Around ten years ago our business partner Mark Young and I launched an advertising and PR campaign aimed at stopping the misuse of the term sourdough. It was our argument, and I still hold to it today, that bread containing commercial yeast was not sourdough. Traditionally the term sourdough was for bread made from natural fermentation using wild yeasts.
According to the Cambridge Dictionary sourdough is a mixture of flour and water that is left to ferment (= change in a chemical process) and then used to make bread.
Unfortunately the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission (ACCC) decided in its myopic wisdom that rather than protect the consumer as it should do, they would support the continuation of this deceptive practice. Their argument was the consumer would be able to decide if the sourdough they were buying was real or not. That is quite simple to do if the bread is labelled, but not that easy if it is not packaged.
At the time we launched the campaign, we were primarily concerned with so-called artisan bakers who were calling their bread sourdough when it was clearly made with yeast and often other additives. At the time we did not foresee the large-scale introduction of fake sourdough by the likes of Coles whose “stone-baked sourdough” has yeast clearly marked on the label. Yes, it allegedly does contain a sourdough culture but any natural yeast cells in the culture would be wiped out by the millions of yeast cells in the commercial yeast.
This situation has now been made even worse by the introduction of mass-produced “Helga’s Sourdough”, a standard white yeast based bread with “3% sourdough culture”! That is just one tablespoon per loaf! To my mind this is just blatant deception and totally misleading.
This is the ingredient list of “Helga’s Sourdough”:
Wheat flour, water, yeast, soy flour, sourdough (from fermented rye) (3%), canola oil, vinegar, iodised salt, wheat gluten, emulsifiers (481, 471, 472e), cultured wheat flour, wheat semolina, vitamins (thiamine, folic acid).
This is the ingredient list for Coles “Sourdough”:
Wheat flour, water, salt, malt (barley, malted barley), wheat bran, soy flour, yeast, vitamins (folic acid, thiamine).
Compare this to the ingredients of genuine sourdough:
Flour, water, salt.
So what are all the other ingredients in Helga’s and Coles’ breads for? They are primarily an aid to mechanised production and lowering fermentation time. It should be noted that the flavour and texture of sourdough comes from the tradition of long, slow fermentation.
Soya flour has a bleaching effect on flour, and assists the machinability of dough and the volume and softness of bread, enabling more water to be added to the dough.
The vinegar would be there mainly as a preservative but may also provide an acidity to the taste which occurs naturally in genuine sourdough. The addition of wheat gluten is to make the dough stronger and generate extra rise.
482 is a combination of calcium, stearic acid and lactic acid, resulting in a mixture of several components. The origin of stearic acid can be plant or animal fat, although in practice vegetable oil will nearly always be used. Although mainly vegetable oils are used, the use of animal fat (including pork) cannot be excluded. Several groups, such as vegans and some religious groups avoid these products. Only the producer can give detailed information on the origin of the fatty acids. Chemically the fatty acids from vegetable or animal origin are identical.
Mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids (E471) refers to a naturally occurring class of food additive composed of diglycerides and monoglycerides which is used as an emulsifier. These diglycerides and monoglycerides have no limit for daily intake.
What is emulsifier 472e made from? It is a synthetic emulsifier made from a chemical reaction of acetic acid, tartaric acid glycerol and fatty acids. It can also be produced from diacetyl tartaric anhydride with mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids that are derived from edible sources.
The inclusion of thiamine and folate are Australian government mandated additions to flour unless it is organic and something else I don’t really agree with.
The ACCC should now act and put an end to the mislabelling. Any study of the history and practice of sourdough bread making would clearly show that what Helga’s and Coles are calling sourdough is clearly not!
It is worrying that most consumers are turning to genuine sourdough bread for the clear health benefits as much as the taste and texture and are being duped into buying what is just another commercial bread.
Australian wine producers have had to stop using terms like “Burgundy” in their wine descriptions through action by French authorities and my argument is that the misuse of the term sourdough is just as misleading.
For me this is a call to action. I am writing to both the ACCC and Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) asking that they take action on the misuse of the term sourdough. I will also write to both my state and federal government member pointing out that the two breads mentioned come nowhere near the Cambridge Dictionary definition. If this situation concerns you anywhere near as much as it concerns me, I suggest you do the same.
Genuine sourdough has unique properties through its reliance on wild, natural yeasts and long, slow fermentation. There are well-documented health benefits in choosing genuine sourdough bread as your bread of choice. The term sourdough should not be corrupted by manufacturers and retailers just looking for commercial advantage.
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