I am French — and yes, I eat bread!
Every day!
I love bread. I even used to bake my own: sourdough and all. I’ll tell you more about that another time, but first — an anecdote.
I go to bakeries a lot. I move around quite a bit, and I’m always on the hunt for good bread. But what is good bread, really? I’m sure everyone has their preferences… or do we?
Every time I buy bread, I ask for bien cuit — well cooked. For those who don’t know, in France you can now choose how well baked your baguette is, like meat: rare, medium, well done… ha!
But what I noticed today is that the bien cuit ones are usually set aside. There are just a few of them. I glanced at the main rack and compared — and the difference is quite striking!
The “regular” baguettes are very lightly baked — somewhere between beige and pale white.
Most customers ask for a baguette blanche (white baguette). That seems to be the popular taste. In most bakeries I go to, the lightly baked ones are the majority. The well-cooked ones almost look like mistakes — but hey, there’s always that one guy asking for them. That’s me!
Now here’s a more technical side to this. Regular bread is made with wheat. And wheat — like most grains — isn’t that easy to digest. It needs to be transformed in order for our bodies to break it down properly.
At this point, all the keto and carnivore folks are shouting: “Exactly! Humans aren’t meant to eat grains! We’re not birds!”
Fair point — but humans have adapted. The problem is in the process.
Flour that isn’t cooked long or well enough is much harder to digest. But when you use sourdough, things change.
Here’s the simple version: commercial yeast is a selected strain called Saccharomyces cerevisiae. It feeds on sugars and produces carbon dioxide and alcohol — the CO₂ makes the dough rise, the alcohol adds flavor.
Sourdough, on the other hand, is a stable culture of both yeast and lactic acid bacteria. The bacteria ferment sugars the yeast can’t, and the yeast uses the by-products of that fermentation. Together, they transform all of the flour — making the bread much more digestible.
So if you go for a sourdough bread that’s also well baked, you’re giving your body the best chance to digest it easily.
Now, there’s some debate around celiac disease and yeast, but nothing is truly proven. What is certain is that we use a lot of refined white flour, and that’s harder to process.
Many people who eat bread regularly experience bloating. Of course, there are many factors at play — especially from a holistic point of view — but let’s keep it simple: if you eat undercooked bread, made with yeast and refined white flour, you’re taking risks with your gut health.
I’m not here to judge. I love pastries. I indulge from time to time. But for me, it’s all about balance — and I wouldn’t go for that kind of bread daily.
So tell me… how do you like your bread?
