{"id":2823,"date":"2020-08-18T17:38:15","date_gmt":"2020-08-18T17:38:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.veganfriendly.org.uk\/?post_type=is_it_vegan&p=2823"},"modified":"2020-08-18T17:40:34","modified_gmt":"2020-08-18T17:40:34","slug":"sourdough","status":"publish","type":"is_it_vegan","link":"https:\/\/www.veganfriendly.org.uk\/is-it-vegan\/sourdough\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Sourdough Vegan?"},"content":{"rendered":"
If you believe the media clich\u00e9s, during the COVID lockdown those who were not knee deep in banana bread were at the very least up to their ankles in sourdough. Whether you embraced the slower pace of life of lockdown and used extra free time to make your own sourdough, or bemoaned the closure of your local bakery whilst simultaneously Zooming the boss, teaching your kids French and trying to do Joe Wicks, there is a key question for vegans: is sourdough is suitable for those on a plant-based diet?<\/p>\n
Well, here at VeganFriendly we absolutely love sourdough and good news: it is indeed vegan! As ever, there is the odd thing to look out for but, in general, \u201cproper\u201d plain sourdough, made in anything resembling a vaguely traditional fashion, using decent ingredients will always be vegan. It is a very simple food and should be made with just a few basic ingredients, all of which are vegan.<\/p>\n
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There are some red herrings when it comes to sourdough that people may be (unnecessarily) concerned about.<\/p>\n
Although this popular and very tasty bread does not use controlled yeast, it does contain such microbes. However, yeast<\/a> is most certainly vegan, so we don\u2019t need to worry about that.<\/p>\n Another thing that vegans can dismiss is the issue of lactic acid<\/a>. The bacteria that give sourdough its distinctive sour acidity do include those of lactic acid but, once again, these are entirely vegan as this occurs naturally in the flour and is nothing to do with dairy milk in this case.<\/p>\n The last issue that vegans may be concerned about but almost certainly should not be is flour. In both our dedicated articles on flour<\/a> and bread<\/a> generally, we explain that the use of the flour improver L-cysteine is relatively rare these days.<\/p>\n Moreover, it can now be produced synthetically and whilst getting a 100% accurate answer on its use is very tricky, when it comes to sourdough, we would be very surprised if non-vegan flour (containing L-cysteine) was being used.<\/p>\n That is primarily because sourdough is more of an artisanal product, so is unlikely to have used flour that has had L-cysteine added, the natural yeasts and bacteria of sourdough making flour improvers redundant. One of the key functions of L-cysteine is to reduce fermentation and mixing time, whilst sourdough is typically a bread that embraces a slower methodology.<\/p>\n It is rarely a mass-produced product where speed and low costs are the chief driving factors and, from a vegan perspective, that means that L-cysteine completes our list of things not to worry about.<\/p>\n The things with which vegans do need to be concerned are non-essential additions to a sourdough recipe. Of course, if you make sourdough yourself, this will not be an issue. You will know exactly what has gone into your loaf and can ensure it is entirely plant-based by sticking to the three traditional ingredients: flour, water and salt.<\/p>\n However, there are plenty of people who aren\u2019t master bakers and who don\u2019t have the time to bake their own sourdough, so what should you look out for in a shop-bought sourdough or what questions should you ask in a caf\u00e9, restaurant or even at a friend\u2019s house?<\/p>\n There are a plethora of sourdough recipes on the internet, with the Google search \u201csourdough recipe\u201d serving up almost 800m results! We haven\u2019t checked all 779,000,000, but just a quick glance shows that there are some fairly typical ingredients that might trouble a vegan.<\/p>\n The first potential issue concerns some form of sweetener. If a sourdough includes honey<\/a>, and some do (for example, this one from the BBC Good Food Guide<\/a>), this is not suitable for those on a plant-based diet. Honey is not vegan friendly and sugar<\/a>, which some recipes use instead, can sometimes be problematic due to the use of bone char, though this is increasingly rare.<\/p>\n There may also be issues with what the starter has been \u201cfed\u201d on. We\u2019ll look at sourdough starters in more detail shortly. As with the bread itself, traditionally things are kept very simple, with just flour and water needed.<\/p>\n However, some starters may have been given sugar, honey, milk or another potentially non-vegan item to give them a boost. As usual, if it isn\u2019t explicitly vegan, checking with the baker, shop or chef about how the sourdough has been made, including the starter, is wise for those who care about the minutiae.<\/p>\n Other issues that are far easier to spot arise when the sourdough is not a simple, traditional, \u201cplain\u201d one. There are lots of cheesy sourdough recipes and whether they are for cheddar sourdough, garlic and cheese, cheese and chive or anything else, clearly, if they include dairy cheese they are not vegan friendly.<\/p>\n We would expect that any sourdough that included cheese would be clearly sold as such though, so hopefully such loaves would be easy enough for vegans to avoid. The same can be said of breads that may include bacon, pancetta or other obviously non-vegan additions.<\/p>\n There are also some sourdough-style breads that may not pass muster with sourdough traditionalists but are sold as \u201csourdough\u201d that include milk<\/a>. This is less likely to be made clear in the labelling or on a menu in a caf\u00e9 or restaurant.<\/p>\nLactic Acid<\/h3>\n
Flour<\/h3>\n
L-Cysteine<\/h3>\n
Why Sourdough Might Not Be Vegan<\/h2>\n
Sweeteners<\/h3>\n
Starter Feed<\/h3>\n
Dairy & Meat Products<\/h3>\n
Milk<\/h4>\n
Eggs<\/h4>\n