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Bread: The Evil Staff of Life
Episode 5410th July 2024 • Fork U with Dr. Terry Simpson • Terry Simpson
00:00:00 00:11:22

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Should I eat bread?

The low carbohydrate movement has demonized bread.  But is bread fattening? Does it cause inflammation? And if so, why do we call bread the Staff of Life?

The Staff of Life

Imagine calling white bread the staff of life. And yet bread is more responsible for humans ending a nomadic existence. The cultivation of wheat and barley, both in the Nile and in the Euphrates/Tigris rivers, led to civilization.

Calendars, Art, Religion

Not having to forage meant there was time to build a more permanent shelter. It also meant a steady supply of food.

This also meant a calendar was needed because when is the optimal time to plant?

The calendar helped predict when the rivers would swell and recede. The bottom land, with its rich topsoil, is ideal for growing crops.

When you don't need to spend time looking for food, you have time to develop other things:

  • Make a religion around grains - the god of the weather, of the earth of the river
  • Grain can become the first currency, facilitating trade
  • Art because you spend less time seeking food
  • Storage systems to overcome times of famine.
  • Mathematics, weights, and measures are needed to buy and sell grain
  • Writing to make contracts and facilitate trade of the grain
  • A government is needed to settle disputes

Storage Systems

Harvested grain can be stored. Storing grain in Egypt was easier because of the dry climate.  Joseph, of the Hebrew Bible, prophesied to the Pharoh of an upcoming famine. As a result, the Pharoh built silos and stored a portion of each harvest.  Seven years later, the harvest failed.  But

The silo system was complex. Filling from the top and arranged in a way that winds would keep the grains cool.  Where did Egyptians get the idea for such an invention? From bees. You can see the bees' natural ventilation system here:

Bees were the symbol of royalty in ancient Egypt. Their honey was tears from the sun god. Bee architecture was copied for the ventilation system for the silos storing grain.  Thus, the storage of grain allowed society to thrive during the time of famine.

Bronze Age to Iron Age

Bread was portable. Served as currency. Allowed armies to march. Facilitated trade between city states. The grain rich regions of the Nile produced grain traded with Mycennians for olive oil and wine.

The Roman emperors gave bread to the poor as welfare. Part of the bread and circus program to keep Romans happy. Bread was imported to Rome, and ultimately, Roman citizens were given "their daily bread."

Rome fell, but bread continued to be important.

Bread until 1920

Grains, including bread, were the major source of calories for most of Europe. From the fall of Rome through the Middle Ages, bread was the main source of calories, along with other grain products.

Bread in the Industrial Age

White bread was considered pure, hygienic, the whiter the better. Brown bread could be contaminated. The ability of mills to separate wheat from chaff, and to make bread without a human hand touching it was irresistible. Industrial bread slicing resulted in "best thing since sliced bread."

White bread became the preferred style of bread from the 1920s until 2009.

Fortification of bread with vitamins in the 1940s made bread a health food.  Pellagra (vitamin B 3 deficiency) and beriberi  (thiamine deficiency) had sadly become common in the US and were eliminated by fortification. So it was indeed revolutionary, but calling it a health food? Even the Federal Trade Commission had issues with this "12 ways campaign" and sued Wonder Bread. The Feds lost.

Age of Aquarius Beats Bread

In spite of the world loving white bread, with baby boomers and Gen X growing up on it, there was rebellion.  Health guru Adele Davis, who sold millions of health books, decried bread for its lack of fiber and urged people to make whole wheat bread at home.

But then came the hippies and the summer of love.  Hundreds of kids were flocking to San Francisco without jobs, without money, and hungry. Feeding these young adults became a group priority.

In 1967, Walt Reynolds came, brought 400 pounds of flour, and baked bread twice a week to feed these kids. They didn't have enough bread trays, so they used coffee cans.

Walt insisted on using whole wheat bread, something rare in those days. But this became part of the counter-culture. Make your own bread. Make it healthy. It became their own bread, their own symbol.

We don't know what happened to Walt Reynolds after this - he lives, changed the way a generation looked at bread, and then disappeared.

Atkins and Bread

The low carb movement of the 1970's meant bread sales went declined. They recovered a bit, but in the second Atkins revolution, bread sales were down in some bakeries by 40%. Today Atkins Corporation sells bread.

But How to Make It

While there were lots of recipes to make bread from Digger Bread, as seen above, home cooks wondered. Then came along another baker who made the bread everyone dreamed of. From the baker of the Zen Retreat - we have this book.

In 2009 whole wheat bread surpassed white bread as the major bread sold over time. With fiber at the core all whole wheat products have increased.

And we can say for certain—yes, you can buy bread—but buy or make your own. Today, I can walk to a local baker who makes whole-grain sourdough bread.

Transcripts

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>> Dr. Terry Simpson: Can I eat bread? It's one of the more common questions I'm

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asked by patients, and the answer is yes, although I

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prefer you eat a whole grain. Did you know that

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whole grain bread was all but impossible

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to find in grocery stores through the 1980s?

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Today, on, four q we will travel

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from 10,000 years BC

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in the fertile crescent to the hippies in San

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Francisco in the 1960s. This day, we

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will give you your daily bread. Is it the

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staff of life or the scourge causing

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modern disease? I am your chief

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medical explanationist, doctor Terry Simpson, and

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this is for Q Fork

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University, where we make sense of the madness,

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bust a few myths, and learn a little bit about

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food. May or may not be medicine.

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The cultivation of barley and wheat is truly what

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ended the nomadic life of human beings.

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Cultivation of wheat and barley from the Nile river and from the

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Tigris and Euphrates river allowed people to finally

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stay put. This also meant a

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calendar was needed, because when is the optimal time to

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plant? When will the waters of, the rivers recede

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as they do every year? And by the way, what is a

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year when you're not out gathering and

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hunting? You have time on your

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hands, and because of this, you

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have art, because you spend less time seeking through,

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you develop storage system to hold the grains and the

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bread. You develop mathematics and weights and

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measures to measure the bread. You develop a writing

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system to make contracts and to contact other people to

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facilitate trades of grain. Of course, you have

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to have a government system to settle disputes,

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and you have to have buildings because.

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Buildings and pyramids because why

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not? Now, I know you're going to

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find some of these low carb ancestral types

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saying human beings were worse off after

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agriculture than we were as a group of

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foraging. You can debate that all

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day, but it's not really interesting. We have

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modern Manda because of bread.

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The baking of bread also influenced worship.

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Egyptians worshipped the God called Isis, which was the God

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of the mother and the sky, because all you needed was

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the earth and the sky to produce good

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crops. Romans had a counterpart called Circes, who

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is a goddess of the growth of food and plants. And those

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Cyralia festivals in Italy were well attended from about

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300 bc on.

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From that culture of bread

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came what we called bread as the

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staff of life. It

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allowed armies to march, it allowed

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civilizations to trade. Bread became

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some of the first currencies. Bread and grain could

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be stores in time of famine, so people would be able

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to survive. You can even find this in

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the Hebrew Bible, where Joseph has foretold a

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famine in the pharaoh tax grain built

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silos, kept them in shelters and on the blog

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associated with this

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yourdoctorsorders.com or four q.com comma.

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You can see excavation of those silos from the

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friends at the University of Chicago. Those same

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silos were at the time of Joseph.

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The great thing about Egypt was their weather was

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dry and they had a little bit of wind, so it allowed

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grain to be stored for years. And

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that stable food source allowed Egypt to

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develop as a society from about

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5000 bc onwards.

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Bread allows you to trade for olive oil, for

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bronze, for gold, for wine.

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So you have that entire bronze age civilization

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and that trade. From the Minoan region

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all the way over to the Phoenicians, whole

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grain bread was the major source of calories

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and little did they know, also vitamins.

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Before 1920, bread was made either in

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homes or in bakeries by

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immigrants. And there was a lot of food borne illness

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during that time. And there was a tremendous fear about

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bread because the thought of it being touched by

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those immigrants was hard for some people

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to digest. So when

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factory bread making came in, when that

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industrial age brought white bread, because white is

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pure, and the industrial bread slicing,

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because nothing's better than sliced bread all wrapped

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up in this clean bit of cellophane not touched by human

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hands, that became the preferred

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method of bread. Now there were

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holdouts. 7th day Adventists baked their own bread. And there were

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other health gurus that always said whole grain bread

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was better. But when the fortification of

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bread came in the 1940s, it wiped out

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two common pellagra, which

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is a vitamin b three deficiency, and

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beriberi, which is a thiamin

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deficiency. And if you want to hear about

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thiamin deficiency, please listen to my podcast called

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the first vitamin bread.

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Truly was, in the 1940s, considered

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to be a, health food. And some of you may

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remember the phrase of wonder bread, that it builds

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strong bodies twelve ways

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as women went from being homemakers to the

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workplace. It sure was a lot easier to buy bread

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than to make it. Now, I want you to imagine in

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the 1950s, when people aren't baking bread and they

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would visit Italy and they would eat

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bread that was something completely different than what

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they were used to. You would go to these small

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villages and for lunch you might have

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bread, a little bit of cheese,

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some fresh fruit, and maybe some

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wine. When Ancel

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keys was looking at this, he found that the average person would eat

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two thirds of a pound of bread. And he

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was amazed that bread was simply made with a high

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protein flour. Water used in salt.

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Then came the hippies. So

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I want to take you back to 1967 and the summer of love

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hate Ashbury in San Francisco, when young people

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were arriving in San Francisco without jobs,

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without prospects, but definitely

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hungry. The local hippies,

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welcoming these new immigrants developed food

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banks. And then out of

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nowhere, came Walt Reynolds, who for

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three years baked whole bread

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twice a week to give it away.

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And he insisted on whole wheat

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bread. He developed the first

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bacons. Now, we don't know the motivation

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of Walt, why he came there or why he left without

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a trace. But there's no doubt that Walt

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Reynolds saved lives. And if you know Walt,

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an engineer from Palo Alto, please send me an email.

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Whole, wheat bread made by hand, became a part of the

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counterculture movement of the hippies. It was

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everything to them. And white bread

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became a symbol of everything that was wrong with America. It

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was plastic, it was corporate, it was white,

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it was soft. Make your own bread.

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Go against the man. Hippies weren't the

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first to decry white bread. The 7th day Adventists

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had done that for years. And were some of the few people baking bread at

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home. Ann, a, famous health

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guru from the time, popular on radio with millions of books

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sold. She also thought people should bake their

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own bread. Davis even contributed one of

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the baking ovens to one of the free bread kitchens in

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the San Francisco area. Eating whole

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wheat bread was just an act of

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rebellion. That's bread. But

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how to make bread? Not everyone could be Walt

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Reynolds, and get Walt Reynolds around. And when you look

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at his bread recipes, it's for making hundreds of pounds of

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bread. How do you make your own loaf?

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And then came Edward Brown,

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who was a baker for a Zen retreat a little south

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of San Francisco. He had put together a

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bunch of mimeograph papers for those people who wanted

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to learn to bake bread. And then he came across a guy

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who said, I'll give you a royalty. We're going to make

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a book. And he signed it. And he authored what is

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called the, Tazahara Bread book, which became an

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instant bread best

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seller. I even have a copy

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of. Later, in the 1970s through

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the 1990s, there came one doctor, Robert Atkins, who

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said, white bread, white flour, white sugar,

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white rice was poison, and if you want to

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lose weight, don't eat those things. As a

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result, corporate bread sales went

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down and the interest in whole grain bread

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went up. And in fact,

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2009 marked the inflection point

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where more whole grain bread was sold than

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white bread. Today, you can almost walk down

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any street, find a new bakery selling some

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whole grain sourdough that you have to cut yourself.

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It's nutty, chewy,

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delicious, and you can see why

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people were able to survive off of this as their

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major source of calories in western Europe during

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those middle ages. So when you

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hear people decry the old white, puffy, marshmallowy

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bread that was fortified with vitamins, don't

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be too arrogant. Just

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remember that fortification of white bread in the

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1940s ended nutritional deficiencies in the

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United States.

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It wasn't perfect, it didn't have fiber,

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but it allowed a group of baby boomers and Gen

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xers to grow up strong and healthy.

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Today, however, be grateful that in

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almost any store, you can buy that nutty,

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chewy, delicious, fiber filled, vitamin

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naturally sourced bread.

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It's not bad for you. Unless, of course, you have

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a gluten problem because you have celiac disease or have a wheat

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allergy. But otherwise,

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bread made by your local artisanal

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baker, or even commercially, can be a

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delicious, wonderful thing. I prefer

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it dipped in a delicious olive

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oil, maybe with a little bit of cheese, maybe with

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a little balsamic vinegar. And a park

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can be a wonderful place to have that

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while enjoying the beautiful sunshine.

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Can you eat bread? Please do.

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New bread. It is the staff of

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life. This was researched and written

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by me, Doctor Terry Simpson. And, while I am a doctor, I am not

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your doctor. And if you need any medical information,

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I'm not your guy. Please see your own board certified,

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western trained physician. Not a chiropractor,

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not a naturopath, but a real doctor.

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Simpler media distributes this. And my good friend, the pod God.

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Mister Ivo Terra. Enjoy a piece of

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good sourdough bread, my friends. We'll see you next

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time.

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Hey, Ivo, you know what?

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I've got this great bakery down the street,

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so when you and the other doctor come and visit,

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we're going to have some great bread with olive oil. Looking forward to

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seeing you sometime soon.

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Apropos of nothing, are

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those hippies down the street as well?

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