Bread of Life... and Crazy.

Bread, or a type there of, has be a staple food in the diet of the west for over a millennia. As we know bread today there are only a few ingredients… flour, sugar, salt, yeast, butter and water. The recipe can change here or there but for the most part that is how bread is made. Yet, when you go into a grocery store today the bread ingredients read a little like this: Enriched Bleached Flour [Wheat Flour, Malted Barley Flour, Niacin, Iron, Thiamin Mononitrate (Vitamin B1), Riboflavin (Vitamin B2), Folic Acid], Water, Whole Grain [Whole Wheat Flour, Brown Rice Flour (Rice Flour, Rice Bran)], Wheat Gluten, Skim Milk, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Sugar, Yeast, Butter (Cream, Salt), Contains 2% or Less of Each of the Following: Calcium Sulfate, Salt, Dough Conditioners (May Contain One or More of the Following: Mono- and Diglycerides, Ethoxylated Mono- and Diglycerides, Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, Calcium Peroxide, Datem, Ascorbic Acid, Azodicarbonamide, Enzymes), Guar Gum, Calcium Propionate (Preservative), Distilled Vinegar, Yeast Nutrients (Monocalcium Phosphate, Calcium Sulfate, Ammonium Sulfate and /or Calcium Carbonate), Corn Starch, Vitamin D3, Soy Lecithin, Soy Flour. Holy mother of God. That is all I have to say.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not a huge raw, non-processed food junkie or anything. But there is something quite polarized about 5 ingredients next 25. I mean, what the hell is ethoxylated Mono- and Diglycerides?! My word processer doesn’t even recognize those words!! Anyway, the point is that bread, in this country, is slightly skewed from its simple counterpart. Three of the ingredients in that bread cause me insanity. Both Soy Lecithin and Soy Flour but also vitamin B2 is grown (yes grown) on soy based products. So, as stated in an earlier blog I don’t know if it makes me go nutty but I eat it as little as possible.

The sad state of affairs is that basic soy free bread (soy lecithin and soy flour and soy oil) let alone vitamin soy free bread (free of enriched flour containing B2) is impossible to find. There are a few out there that are basic soy free. The only bread I can find on a shelf at a grocery store that is basically soy free is sourdough bread. That’s it. There is no soy free alternative on the shelf unless it is sourdough and because most basic bread shelves don’t have sourdough I am left breadless. I love bread.

One of the few places that has loaves of bread in my area that are edible (though they still contain enriched flour) is at Publix. Not only do they have two different types of sourdough bread baked fresh daily, their staff has gone to great lengths too look at their oils, mixes and oats to ensure that the bread IS in fact soy free. They have never made me feel like I’m a problem. Jacob, who works at the bakery in Publix on Enota St. is my favorite. Good kid, hard worker and incredibly thorough. Anyway, the point is that they have a five grain sour dough (quite delightful) and a regular sour dough (equally as good though not as hearty) that are nice and inanity free.

The sad part about bread though is that I can no longer consume regular doughnuts, most pastries or a hamburger bun at a restaurant. There are two places where I can eat a regular meal. Big City Bread Company in Athens and the Nachoochie Grill near Helen are both restaurants that have an offering of fresh baked bread in-house that is edible. Both have staff that were knowledgeable and worked through my food issue. I recommend them both for their amazing breads.

I have tried my hand at making homemade doughnuts. It was a reasonable effort that ended in some lovely doughnut whole concoctions. Whole wheat biscuit mix and some oil and some butter and VOILA! You have a tasty treat. It ain’t no krispy kreme but it gets the job done. I shall be perfecting the recipe over time and will keep you all posted. Until then my friends, home make your bread or check out some good sour dough at your local grocer bakery. Happy Sunday!

Target: The Land of Plenty... Snacks that is.

One of my favorite places to shop for snack foods is Target. This may seem a little strange but Target’s own food brand, Archer Farms, is organic and usually pretty healthy. I can actually eat about 80% of their offerings (at least at my Target). My particular Target is a smaller one but they still have a pretty large Archer Farm selection—though after looking online I have found that they don’t offer near what’s really available.

Speaking of their website, if you’re looking for nutritional information or ingredients online to make the in-store shopping experience easier than you will fail miserable. Target does not have a habit of listing any of this information on their own website. There are some forums that have ingredients and such listed but they aren’t coming from the source.

Overall though, their snack selection is off the chairn. Their corn chips for example are amazing and fried in corn oil and come in a large variety (the blue corn is my favorite). Their salsa is amazing, their fruit snacks are wonderful and they have a kickin’ orgranic nut section.  Archer Farms is one of the few companies that offer a fruit snack variety that is soy lecithin free. They are quite tasty… try the blueberry flavor. They have a large variety of breakfast cereals, which are also soy free. The ones at my local Target were all soy-free but check the label to be sure.

What I find most amazing though is that their frozen pizzas are soy free! This is the only brand outside of a Whole Foods that offers this type of wonderment. I haven’t had a chance to look at all them as, again, my Target’s selection is smaller. But the Mediterranean Tomato Arugula variety is fantastic and paired with their blackberry lemon juice… BAM. So awesome.

If you dive into their bread section however you will be greatly disappointed. All of their breads are soy-filled disaster areas. A lot of their granola bars also have soy in them and anything with chocolate is off limits. Other than that you can have a field day! Go get that wonderful soy free goodness.

The Loves and Landmines of Eating Soy Free at Home

Let me start this by saying I love to eat. This is why I started this soy blog. To figure out what things I can eat. So these are a few of my favorite things I eat at home that are soy free and both awesomely healthy and not.

First off, I’d like to thank the God above that skittles are, in fact, soy free. I have a slight (ok ok… huge) obsession with skittles. I eat them constantly. I’ve cut down to 2-3 bags a week. Sometimes 4. But only sometimes.

Secondly, both Capt’n Crunch AND Coco Puffs are soy free. This means that my mornings are saved by these wonderfully sugary concoctions of glory. They are highly processed and both contain Riboflavin. I have just found out that this particular vitamin is often made by fermenting petrochemicals in soybean oil. It is the by-product of this process that is used to make Riboflavin, also called B2. So while the cereals are soy free the riboflavin might not be and may or may not affect me. The bad thing? There is no way of finding out which plants that make B2 use soybean oil and which ones don’t let alone figuring out which companies use which plant. The good thing? Riboflavin is usually in cereals and breads in miniscule amounts. It’s possible that even if the kind I eat was processed through soy that the amount is so small I don’t have a sensitivity to it.

My favorite breakfast though is Fage (pronounced Fah-yae) yogurts with Stacy’s cinnamon sugar pita chips. Fage has a wonderful assortment of flavors and my current favorite is the Blueberry Acai berry one. It goes really really well with Stacy’s pita chips. Those pita chips are the shit and handle a sweet craving. They’re only mildly processed and they are soy free. There’s lots of flavors but I happen to like those cinnamon ones best.

For a quick dinner get a tube of morning breakfast sausage in the sage flavor (be sure to check labels.. Jimmy Dean rarely uses soybean protein isolate but recipes for sausage can change by region).  I use about a quarter of a tube. Get a can of Amy’s veggie lentil soup, a box of instant mash potatoes, some butter and some parmesan cheese. What you have my friends, is amazing.

            Pan-fry your sausage while you have your soup warming up in a little pot. Put a tablespoon of butter in the bowl you will be using along with about a half cup (more of less depending on how thick you want it to be) of instant mash potatoes. Grate your parmesan (about a quarter cup) and put that in the bowl too. Put, your now bubbling, soup (about half the can) in the bowl with the cheese, butter and potatoes and stir. The soup will thicken up and the butter will melt. Put in the sausage and what’s left is a veggie, sausage, cheesy, mashed potato bowl of awesomeness. It might actually change your life.

Over all I’m finding my way around the kitchen quite nicely. There are land mines though… any dressing (just about) that comes in a plastic container is usually made with soybean oil. If I ever want to eat mayonnaise again I will have to make it myself. Breads must be bought from the baker section of nice grocery stores (walmart doesn’t cary any soy free bread except for the occasion sour dough) and tortillas are nearly impossible to find soy free. Other than that though life is settling down into a nice pace of soy free eating. What’s next on the list for my blog you ask? The best place to buy excellent snacks. Stay tuned!