Is Sourdough Bread Safe on a Gluten Free Diet?

Is sourdough bread safe on a gluten-free diet?

If you have celiac or gluten sensitivity you’ve perhaps heard or read on the internet that sourdough bread may be safe to eat.

While it’s true that bacteria and yeast present in sourdough starter do ferment the starch, degrading some gluten, is it enough? Is it truly safe to eat?

A study showed well-tolerated sourdough, but what kind?

Perhaps you’ve heard of a study where a sourdough bread made from wheat was tolerated very well by the participants who received it. That sounds promising, but here are the facts of the study.

Published in the Clinical Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology in 2011 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20951830), the study evaluated 13 celiac patients. The patients were placed in one of three groups and fed three different types of bread for 60 days.

• Group 1 consumed regular wheat bread.
• Group 2 consumed a hydrolyzed sourdough bread with over 2,000 ppm (parts per million) of gluten.
• Group 3 was given a fully hydrolyzed sourdough bread with a mere 8 ppm of gluten.

[Note: anything less than 10 ppm is considered gluten-free.]

The groups eating gluten had labs which showed damage

In Group 1, two of the six patients opted out of the study due to symptoms that occurred. I think the only surprising part is that the remaining four celiacs eating regular bread lasted 60 days. But therein lies an important lesson.

While they clearly were not debilitated by symptoms, their follow-up blood tests and biopsy revealed the damage you would expect when a celiac patient consumed gluten. These individuals caused severe damage to the lining of their intestine, increasing their chances of developing autoimmune disease, cancer and more.

Group 2 only contained 2 people and interestingly they had no complaints, despite consuming sourdough bread with high gluten content.

Their biopsy, however, showed atrophy, exactly what you would expect when eating gluten. And again we have the same lesson: gluten can be silent, symptom-wise for many, even if they have celiac disease.

No one said avoiding gluten was easy, but it’s critical in order to regain your health. Its silent nature can make it difficult to know when you’ve been cross-contaminated to be sure.

It was actually gluten-free sourdough

Group 3 did great. Are we surprised?

Were they eating wheat bread? Yes.

Was it sourdough? Yes.

Did it have any gluten in it? No.

Remember, they had a specialized, fully hydrolyzed bread that only contained 8 ppm gluten. Despite being made from wheat, it was treated in a lab to make it completely gluten-free.

Of course gluten-free sourdough would create no ill effects

They had no symptoms and their blood and biopsy revealed exactly what you would expect from celiacs consuming bread with no gluten, they had healthy tests.

But you can see where the confusion comes in, right? What people hear and read is that a sourdough bread created no problems. And from that it is extrapolated that sourdough is “fine”. Sure, if under laboratory conditions you treat it to have no gluten left in it, but, sad to say, that bread doesn’t exist on the market.

It’s truly dangerous when people disseminate on the internet that they “feel fine” eating a certain sourdough bread. The critical question is: What does your immune system think? Is it reacting or isn’t it? The answer is, unfortunately, your body IS having a negative reaction, whether it’s producing symptoms or not.

Symptoms are not an adequate yardstick when it comes to gluten; please remember that.

Another sourdough study yielded no benefit for IBS patients

A 2017 study published in the journal Nutrients (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5707687/), evaluated 26 people following a gluten-free diet who also suffered from IBS.

These researchers fed them sourdough bread that had been fermented for more than 12 hours, which they contrasted against regular yeast-fermented bread. The participants ate one of the bread for a week.

It was pre-supposed that the sourdough might yield less inflammation as it had lower ATIs (amylase/trypsin inhibitors known to increase intestinal inflammation) and FODMAPs (a type of carbohydrate high in grain and gluten-containing products associated with IBS) when compared to the regular bread.

The sourdough bread was no better tolerated than the regular bread based on a number of different metrics and symptoms used by the research team.

The internet is full of false data on this topic

Will you continue to find “proof” on the internet that sourdough bread is safe? Likely.

But at this writing, there is no substance behind such claims so I would recommend you steer well clear of it if you have celiac disease, gluten sensitivity, or a wheat allergy.

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