Nerissa Oden - Bread-Free Bread

Bread-Free Bread To my husband, Joe Vitale,
who encouraged me to share my creativity with others in a HUGE way.
You ate every version of bread I made with eager enjoyment.
Your dislike of plain vegetables coupled with avoidance of your food sensitivities
and high carbohydrate foods, challenged me in new ways and helped
to shape what is now called Bread-Free Bread.
I am grateful for you. Your love, encouragement and support seed miracles!
I love you.

My vision for a bread-free bread world Imagine a near future world where your bread has been freed from the bonds of tradition. In this world most breads are made almost entirely from leafy vegetables, fruits, nuts, and seeds. Bread-free bread options would exist in every restaurant, fast-food chain, and grocery store. People would stop buying traditional flours made from the dehydrating and grinding of wheat and would go directly from the produce aisle to the kitchen.

I imagine a world where people feel empowered in their kitchen to turn nutrient-rich vegetables into breads that nourish them and their children. I imagine a feeling of independence regained. They would no longer be limited by their eat-on-the-run options. People everywhere would be using vegetables, seeds, and nuts, along with their own creativity, to make convenience food that they love and that keeps them and their family healthy. What a beautiful world that would be!

A previously unknown way to make breads from fresh vegetables and seeds, using common tools from the average kitchen. While exploring bread, its ingredients and mass appeal, I came to a couple of conclusions about the way I was making bread.

First, bread-free bread is not a traditional bread, and some may say its not bread at all, because historically breads are made from flour and water. The definition of bread is strictly limited to flour, flour meal, and water. Here is Merriam-Websters definition of bread: (1) a baked food made from a mixture of flour and water, and (2) a usually baked and leavened food made of a mixture whose basic constituent is flour or meal. You, like me, may question this simple and extremely limited definition when we have experienced unlimited varieties of breads in just our lifetime. Think about the long list of breads in your history: yeast rolls, fruit bread, flatbread, quick bread, corn bread, pancakes, tortillas, muffins, biscuits, not to mention tall, short, chewy, fluffy, dark, light, and so on. Yet, they are all mainly composed of these ingredients: flour or meal, water, and yeast.

Even potato and corn breads contain mainly wheat flour. All flavorings, herbs, and fruits that we have enjoyed in our breads are tiny in volume when compared to the volume of wheat flour in bread. What is flour? Historically, flour has been made from wheat and other grains. But should we assume this? What is flour exactly? Merriam-Websters defines flour this way: (1) powder made from a grain (especially wheat) that is used in cooking for making bread, cakes, etc.; (2) a product consisting of finely milled wheat; also : a similar product made from another grain or food product (as dried potatoes or fish); (3) a fine soft powder. Heres where we gain a bit more wriggle room when defining what bread is. The fine soft powder used to make bread could be made from anything! Anything that can be dried and ground into a powder, that is.

This makes sense as many alternative breads today are made from dehydrated ground roots, seeds, nuts, beans, and gluten-free grains. Now that our definition of flour has been expanded, Id like to point out that working with any traditional flour can be extremely messy, requiring much cleanup effort. When I made flour breads as research, I was horrified to find a layer of fine food dust covering all items in a four-foot radius, including my floor and rugs. Most would agree that the dehydrating and grinding of flours should best be performed outside the home. Anyone making homemade bread today will need to purchase flour products and expect a messy result. Thats why people just purchase bread thats already baked, and leave the mixing and baking to industry.

So whats bread-free bread? Read on. 1. Bread-free bread is a baked form of raw bread. The raw food movement creates traditional foods using only raw ingredients that remain raw and never get cooked. Raw foods do not use flours or grains unless they are prepared by soaking, for the most part. To mimic traditional wheat-based foods, such as pie crusts, crackers, and breads, the raw food movement utilizes two things (1) sticky ingredients that will hold foods together, such as flaxseeds; and (2) dehydrators that dry foods out with fans and very low heat. Raw crackers that are baked in dehydrators over several hours, even days, are crunchy with similar textures to traditional baked crackers.

They also handle well and store easily, too. Raw food enthusiasts embrace a large variety and amount of nuts, enjoy raw dairy products, avoid highly processed foods, and avoid genetically engineered modified foods. If they so desired they could eat beef tartare (raw ground beef) and ceviche, which is fish that has been cooked without heat. In general, they eat very few things that look or act like traditional breads. 2. Bread-free bread is a new level of the Paleo diet.
Paleo followers eat only items that can be found and gathered in the environment, such as animals, insects, eggs, fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds.

They avoid highly processed foodsincluding oils, sugars, and floursas well as farmed foods, such as dairy and grains. Paleo dieters eat very few items that look and act like traditional breads. 3. Bread-free bread can also be referred to as a quick bread, which is a baked good leavened by baking soda or baking powder instead of yeast.4. Bread-free bread can be called a flatbread because most are baked thin and flat.5. Bread-free bread can also be called a cake, muffin, or biscuit as it may mimic the shape, form, and texture of traditional cakes, muffins, or biscuits.6.

Bread-free bread can also be called fruit bread if made with fruit. So, what is bread-free bread? The simplest answer is, Bread that is made with nontraditional ingredients, but that looks and acts like bread.

Practically all other alternative breads are composed mainly of high-carbohydrate grains, such as rice; highly refined alternative starches such as tapioca flour; allergens, such as palm and nuts; and syrups or questionable sweeteners. Although our understanding of what it means to be healthy has common characteristics that apply to everyone, health is individual as well. Our genetic markers are passed from one generation to the next, yet are influenced by our individual environments: factors such as air, water, toxic surfaces, toxic products, and food. I would argue that our health is impacted by our food environment the most. Our food environments encompass not only food ingredients and quality, but also water quality, supplements, and medicines.Next page