Fake Sourdough, Dyed Breads, Stop Feeling Guilty: Insider Baking Insights
A qualified baker. Former Olympic champion and gold medalist. ‘Baking anarchist’ and founder of the Sourdough School - Vanessa Kimbell is quite the bread-making force. Following our chat with Professor Steven Kaplan about the moment bread went bad in the 1960s, we were keen to find out what sneaky tricks supermarkets are up to now - and what to look out for in the perfect loaf. From fake sourdough to making bread with your own hand microbes, you can’t look at a loaf in the same way after meeting Vanessa Kimbell.
In a nutshell:
Be wary of ‘fresh’ bread in the supermarket - fake sourdough can be as old as two years and only reheated that morning!
Always try to find bread which has at least 6-7% fibre - this will help your gut.
Look for diversity in your loaf - those with high-seed content are best.
The longer the fermentation process, the healthier your bread. Look out for any fermenting detail and the less ingredients, the better.
The microbes needed for your sourdough starter can be found on your hands as well as the yeast in the air when you breathe in - and it’s more simple than you’d think…
When Vanessa Kimbell was nine, her parents bought a house in the south-west of France. She already came from a family of bread-lovers - both her English grandmother and Italian great-grandmother were bakers while her Italian mother was a senior chef at Keele University - yet it was here, in rural France, where bread captured Vanessa’s imagination for the first time. A mere 60 yards away from their house was a local bakery. Every day, Vanessa would arrive to buy a loaf of bread. It sparked the beginning of a new relationship and she never looked back.
>> Watch Vanessa talk to Tim about her insider insights - from why white bread is ‘evil’, to making your own sourdough from your hand bacteria
“Each person has their own bread story. And everybody eats bread, from the Queen of England to the postman”, she tells us, midway through baking a sourdough. “My mum always describes me as defiant. I tend to regard making bread as an act of disruption. It’s a way of disrupting the system.” She laughs, “I’m a bit of an anarchist underneath it all.”
For Vanessa, bread not only brings people together but is a stepping stone to a better life, both as an individual and a member of society. The key, she argues, is changing how we both produce and view industrial bread. She’s keen to push back against the stigma surrounding bread, particularly in the aftermath of the Atkins diet and gluten scare from recent decades. “Never feel guilty, that’s not how you achieve change”, she says vigorously.
Her motivation to bring healthy bread to the masses has been deeply personal. As a young woman in her late teens and a burgeoning baker, she suddenly became ill. “I fell into a black hole and I couldn’t get out”, she says, slowly. “To go from an Olympic athlete in martial arts where I was a British champion and gold medalist, top of my game, to being very tired and lethargic and allergic to wheat, having to give up my chosen profession I loved.” For the next few years, Vanessa stopped eating wheat. At 27, though, she realised that she could eat sourdough without becoming ill. It was a discovery that enabled Vanessa to continue with her baking visions with renewed vigour - and has made her all the more furious at the bread lining the shelves in your local store.
What Counts As ‘Good’ Bread?
“Supermarkets are after profit”, Vanessa says, simply. “You need to always read the label. Ask yourself what you are feeding yourself and your family on a daily basis because you have it for breakfast in the morning and you have it for lunch. That’s twice a day and it can be 20 to 30% of your calories.”
What about the price of bread, though, especially if you have a family to feed? More often than not, it’s cheaper to buy processed bread. “The lower down the socio-economic scale, the more calories you have for wheat”, she explains. “It sounds really awful but it’s even more important if you don’t have a lot of money to make sure you eat good bread.”
So what exactly qualifies as ‘good bread’? For Vanessa, there are two key things to look out for when in the supermarket and looking for bread: fibre levels and diversity.
“I wouldn't dream of feeding my family anything less than about six or 7% fibre”, she says. For diversity in your loaf, Vanessa advises a multi seeded option. Look for multiple ingredients that you recognise the names of, including seeds such as sesame, sunflower, rye and barley. As Vanessa emphasises, “You are not what you eat, you are actually what you absorb.”
Supermarket Bread: How to Spot the Fakes
There are some sneaky supermarket tricks that you can try out, though. First of all, never assume it is fresh bread - it might not be fresh at all. As Vanessa says, “It could have been frozen for two years and then reheated in the oven. Don’t assume it’s been baked on the premises, it’s often reheated.” Your loaf may very well be called a ‘country life’ but as Vanessa quips, “don’t assume it has anything whatsoever to do with the country.”
Another thing to look out for is fake sourdough. Yes, that’s right, turns out your fun-loving go-to fresh loaf of choice is not always what it says it is. This is why it’s so important to read the label, Vanessa explains. “Look for the words long, slow fermentation and for the simple ingredients like flour, salt, water. So many other ingredients make it suspicious.”
So, with her years of experience as an Olympian, who would win in the bread Olympics? “Wholegrain flour is at the top of the pyramid”, she says firmly. This is because of its high fibre count. At the bottom, somewhat unsurprisingly, is the nation’s go-to -Chorleywood-produced white bread. Be wary of brown bread alternatives, though. Turns out some of these might not be any better for you. As Vanessa explains, supermarkets have developed a technique to make bread look brown even if it doesn’t necessarily have any wholegrain in it. They might simply dye it brown.
The popularity of hyper-processed bread might, perhaps in part, be down to perceptions of other loaves. Vanessa argues that the assumption sourdough is only for a ‘hipster’ market or a wealthy elite is damaging because “it’s actually making the most fundamental basic food out of reach for the people who probably need it more than most.”
Bread: A Major Player in Public Health?
Vanessa believes firmly in the importance of inspiring and educating people about bread, even if this sometimes comes at a cost personally. “The things that happened to me were not good”, she admits. Nonetheless, things happen for a reason and in Vanessa’s case, because she understands the bigger picture. “I can see it. That’s a proper driver, there’s no question about it and that’s why I share my knowledge without boundaries.”
Germinate Your Own Loaf
For those wanting to make their own bread but feeling daunted by the prospect, it’s really just a matter of getting hands on - quite literally. According to Vanessa, the microbes needed for your sourdough starter can be found on your hands as well as the yeast in the air when you breathe in. All you need to do is capture it by whisking your finger in some water mixed with fresh flour. It’s really as simple as that.
Posh Herby Sourdough Anyone Can Make
Vanessa has one recipe that she loves and recommends to everyone as her go-to sourdough recipe.
Add some flour, salt and water to your sourdough starter (which you should refresh the day you want to bake).
Put the contents into a tin and drizzle some olive oil over it. If you don’t want to use oil, butter also works well.
Next, add some garden herbs. Vanessa recommends rosemary but you can be as creative as you want here. She also suggests adding some garlic cloves down the sides of the loaf to enhance the flavour.
Season with salt and you are good to go! This recipe is very flexible and some other additions Vanessa mentions include blue cheese, bacon, parmesan, olives and pepper.
For a more detailed breakdown of the recipe, as well as advice on how to make the perfect starter, check out Vanessa’s tips here.
