Monday, September 6, 2010

Alcohol content in bread

I want to broadcast this message, because many people don't really realize it.

There is an organizm called Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Or what we know as "Yeast". When yeast is alive, it eats sugar and roduces water, alcohol and CO2. There is no way to avoid that. The same yeast that is used for brewing alcoholic beverages is used for baking, which means, the same process that produces water, alcohol and CO2 happens in each and every loaf of bread. A study has been done to analyze the alcohol contents of bread, it has been found that a normal loaf of bread, bought from the bakery contains between 0.04% to 1.9% alcohol. 1.9% is a really close number to normal light beer, and I believe is by far superior to most baked food whose labels include alcohol among the ingredients. I would thus conclude, I don't think it's correct to have an alcohol phobia in the sense that many people do, because you already get your dose of alcohol each and every day. I see a more rational way to think about it, how much alcohol starts to get me drunk. And thus, drinking an alcoholic beverage, or eating something that contains alcohol in the ingredients is totally okay, because _bread_ is one of those things. You just need to watch for the amount of alcohol you are consuming. Based on personal experience, an average adult man would start feeling he drank alcohol after consuming around 1.5 liters of light beer (2.5%) or 500-750 ml of normal beer (5%). For non alcoholics, I am not inviting you to be drunk all the time, I am not encouraging you to drivink alcoholic beverages, I am just calling for you to think about your alcohol phobia. Alcohol is not that scary, in fact, you drink some every day !!

References: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1709087/pdf/canmedaj00470-0140b.pdf (The section about Alcohol content in bread)

4 comments:

Nick said...

But that study was done in 1926. I wish I could find something more recent. I suspect bread making is much more standardized now. I doubt it reaches the higher number, but am curious as to what it is.

Anonymous said...

Sorry, but Light beer is not 1.9% abv, it typically runs closer to 4.5%. Unless you live in Utah (no joke) where the alcohol content of beer is lower by mandate.

Anonymous said...

Light beer is around 1,5-2,5% abv. I think you're confusing it with Lite :p
4,5-5% is the normal values of a pilsner or lager beer.

Anonymous said...

Hey nick we still do not know what is put into bread even if the study was done in 1926 the reactants and products are still the same and so this says that we eat alcoholic bread.