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Thanks for the article @Fermentada. Haven’t read it through properly yet so excuse me if it mentions this but the long ferment and nature of sourdough also breaks down the phytic acid which makes nutrients less bio available.
Definitely! Thanks for the reminder. I added that to my intro of the article.
Antioxidants cause cancer … maybe.
“It had long been hypothesized that antioxidants might be able to protect against cancer …”
“… multiple large randomized, placebo-controlled prevention clinical trials failed to substantiate this idea. Some of the largest clinical trials, in fact, had to be aborted because the patients receiving antioxidants had a higher incidence of cancer than patients who did not receive them. “
The above is from 2015. It was in the news again last week, researchers have nailed it down. Too many antioxidants causes cancer. No idea how many is “too many”. Not going to change anything about the bread I make or eat, antioxidants or not. 
Yep, I lean toward eating everything rather than taking supplements because of research like this and a similar debate on calcium supplements and heart disease, though that may have been settled (not sure).
There’s a well known pseudo science belief that sugar feeds cancer. As always in statements like these there’s partial truth but it’s not the full story. All cells need sugar and cancer cells are no different to healthy cells in that respect. The conclusion that sugar causes cancer is an incorrect conclusion.
Might there be a similar reasoning going on in this research. There’s evidence that antioxidants prevents cancer and yet seemingly it feeds cancer at the same time. Problem is they’ve feed very high amounts of antioxidants to mice they’ve given cancer to and have shown that the cancer cells have grown. This is hardly the same as eating foods which have antioxidants (and most foods have them) in a healthy balance to prevent disease.
Not everything under a microscope or in a test tube always correlates to the bigger picture especially when they’ve created unnatural circumstances.
Every single food has pros and cons. No such thing as a perfect food. That is why a healthy balanced diet that doesn’t deprive you of any food group (unless one is allergic) is the best way.
This last year’s virus fiasco has me reading more about vitamin D than I ever really cared too. So, I come across an article referencing research that indicates increasing vitamin D levels can save your life … and it can interact with vitamin A to kill you. Go figure.
Btw, there is 50-100 IU of vitamin D in a single serving of whole grain bread. Don’t know what a single serving is (for me, if the bread is good, a single serving could be the whole loaf) but supposedly we need 1000-2000 IU of D daily. I take that as meaning we should eat a lot more bread. 
Hi Abe,
I transitioned to bake with sprouted whole grains, and I can say that it has been a challenge. The bread are gummy. Especially when bread flour is omitted from the ingredients. The flavor is unbeatable, but I wished to get rid of the gummy issue.
One of the reasons I moved to sprouted whole grains is the break down of the phytic acid through the sprouting process, but it appears that long fermentation is helping with this as well.
I am wondering whether sprouted grains are needed, especially if one incorporate long sourdough fermentation in the process.
Will you shed some light?
Thank you,
A
Well first of all I’m no expert. I’ll give you my thoughts on the subject @anh but by no means is it gospel.
As far as I know the benefits of sprouting grains are very similar to the benefits that comes from sourdough. Firstly, supposedly they breakdown this phytic acid which is an anti-nutrient which makes the nutrients in the grain more bio-avialable. Basically you can absorb the nutrients more easily. The second health benefit is that the grains/bread are more easily digestible. Some people report gastric upset when eating grains but have no, or less, symptoms if the grain is sprouted or leavened with sourdough.
What’s most important is how each individual responds to whichever process. Some have no issues either way. Others report sourdough helps them to digest because the nature of sourdough is the grain is predigested by the microbes in the starter.
An idea how to incorporate both is to sprout and drain the grains but use them as add-ins to sourdough instead of as the flour for sourdough. So the sourdough is from non sprouted grain but the add-ins are whole sprouted grains for texture and flavour. Best of both worlds. See if that helps with the gumminess.
I have tried adding sprouted grains into non-sprouted flour, the flavor is not the same.
Thank you @Abe
A
Why not try part sprouted flour? Start off at 20% of the total flour and slowly work your way up till you have the best of both flavour and texture.
Or this recipe from The Perfect Loaf…
I went the other route, so am backing up with the percentage sprouted flours in the bakes.
Thank you for the link
A
I agree about the variability of people’s digestion. We know the gut microbiome varies across different people and even the same person over time. I have no problem digesting unfermented wheat and oats, but I have noticed a big improvement in my digestion of legumes, chickpeas in particular, if I let this torta di ceci batter ferment and when I’ve added sourdough to chickpea pasta dough and let it ferment.
@otis Interesting info about Vitamin D. Covid definitely brought the risks of deficiency into the forefront this past year.
You’ve reminded me Melissa. I once made this and really enjoyed it. Can’t remember the exact recipe I followed but nice idea about fermenting the chickpea mix with sourdough starter. I think this needs to be revisited.
Currently it is still felt that getting your calcium from dietary sources is better than supplements. I counsel patients not to take Calcium supplements 600 mg or greater. It may be that the peak levels of calcium after a supplement dose of 600 mg or greater may lead to the increased risk for atherosclerotic disease, but that isn’t certain.
There certainly is mounting evidence that low vitamin D levels increase your risk for severe COVID-19 should you get infected. There isn’t evidence yet that supplementing with Vit D reduces that risk. Of course there hasn’t been enough time to do a trial like that. Because there is a correlation between poor health and low socioeconomic status and low Vit D, it is also possible that it isn’t the low Vit D levels and it is other factors increasing the risk of severe COVID-19. Regardless given the relative safety of Vit D I do recommend to people that they take 1000-2000 IU of Vit D daily. Keeping in mind that I live in Canada which is pretty northerly while people in the southern states may not have the same degree of low Vit D unless they are darker complexioned.
Thank you for sharing the calcium and vit D info. Risk correlation and co-existing factors with low Vit D do make it complicated, and then add to that the need for a trial of whether Vit D supplementation would do any good. Super interesting.
I came across a publication from Harvard Medical that says pretty much everyone above latitude 37 is Vit D insufficient for 6-months of the year and should take supplements during that time. That includes almost all of the USA. They also mention vit D from the sun only happens when the sun is 50° azimuth or above because it is UVB that makes it happen, not UVA. So, sunburn is an issue, and sunscreen interferes with UVB. The recommendation of early morning sun for vit D production will not work.
Not from that pub, from other source, a pathologist, vit D production is reduced in people with darker skin pigmentation. He thinks that is why black people and brown people got hit harder by covid, they have seriously reduced vit D levels. Every cell in the body has a vit D receptor. Vit D is used for cell communication. Low vit D could be involved in creating a ‘cytokine storm’. That’s his thinking. The doc didn’t mention the socioeconomic situation of minorities, but as you said, but that too plays into folks health.