growing things is Leah from Papamoa.
But wait there is more.. the winner of six months FREE bread offered through OrganicNZ magazine is David of Onerahi.
|
| |
|
|  | For anyone on a gluten-free diet, it's always wonderful to have something you can freeze for use in emergencies (like visits from hungry gluten-free children, or fits of tiredness when you just want something nice and toothsome to munch on with no effort involved).
Two of my favourites use Pikelet and Waffle mix. Pikelets are very easy to make and freeze beautifully, requiring only a short burst in the microwave or a quick trip through the toaster to make them ready for eating.
And then there's the wonderful waffle - a fresh-cooked waffle is heaven in my opinion - crunchy and warm, with a little whipped cream and maple syrup. Like the pikelets, waffles freeze brilliantly and can be warmed and crisped under the grill or in the toaster (you do have to break them into sections for toasting!) In my opinion, the gluten-free versions of both pikelets and waffles are nicer than the original wheat flour versions, largely because the rice flour content makes them light and less prone to sogginess.
The Pikelet recipe can also be thinned down a lot and used to make really thin, crispy pancakes, which I love. You might like to try them with our Blueberry Sauce recipe, which goes superbly with both pancakes and waffles.
Happy eating!
|
|  |
Pikelets, Pancakes with Blueberry Sauce
Click here for this easy but delicious treat along with pancakes and waffles.
| |
Things are slowing down in the garden. Winter crops like carrots, beetroot, silver beet and the cabbage family should already be in (get them in pronto if not.) Two crops can go in now- broad beans and garlic (more about these later). Otherwise, it’s all about compost and looking after the soil so it’s ready for next spring. Beds that aren’t being used over winter can be cleared (avoid growing a winter weed crop) and sown with green manure like lupins or mustard. Or make a compost heap on top of the bed- this means less barrowing in spring.
Plant: Garlic, lettuce, silver beet, beetroot, celery.
Sow: Broad beans, carrots, beetroot, miner’s lettuce.
For more detailed instructions and previous handy hints please click here.
 Broad Beans:
Broad beans are pretty bombproof and make a great beginner’s crop from seed. They’re also enriching the soil by 'fixing' nitrogen from the air. When it’s time to plant spring crops, leave the roots in the ground for maximum benefit.
 Garlic:
Planting in May means garlic should be ready before Christmas. As well as being used in cooking around the world, garlic is a strong antibiotic and antiviral. If you feel you are getting a cold, eating three cloves or so will stop it in its tracks (do this with an apple in the other hand, alternating bites, to take away the sting!
The Council Green Gardener, Hannah Zwartz, offers sustainable and waterwise gardening advice to local residents, community groups and schools.
To contact the Green Gardener, call the Council on
296 4700 or 0800 486 486, or see www.kapiticoast.govt.nz/greenservices.
| 
| Pancake Pikelet and Waffle Mix
TRY ONE FOR FREE see below from the Gluten Free Goodies Company.
The products from this mix are truly fantastic whether you are a gluten free person or not.
Pancake Pikelet and Waffle Mix is gluten and dairy free and even though the recipe on pack suggests eggs, pikelets are actually really good with NO EGGS should that be your allergy.
Easy to make and easier to eat and as Judy states, great from the freezer too as a quick after school meal or delightful pudding idea.
Try a Pancake Pikelet and Waffle Mix for FREE
When you make a purchase at our online shop, make sure that you enter 'PPW' in the promo code field to receive your free Pancake Pikelet and Waffle Mix.
|
| 
| “Contemplation is to knowledge what digestion is to food - the way to get life out of it”
Tryon Edwards
|
| |
|
You are currently subscribed as: 