In the news
Radio and TV news people were handed a dream teaser today, “Pizza is a health food? Find out more coming up.” I heard this six times throughout the day today on the news radio channel while driving. Of course I never did hear the follow-up as I usually exit the vehicle once I reach my destination. I have to think I’m not the only one getting part of the story. I imagined some story about how research paid for by an association of national pizza chains claims the pizza sauce counts as two servings of vegetables each day. Turns out, food chemists at the University of Maryland did find that pizza can be more healthy if made properly. Specifically, what they found was the amount of antioxidants in the pizza crust can be increased if the dough is allowed to ferment for more time and is baked longer at a higher temperature. The other key is the flour used was whole grain. The temperature ranges tested were 400° F to 550° F and the baking times were 8 to 14 minutes. The team tested fermentation times of up to 48 hours.
So that’s basically it, you can make a pizza with more antioxidants. Calories are the same, the amount of fat is the same, and the carbohydrates didn’t change. The buffet at the local pizza place isn’t suddenly better for you. The best way to get the benefits in this study is to make the dough yourself and do it right. I found a number of recipes in my cookbooks for whole grain crusts that fermented for 12-18 hours and baked for 10 minutes at 500° F, putting them squarely in the guidelines provided by this study.
Really, the more interesting thing is how this study can be applied to the more general world of baking. The team used pizza dough for the study because it is a widely used wheat product. Pizza crusts are simply flatbreads, not unique in any way beyond style and use from other breads. While this study doesn’t specifically address whole grain baking as a whole, it is a step in validating what many people believe which is whole grain baking and the methods associated can produce healthier food.
[…] Towards the end of 2006, the New York Times ran an article that fired thousands of ovens: no-knead bread. While we didn’t really cover it here at Just Baking, a quick search shows plenty of people did. I’ve included an instructional video on how to make no-knead bread and will give some links to blogs that experimented with good results at the end of this post. The reason for mentioning an article from almost 4 months ago isn’t that I just found out about it. No, it was a recent article that reminded me about the technique used to make this bread. The hallmarks of no-knead bread are long fermentation times and high baking temperatures, the very same techniques the University of Maryland researchers found increased the levels of antioxidants in the pizza doughs they tested. Perhaps this is another reason to try no-knead breads? […]