Innovation in Sourdough

The sourdough bread-making process enhances the taste, texture, shelf-life, and nutritional quality of bread products. My research focuses on understanding the break down of proteins during sourdough fermentation and the goal of this project is to use sourdough to reduce the amount of allergenic, non-gluten proteins in wheat bread to a level that can be tolerated by wheat-sensitive consumers. Alberta is a significant producer of wheat and my hope is to create novel, clean-label food processing technology that brings bread to consumers with dietary restrictions and benefits Canada’s agricultural economy. My image is a compilation of three photographs that convey the heart of my research: (1) my passion for food innovation, sustainability and increasing local access to food and nutrition, (2) the syringe and filter used to prepare my bread samples for analysis, and (3) the final sourdough product.