It is truly amazing that bread, fucking bread, has been one of the hardest things for me to secure vegan options for. You can get bread that doesn’t involve dairy or eggs, but it’s usually the cheap, crappy stuff, and if you have the option of something better, it has one of the two in it. Shouldn’t be an issue for me though. I know a guy who makes bread and we get loaves from him on the regular. I asked recently if he used milk or eggs and he said no, but turns out he was using butter all this time. A bit distressing that I’ve been consuming that ever since I’ve become vegan last year, but nobody asked until now so it’s on me, really. Dude was nice enough to buy vegan margarine for me specifically. Genuinely grateful for that, he’s a sweetheart for it.
deep inhale Why. Does margarine. Have palm oil. I ain’t complaining to him again, he’s been kind and accommodating enough, but I know this shit is awful for the environment and for me too. It’s better then dairy butter but whyyyyy?? I just want oil and salt to put on some basic-ass bread! I literally want a food so basic that comparison to it is a universal stand in for “wow, that’s bland as hell”. It might not be the hardest thing to find a vegan version of (there are also still some toiletries like toothpaste that I haven’t personally checked yet), but does anyone else struggle this much with bread of all things? Does margarine exist without palm oil? I’ve heard of people just drizzling toast with olive oil, so if I add a bit of salt to that will it amount to the same thing? infernal screeching
Only things you need to make a bread is water, yeast and flour. If you want good bread, add some salt. If you don’t want to buy yeast and want to take the harder route, get a sourdough starter.
Who the hell uses butter in their bread anyways, let alone milk or eggs. Can’t they bake?
Learn to make sourdough. It is almost impossible to find real slow made sourdough at stores. Its better tasting and you can make it using ancient grains that are more digestible than modern GMO wheat.
I’ll consider it, but every sourdough I’ve ever had I didn’t like. If it tastes different when homemade though, I’m willing to give it another shot.
I also do not like store bought sourdough.
The trick is to check the ones you’ve bought at the store if the ingredients list is longer than flour, water, and salt then its likely somebody playing a marketing trick.
I can tell you in the US, I have never found real bread at the store other than two artisan bakeries. Several bakeries are just pastries or other sweet treats with a few loaves made using instant yeast and modern wheat.
This is the recipe I’ve been using lately. It can take awhile being patient enough to get the starter/ levian going and I definitely recommend overnight cold proofing.
But once I started to eat this, it changed my whole perspective. I can just put some good olive oil on it then it is a filling snack or light meal. Never been able to do that with other breads.
I now understand how most of the world survived on bread throughout history. They were making and eating real bread and not the gimmick sold by big businesses.
Damn that’s high praise! I’ll check this out for sure, thanks so much!
@cloudskater not sure if you want to know, but most industrial made bread is not vegan because of the processing agent cysteine. It added to make the dough less sticky so that it can be processed on the conveyer belt and is made from feathers, beaks, hooves and hair.
You’ve gotta be kidding, so it’s even worse then I thought. Even if I wasn’t vegan I’d still find that disgusting. wtf?
@cloudskater i’m afraid i am not. It does not have to be declared in the ingredients list as it is not active after baking anymore.
bakerpedia.com/ingredients/l-c…That’s so gross… thank you for telling me though. Yikes.
From the article they posted:
there is also a well-established fermentation process using plant starch as raw material.
Is coconut oil ok? That’s what I use instead of butter when I bake.
It is as far as I know! Are you really able to replace something more solid with liquid oil and get an alright result? I don’t bake much so I wouldn’t know.
Coconut oil is about the same consistency as butter. I’ve had no issues using it in bread, cakes and pancakes and waffles. But I’m no expert.
You can get a bread machine for rather cheap and just use the simple recipes from the book that comes with it. Then substitute a few things.
- coconut oil for butter/lard
- oat milk for any milk/cream
- a bit of ground flax with water for any eggs
When I’ve made bread or pizza dough I’ve just used canola oil in the past. Shouldn’t need to be a solid fat/oil
You can have palm oil or you can have hydrogenated oil. You can’t avoid them in margarine.
Not sure if it helps, but that kind of margarine definitely exists. The standard stuff from my German Aldi (with sunflower in the name) is 61% sunflower oil, water, a bit coconut fat and some unpronounceable stuff to make it hard and yellow-ish. And they put the vegan logo on it.
And not sure about all the cultural differences with bread, but pretty much next to the margarine on the shelves is sandwich toast with the vegan logo on it.
I learned to make bread from Paul Hollywood’s YouTube channel. It’s cheaper, tastier, and a fairly easy process.
This is the problem with most dietary restrictions, be it vegan, celiac, or keto.
You can always just make it yourself, but that’s not what people are looking for. The convenience of going to the store and just buying a loaf of bread is nice. Making it yourself will never be that easy.
I agree with that, of course buying off the shelf is the most convenient.
But bread is really easy to do yourself. Bread machines are really convenient, it’s just set and forget. There are even no-knead recipes where you can just mix and leave it in your fridge overnight.
Even though it’s more convenient, I’ll never eat store-bought again. Homemade is just so much better.
An alternative for this specific case is to use a bread machine. It’s superior to store bought bread and only takes a few minutes of work.
Honestly though, I might take up that advice simply because it seems impossible to find a good alternative. I just can’t get over the fact that it’s this way for bread, of all foods.
Communion is vegan lmao
Well I don’t know about the bread itself but for things to put on it there are plenty of vegan options which are much better imo than margarine. Peanut butter was my choice until recently.
Oh yeah, I love peanut butter and all, but sometimes I just want basic toast, ya know? I feel like it shouldn’t be this hard.
