Latest / Fork U with Dr. Terry Simpson / Bread: The Evil Staff of Life

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Bread: The Evil Staff of Life · Fork U with Dr. Terry Simpson

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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?