In This House, We Obey the Laws of Thermodynamics!

[mpgreco]

So It's been forever since I've posted, blah blah blah. I've mostly been fairly emotionally wrecked lately, and the past couple of weeks have also seen some crazy allergy action. I think the pager from work has not been a big help; I've had less reserves with which to come back from a week of no/interrupted sleep, and maybe JUST maybe, I'm not as

Comments

[mizerychick]

Lactobacillus \m/

If you need some wheat gluten, let me know. We get ours from the Amish.

[clever_title]

I never understood how you can just set up a bacteria ant farm, and wind up with a sourdough starter. To me, it seems like wandering around the backyard for mushrooms for your salad - you might wind up with something edible, but you're more likely to wind up that will kill you.

BTW: "our" women? Do you have a communal harem you haven't told me about?

[mpgreco]

Yeah sourdough is fun stuff, the reason sourdough can be made at home without anything special as opposed to, say yogurt, is that sourdough is basically a self-defending symbiosis between the yeasts and the lactobacilli. The Yeasts break down the starches into less complex sugars, and the bacteria feed off of their wastes, the yeasts can survive a slightly higher pH environment, as can the lactobacilli, and the lactobacilli actively create lactic acid, among others I think, as waste products. This more highly acidic environment kills off all the pathogenic baddies and keeps the environment of the sourdough such that only the yeasts and the lactobacilli can thrive, creating a sustainable ecosystem for them (that needs to be fed and watered now and again...). The yeasts naturally live on the husks of the grains (which is why whole grain unbleached flours work best as starters), and the lactobacilli most come from your environment, your skin, etc... It's really cool stuff. It was really cool to see the rye/water mixture go from

[mpgreco]

I do add gluten to the breads to help rising, but for some reasons rye on it's own, even with the gluten added in doesn't take as well as a bread unless there's whole wheat in there seemingly at least in a 1:1 ratio (still have to add gluten, but the bread turns out good). Maybe I should try an all rye bread with a crackload of gluten and see if that helps...

I've started buying all organic grain products for baking, mostly arrowhead mills and Bob's red mills.

[thor_leifson]

Just posted about you over on my place. :)

[mpgreco]

awesome :) I thinked I checked my friends page right before you posted that :)

[clever_title]

Oh, oatmeal (actually any whole grain with lots of soluble fiber) is good at regulating blood sugar, letting you maintain a stable and lower level. I like the steel cut (Irish) oatmeal, myself. McCann's are the standard, but even Quaker is selling them now.

[mpgreco]

I'm not a big fan of oatmeal (it's a texture thing), but I love whole grains in general, I'm just more willing to put in the effort to procure and eat them now.

Cinnaminon

[paulisdead]

Isn't cinnamon the best blood sugar regulator out there?