Celiac Disease and Grindstone Breads

Celiac Disease (CD) is an inflammatory illness that leads to destruction of the microscopic fingerlike projections of the small intestine called villi. The disease is triggered by ingestion of the gluten proteins contained in wheat, barley, and rye, and symptoms range from minor complaints to severe nutrient malabsorption

Wheat, rye, and barley are closely related cereals of the family Triticeae and are toxic to patients with CD. Oats can be classified as a cousin of Triticeae and thus more distantly related. The wheat, rye, and barley storage proteins are collectively called gluten proteins by celiac patients and their physicians, although, strictly speaking, gluten is derived only from the endosperm of wheat grain.

Prolamins, which comprise the alcohol soluble fraction of the storage proteins of cereals, are termed gliadin in wheat and avenin in oats. They have been named according to their content of the amino acids proline and glutamine, which is much higher in gliadin than in avenin. The proportion of prolamins in cereals may reflect their toxicity to celiacs. In wheat, rye, and barley, prolamins constitute 40 to 50 percent, 30 to 50 percent, and 35 to 45 percent of total proteins, respectively, but in oats, they constitute only 10 to 15 percent. Sixty grams of oats is estimated to contain 1.2 g of avenin.

The injurious constituent of wheat in patients with celiac disease is located in gliadin. Oats do not contain gliadin. The counterpart of gliadin in oats is avenin.

As mentioned before, recent studies at Stanford University have identified a sequence of 33 amino acids in gliadin as being responsible for the exceptional toxic potency against the small intestinal mucosa that characterizes CD.

This same sequence was found in other grain prolamins like hordeins (from barley), and secalins (from rye), all of which are toxic cereals in the Celiac diet. Proteins in nontoxic food grains, such as avenins (in oats), rice, and maize, do not contain a homologous sequences to the 33 amino acids sequence found in gliadin.

The New England Journal of Medicine has published studies that found that the use of oats by patients with celiac disease as part of a gluten-free diet had no unfavorable effects on adult or children patients in remission and did not prevent symptomatic and mucosal healing in patients with newly diagnosed disease. Healing in the new patients was fast: after 6 months of the diet, symptoms and laboratory values showed almost the same improvement as after 12 months. Improvement of villous architecture also occurred mainly during the first six months.

All recently published research has arived to similar conclusions: moderate amounts of oats can be included in a gluten-free diet in adult and children patients with celiac disease in remission and a conventional celiac diet containing oats can allow the intestinal mucosa of patients with newly diagnosed disease to heal.

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The Bricks Help Fight Cancer

  According to researchers at the German Research Center of Food Chemistry, it is not just the vitamins, minerals and dietary fiber in bread that makes it good for us. They found a cancer-fighting chemical that is concentrated in the crust.

The compound, called pronyl-lysine, which is not found in raw flour, forms from the amino acid lysine and the starch in bread as it is baked. They tested pronyl-lysine on human intestinal cells in the laboratory and found that it boosts cancer-preventing phase II enzymes in the cells.

This potent antioxidant is created during a chemical reaction between the amino acid L-lysine and starch and sugars in the bread. This same reaction causes the crust to have a darker color than the rest of the bread.

The crust of our wood fired brick oven baked bread has an increased content of Pronyl-lysine because a high temperature is required to generate that compound. The intense energy radiated from the hot bricks of our oven penetrates the surface of the bread in a way no conventional oven can, producing the most outstanding crusts loaded with pronyl-lysine.

Celicac Disease and Grindstone Breads continued

Although Oat is then technically a non toxic grain, it is sometimes not recommended to Celiac patients because of fear of a possible contamination with a toxic grain. At Grindstone we ferment our 100% Oat Loaf with naturally occurring lactobacilli to take care of that concern.

For the first time Research at European Centers have confirmed that lactobacilli found in a natural fermentation dough have the ability to hydrolyze the 33-mer peptide extensively or almost totally during prolonged incubation (12 to 24 h).

A revealing testimony of a person with Celiac disease that is able to tolerate a naturally fermented bread made with gluten containing flour can be found at The Weston A. Price Foundation web site: www.westonaprice.org/foodfeatures/ourdailybread.html.

In conclusion, based on the research mentioned above and the testimony from some of our customers, we speculate that our long natural fermentation process may substantially reduce or even eliminate the toxic amino acid sequence in the low gluten grains we use.

Our Gluten Free Loaves are free from the start of any toxic proteins.  We make them in a separate Gluten Free  facility using a dedicated stone mill. and following all our principles of  traditional long natural fermentation process. 

In any case, anybody suffering CD should consult with a specialized physician before consuming any of our Wheat Free breads.  Although we put the utmost care in following our traditional fermentation procedures, we rely on natural processes and we cannot assure that results will be consistent and reproducible for everybody.