Almost every household buys bread regularly. But the daily breakfast ingredient has come under fire recently from consumer watchdog Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) that says it contains residues of the carcinogenics potassium bromate, potassium iodate or both. So why compromise on quality when you can bake healthy bread at your own convenience?
A traditional loaf only needs flour, yeast, water and salt, says Poonam Maria Prem, a baker. “Eat the bread which will go bad in two days. That’s why either start baking your own bread and see how heavenly your home smells, or get bread sourced from those who make it without additives and preservatives. It is a simple procedure of letting the yeast be the hero. Additives are for prolonged shelf life and higher volume. L-cysteine is a softening agent often added to bread and other baked goods in order to speed up industrial processing. Potassium bromate lessens baking time and strengthens the dough. But it’s not so great when it comes to eating it - it’s been linked to thyroid and kidney cancer,” she says.
As simple as roti: Celebrity chef and Mrs South Asia International 2014, Ruchika Sharma says , “Too much is said about chemicals used in breads. In fact not just breads - anything you buy from outside has preservatives so it’s always better to learn to make it yourself.” “Few simple ingredients go into bread making - flour, yeast, salt and sugar. We can buy fully automatic bread makers in which we need to add all the raw ingredients and the bread gets freshly baked.Baking bread is as simple as making parathas. I make different varieties of bread to impress my tricky kid with different shapes and sizes.
Healthy options: “Bread’s can easily be baked at homes,” says baker Jeemol Koruth Verghese. Jeemol who is popular for her organic bread making class says “Homemade bread is 100 per cent more tastier than the ones we buy from bakeries. On the whole, to bake one simple loaf of bread it would come to less than 2 hours, but one does not have to spend the entire time concentrating on baking. We can bake a bread in between preparing something else as well. For those who have kids at home, it will be fun to bake different kinds of bread.” Whatever the consumer watchdog has to say, the truth remains that people are not going to stop consuming bread. It’s still the most preferred food item in the country. “Basically it is the high branded companies that produce bread with such toxic chemicals in it. The objective is long-term preservation,” says Soju Phillip, Chef of Club Mahindra, Poovar. He adds “Local bakeries that sell breads baked by small-time local bakers are a better option as these are not baked keeping in mind longer shelf life.”
About baking bread at home he says “Only those with keen interest can find baking a bread fun and easy. It is time consuming. Bread baked by us at the resort has simple ingredients like flour, yeast and water. The shelf life of a home baked bread is a maximum of 3 to 7 days. But when buying bread it is advisable to go for local bakers,” says Soju.
