Application Guide

No Additives
When you bake your own bread, you avoid consuming the many artificial
additives and preservatives that have become commonplace in the commer-
cial baking industry’s processing, packaging, transporting, and storing of
bread. A synthetic chemical can even be infused into the packaging material
to make bread that has been on the shelf for weeks still smell freshly baked!
Chemical additives control molds, yeasts, rope bacteria, and other invisible
organisms that make bread go stale or rancid.
Chemicals help extend the shelf life of a loaf. Surprisingly,
the worst enemy in the commercial baking industry is oxygen, which makes
bread go stale. In 1947 antioxidants were one of the first chemical additives
to be commercially produced. Dough conditioners are additives used during
production to modify the physical appearance and texture of a loaf. They
turn what would probably be a mediocre baked loaf into consistently high-
quality bread. Anti-staling and anti-firming compounds are other important
ingredients in commercial breads. When bread stales, the starch crystallizes.
To inhibit this crystallization, bread emulsifiers are used. Thirty years ago,
over 16 million pounds of chemical food additives were used every year in
the American food industry for bread. One can only imagine how much more
are used now.
Other countries that are more serious about their bread, like
France and Italy, do not widely permit anti-staling agents, dough condition-
ers, and antioxidants. It is more common to find small batch bakeries in these
countries, where it is acknowledged that bread is a food meant to be made
fresh every day.
The following list contains some of the most common addi-
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