I was discussing bread-baking with a friend recently, and the remark was made that you get the best bread when you only use God-given ingredients. What we know as bread today is a poor imitation of true bread, mostly because of the leaven.
Bread used to be something totally different. It used the yeast found naturally on grain, and fermented over time - a day or two. It's a process similar to that in wine, cheese, yogurt, and beer. The yeasts and other cultures act on grain, fermenting it, changing the nature, and making it more digestible and nutritious - the fermentation process of true bread enables the body to utilize the various nutrients and B vitamins more effectively, and if made from whole grains, can be the cornerstone of a healthy diet. During this fermentation, gasses are released, just as in wine, and these gasses, trapped in the dough structure, cause the dough to become light and rise. Even the taste is far superior.
Furthermore, each locale has its own unique varieties of yeasts and cultures like no other, so that each man's bread is exactly what his body needs in his environment. We associate the familiar tang of sourdough with San Francisco, due to the yeasts and cultures particular to that area. In fact, we often refer to all naturally leavened breads as sourdoughs. However not all sourdoughs are sour. Some are more mild, some have an even sharper taste, just as cheese can be mild, sharp, extra sharp, etc.
And like all things of real value, it takes time. You can't rush real bread any more than you can rush good wine or cheese. The taste must develop and mature over time. Not as long a time as wine, to be sure, but at least a day, perhaps more if the starter needs replenishing. But it's a taste worth waiting for.
That all changed thanks to Louis Pasteur and other scientists of that era. They examined the yeasts in bread, and identified some of the varieties and cultures. And, as often happens when science gets together with commerce, they began to tinker. They focused on the more robust yeast strains, and developed them to where they could act on the grain in a fraction of the time, causing the dough to rise in an hour or so, as opposed to a day. This meant bakeries could turn out more bread at a faster rate than previously possible, increasing profits many-fold. However, since they were now working with only one universal strain of yeast, as opposed to several locally unique strains, the action on the grain was not as effective. And since fermentation was cut short, the real flavor did not have time to develop. Nor was it the nutritious food it once was. It looked like bread, it smelled like bread, but it was only the visible form we associated with bread. The flavor and substance were gone.
We took what God gave us, bread of life, and "improved" it to the point where it was just baked phlegm bubbles, a placeholder for what we put on it -- useless at best, and at times absolutely horrid. God gave us bread, we turned it into the anti-bread. And all due to the leaven.
Knowing what we know about bread, we can see God's wisdom in giving us the Eucharist. The host is flour and water, but must contain absolutely no leaven. Jesus is the leaven. With bread, it is the leaven that gives it value, taste, and makes the flour and water true food for the body. With the Eucharist, it is Jesus that gives the Bread of Life substance, value, and makes it true food for the soul.
The faux bread of today cannot supply what the body needs. We try to fortify it with vitamins, but the body is not able to utilize them effectively, since the leaven has not broken them down. Good leaven is not just bubbles. It is the leaven that gives life, feeds, and satisfies. It is the leaven that enables bread to strengthen and sustain life. And it is Jesus, the Leaven of the Eucharist, that gives life, feeds and satisfies our souls, as no other bread can.
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