These crazy times call for bread therapy

We’ve lately switched from watching people competitively bake on TV to doing it ourselves.

Baker's yeast is more elusive than toilet paper. Rare sightings are urgently reported, it’s there for a moment, then gone again. It’s the most sought after item in my NextDoor messaging boards. Baking supplies are flying off the shelves. Procuring flour – especially the rare white whole-wheat type ­– is another small triumph in the Covid-19 era.

Bread as therapy

Stay-at-home orders make food preparation a necessity. But it seems like what we’re longing for is more than a satiating meal. We want to bake bread. 

Why do we derive such pleasure from kneading dough, seeing it rise and tearing its crackly crust?

Any creative activity that you engage in gives you a small mental boost. Checking off a to-do list is somewhat satisfying, but a creative task is more therapeutic than tidying your bed. And while most of us can’t write a poem, play the cello or come up with a creative solution to a work problem on any given day, we can create a dish. A study of 465 college students found that the most common do-it-yourself or “maker” activities were domestic arts: baking, cooking and gardening, and that these activities improved mood and kept participants in the present.

Cooking and baking are widely used as an occupational therapy modality. Making food is found to boost self esteem, reduce anxiety and improve mood.

And it looks like we all need some occupational therapy these days.

Bread baking incorporates another beneficial healing modality – art therapy – right into it. Dough, much like clay, paint and wood, is incredibly tactile, we can’t stop petting that baby (and that baby, unlike buttery pastry dough, appreciates as much caressing as we’ll give it); bread making is sensual, primal, and takes mastery. 

Eat more bread?

Bread, the most widely consumed food in the world, a staple of the human diet for thousands of years, has become something many people are trying to avoid.

How come the food that almost defines human cooperation and civilization got such a bad rap? It came in three superpositioned waves. 

First came refined grain and industrial white soft bread.

Bread used to be a four-ingredient food—milled grain, water, salt and a leaven, usually yeast. The mastery of bread making wasn’t about clever ingredients but rather about technique, patience and heat.

The vast bread section in supermarkets displays a different kind of bread, a bread made with refined flour, vitamins and iron added into the mix—refined flour is enriched according to FDA regulations to compensate for what the refining process takes away, as removal of the germ and bran from the wheat grain takes away much of its micronutrients and fiber. Many brands of bread also contain a long list of softeners, additives, conditioners, preservatives and other unpronounceable chemicals.

Yes, that soft white bread is not very good to eat, in Michael Pollan speak, it should be called an edible bread-like substance.

Then came the carbs-are-bad perennial myth.

The focus on macronutrients has been terribly misguided. Yes, refined sugars are associated with bad outcomes, but it’s not because they’re carbs. Fruits and veggies are also mostly carbs. Whole grains are actually associated with lower risk of diseases such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes and colon cancer. Whole grains are associated with digestive health and with lower rates of obesity. A recent study in the Lancet suggests that 3 million yearly deaths in 195 countries can be attributed to low consumption of whole grains.

On top of that came the gluten-is-bad era.

Gluten, however, is a problem only for people with celiac, or a gluten sensitivity. Gluten-free for the rest of us is neither healthier nor more pure. Gluten-free should be read like allergen information, not like a mark of distinction, and gluten-free foods can also be pure junk.

Of the three layers of undoing bread’s good name only the first has merit.

Bread, we owe you an apology

Bread made with whole grain is good to eat, it’s delicious, and it has deep cultural roots. I can’t imagine going without it for long. Perhaps its delightfulness makes moderation a bit of a challenge, but we don’t shun spring’s splendor because it distracts us too much. If I had to pick only three foods to survive on bread would be one of them. 

Jews who observe Passover go without bread for a week. The holiday is a reminder of hard times, of slavery and of redemption but for many, going without bread renews the appreciation for this humble yet genius wonder. It doesn’t take a week for bread craving to take hold. 

In these fearful times we long for the comforting aroma of freshly made bread. The bakeries in Paris are open, their work deemed essential, grateful clients form long lines that snake around the block. You can ask French people to stay home, but you can’t take away their fresh bread.

Will we continue to bake bread once life goes back to normal? Maybe not, but anyone who bakes bread with simple healthful ingredients learns to appreciate the baker, and a good loaf of real bread. 

Let’s hope bread forgives us for shunning it, for confusing it with its fake look-alikes, for calling it evil. 

Bread, and its makers, are indispensable.

Dr. Ayala

-----------------

Don’t have time or patience for a sourdough loaf just yet? Start with whole wheat pita bread, simple bread therapy at its best, especially when you see that pita pocket forming.