I was a vegetarian when I started (vegan for only 1 year of the entire 22 years I had not eaten meat when baking took hold of my attention). I liked bread and cheese, and it became my staple.
I was never entirely convinced that so much grain was a good thing. I'm in the process of learning about it. I had a healthy suspicion about the health claims of the grain marketing boards.
I am particularly interested in what we as a society, and as the human race, are doing in terms of feeding ourselves. Grains feed the human population of the world. To grow the grains that feed us, we have terraformed the earth, draining swamps and cutting forests. We have destroyed or changed the habitat of thousands, or millions of other creatures. Still, we are told it is not enough. In order to feed the coming hungry bellies of humanity, we are told by those who control the seed that we need newer varieties, and they are willing to use transgenic techniques to make those new varieties. Is that a good thing? Corn and Soy are currently in the food supply as transgenic products. Only wheat is (so far) not. I occasionally monitor and update the Wiki on transgenic wheat when and if I get more information. Of course, others contribute there too, and I'm not always happy about the things that are reported there.
An old version of this page said:
I suspect that I am writing about bread for several reasons, many of them complex. For one thing, I love to write. Unfortunately, with the job I have as a palliative care nurse, I am unable to write freely or even speak freely about what I do, for obvious ethical reasons. Furthermore, in my job I am immersed in death, and dying, and pain, and grief. That is my daily reality, my 'meat'. So when I bake bread, here I find at my hands an expression of life, a symbol of life, the means of life, the wonder of life, the joy of life. I can write about bread without fear that someone will take offense at what I am saying. I can write about baking bread without violating any confidences or giving away any sacred deathbed confessions I might hear. It may be true that in a blog, "No one cares what you had for lunch." But it might also be true that, writing for no one but myself, I can set aside caring for a moment, and just write.
I make notes on the breads I make, successes and failures. I write notes to myself. I doubt if anyone else will ever read them, but guess what? I am not 'monetizing' these blogs. I am not trying to be number one on Google when you search for 'Exorphin'. I'm not trying to expand my readership. Who has time for all that? I'm not doing this to make money, I am doing this to make bread, to learn about healthy eating, and write, and to have a creative outlet. The links I sometimes put to books on Amazon.com are not an endorsement of that service, they just point to some of the books I've used, and Amazon merely has convenient reviews of books, and often pictures of them.
This blog is a journey of mind and body and spirit through bread. One of the greatest spiritual teachers that ever walked the earth personally identified with bread. Perhaps I will eventually blog about what I feel he meant by that.
Or maybe not. If I did write about something important, other than baking bread, surely I would piss somebody off.
In May 2013 I decided to see if I could live without bread, and became a vegan again at the same time. I began with a 3 day fast, which expanded to a week, then a month, then a year. At the end of the year, I fully intended to return to making and eating bread, but then I stumbled upon the work of Alessio Fasano, updated my page on "health concerns of wheat and other grains." and decided that I really ought to minimize my consumption of gluten, if not completely stop it.
That's where I'm at today: no longer eating bread.
And eftsoode he seide,
to what thing schal I gesse the kyngdom of God lyk?
It is lyk to sourdough that a womman took,
and hidde it into thre mesuris of mele til al were sourid.
- From the Wycliffe Bible
