OK, I am not going to begin this idea by discussing the merits of low- carb diets, and I am not going to point out that I was driven to post this idea after seeing the word "tortilla" in another idea and beginning to crave bread.
Nor, gentle folk, are we even going within shooting distance of the nigh-inevitable argument about diets and health and all that crap.
Please, let us take as a starting point the simple fact that some people like to avoid carbohydrates. Let us also take it as read that such people may miss bread. Passionately. Perhaps enough to drive them to a controlled desperation.
Now, vegetarians have at their disposal a range of faux-meats made from natural fibres, straw, fungus and god knows what.
At the same time, modern farming methods are giving us chicken and pork which are essentially flavour- and texture-neutral, and are hence the perfect canvas for modern food technology.
"Is it", I ask myself, "beyond the wit of man to produce crispy crunchy chicken-based crackers, or succulent wheaty pork-bread?"
"I don't know", I answer myself "and how long have you been talking to yourself like this?"-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 04 2010 IF they can do it for prawns... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krupuk... surely you can do it for chicken. Or duck. In which case they'll be quackers. [Jinbish, Feb 04 2010] I_20can_27t_20belie...t_27s_20not_20Tofu! [hippo, Feb 05 2010] Carni-Food [hippo, Feb 05 2010] Meat_20Donuts [hippo, Feb 05 2010] meat_20wine for Ian [hippo, Feb 05 2010] Meat_20Beer for Ian [hippo, Feb 05 2010] Beefaloaf! the exact opposite of this idea [hippo, Feb 05 2010] Atkins_20Meat-Cereal [hippo, Feb 05 2010] Pancake recipe using ground pork rinds instead of flour http://www.mrbreakf...y.asp?recipeid=1175Pork Rind Pancakes [prufrax, Feb 05 2010] Pizza Crust made with ground pork rinds http://www.thatsmyh...ind-pizza-crust.htmPork Rind Pizza Crust [prufrax, Feb 05 2010] lethal bone bread http://www.troynova...Bones-to-Bread.html...the use of the bone-bread "didn't last long because those who ate it died." [Loris, Feb 05 2010] Steve, don't eat it. http://www.thesneez.../steve-dont-eat-it/This is possibly my second favouritest website ever. [nineteenthly, Feb 08 2010] For those who like meat AND bread, there's always keema naan. But I like this idea, and it has a precedent in prawn crackers.-- zen_tom, Feb 04 2010 //Chicken-in-a-Biscuit// this is the most disturbing phrase I have heard since "expectation management".-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 04 2010 I have eaten those crackers, (Chicken in a biskit), since I was a teenager. They are great.
However, not since becoming a vegetarian, so ----no bun from me for this idea. Sorry, Max.-- blissmiss, Feb 04 2010 I feel your pang [+]-- FlyingToaster, Feb 05 2010 I don't know what it's like, but i'm wondering if glycogen and bone meal might be the answer. Flour has ground bone in it, allegedly, so combine that with glycogen and the next stage would be to use relatively more tender actin as a replacement for gluten. So, how about something like papain combined with actin, or maybe collagen, along with a fair amount of glycogen?-- nineteenthly, Feb 05 2010 A glycogen based recipe would be a promising start, as long as we can find a way to leave out the carbohydrates, like the glycogen for instance....-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 05 2010 If what you want is just high protein low carbodydrate bread, why specify that it's made from meat?
It would probably be more efficient and tastier[1] to make protein bread directly from wheat (or some other plant material) instead. Washing the starch out of flour is a simple thing to do - I've done it myself.
[1] and cause less suffering too, if you care.-- Loris, Feb 05 2010 Fee-fi-fo-fum! I smell the blood of an Englishman.-- xaviergisz, Feb 05 2010 I'd look at nut flours as a likely alternative.-- MechE, Feb 05 2010 Sorry, [MB], didn't realise you were doing an Atkins: should've read it more closely.
Do you definitely insist upon animal? I'm not for a moment going to suggest the heresy of including any plants in it, but how do you feel about minerals? It seems to me that maybe a bit of gypsum combined with octane and talc could get you somewhere, but i think it needs to be spongy. Are there any really stretchy minerals about?
Also, you scary meat man, have you come across the use of gluten as a bulk ingredient? I think it's used in the Far East. In fact, i may now explore its possibilities as a way of dealing with the cruddy wheat flour i'm currently using.-- nineteenthly, Feb 05 2010 Nope, animal is not essential, though there is an attractive irony (and we know how important iron is in any diet) about making meat bread. Also, if I'd posted this as an idea to make bread and crackers out of non-carbohydratey plantstuff, it wouldn't have been the same.
There are, in fact, some gluten-heavy breads, but they are still high in carbs. Gypsum and talc.....and octane???? Are you sure you meant octane? Is this for "self-toasting meat bread"?
Or perhaps we should look to polymers. I am a great believer in synthetic additives.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 05 2010 //I'd look at nut flours as a likely alternative.//
I'd thought of that, but it wastes the rest of the animal.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 05 2010 I don't like your idea, but I love the way you wrote it.
And to quote Jutta: Hmmm... tortillas.-- Pericles, Feb 05 2010 I'd steer clear of the gypsum, talc and bone-bread if I were you (link).-- Loris, Feb 05 2010 [Loris] I'm not sure about gypsum and talc (although they are simple and presumably harmless minerals). The story about the bone-bread seems flawed, and none of the hypotheses as to why it would be dangerous to eat seem at all plausible. My guess is that it's harmless.
The problem is that you want something a bit stretchy in the mix, which is what wheat gluten provides. So, your idea of washed flour might be the way forward, if enough of the starch can be removed.
As far as I can tell, the main problem is that I'm behind the times. Ten years ago, when Atkins was God, there were probably carbohydrate-free breads and crackers aplenty.
Thank goodness there are no carbs in Mars Bars.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 06 2010 Oh yes, [loris], it would kill people. No-one said anything about non-lethality being a requirement. Interesting link though, thanks. I think it might be more to do with it being from the Cemetery of the Innocents than the fact it was made of bone. It was possibly the most unhygienic place in the history of the planet.
OK [MB], so maybe not octane. Could you get on board with some kind of siloxane polymer instead?-- nineteenthly, Feb 06 2010 Only on the halfbakery, would that fact that it's gonna kill ya, squeeze by as a side effect. Nice one 19th.-- blissmiss, Feb 06 2010 Well, you know, it's like the custard on here, [blissmiss]. Until recently, i'd just assumed edibility wasn't a factor.
In a way we could just be discussing an omlette.-- nineteenthly, Feb 06 2010 //some kind of siloxane polymer instead//
Now you're talking. I work with PDMS, which is basically silicone rubber. It's not hard to make it foam, and it will survive breadmaking temperatures, so perhaps a PDMS/yeast/sugar/water emulsion (with the amount of sugar carefully controlled to be barely sufficient for the yeast) might rise nicely.
I'm slightly concerned about the flavour, though.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 06 2010 Quite so, Iain, quite so.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 06 2010 So, the bakery, by mixing fishbones with croissants, is a lethal combination?
The best part about this one is the summary.-- RayfordSteele, Feb 07 2010 I've been assuming lack of leaven. Breads currently exist which rise despite yeast absence, and i don't see why there has to be anything living at all in it, even if it's a fungus. I think it should either be frothified mechanically, say by blowing bubbles through it or vigorous stirring, or by means of a chemical reaction which releases gas. I'm thinking a carbonate plus a weak inorganic acid, maybe phosphoric. Actually, chalk dust plus phosphoric acid. And the solid part could maybe be a thermosetting resin.-- nineteenthly, Feb 07 2010 No, it says "IBM Thinkpad".-- nineteenthly, Feb 07 2010 //The best part about this one is the summary// try saying "Mightey wheaty meaty bakey, matey." without spraying crumbs.
Speaking of which, [bigsleep], we're waiting for a posting...-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 07 2010 I-can't-believe-it's-not-bread bread! Actually under EU regulations you couldn't call it bread. Maybe "bread flavoured sandwich structural device" - may contain meat.-- Riki, Feb 07 2010 Edderly Breaderly.-- nineteenthly, Feb 07 2010 //Thank goodness there are no carbs in Mars Bars.//
Hahaha. Depending on version, only 70% or so. If that counts as 'low carbohydrate' then just stick to normal bread; well, maybe eat a bit less.
What amount of carbohydrate does Aitkins let you keep in your diet?-- Loris, Feb 08 2010 D'oh! That dot on the Nutritional Contents list turned out to be a chocolate crumb, not a decimal point. Live and learn, eh?
But siriusly, I think Atkins is "officially" something like 20g of carbs a day. Given that most stuff contains *some* carbs, that doesn't leave a lot of leeway.
I am falling in love with the idea of foamed and textured polymers - inert, storable, unflavoured and flavourable...what's not to like?-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 08 2010 //I am falling in love with the idea of foamed and textured polymers - inert, storable, unflavoured and flavourable...what's not to like?//
Yeah - and you can give it a wash and it's good to eat again.-- Loris, Feb 08 2010 //foamed and textured polymers - inert, storable, unflavoured and flavourable...// isn't that tofu?-- zen_tom, Feb 08 2010 Hmmm - tofu bread! If it doesn't exist, it probably should. Am I right in assuming that tofu is basically protein? Isn't extracted from dry-rot or something?-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 08 2010 Exactly - a protein based precedent (albeit vegetable *pthew* based protein) that forms polymer-like chains (I guess) and can be engineered to form foams and sponges. Apparently the spongy form of tofu is made through freezing the solid blocks of the stuff - as individual blobs of water freeze and expand, they force the tofu to form little holes, which, later once the water has melted and drained away, creates the spongy effect. If you could achieve a more gas-based process, it should be possible to create some form of bakable tofu-bread.-- zen_tom, Feb 08 2010 I'm thinking explosive decompression....-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 08 2010 Hmmm... tofu-based insulation. Wait, nevermind, rotting soybean smell.-- RayfordSteele, Feb 08 2010 From the wikipedia tofu article, 100g tofu yields 1.9 g carbohydrate, 4.8 g fat and 8.1 g protein. Plus about 0.4 g minerals (Calcium, magnesium ions etc). Assuming the rest is water, if dried it would be about 50% protein, with 12.5% carbohydrate.
Now, you wouldn't drive off quite all the water. White bread is apparently about 28% water, so you could have 220 g of tofu-bread a day before reaching your carbohydrate quota, if it were made to the same moistness. Obviously if you wanted to eat anything else containing carbohydrate you'd have to cut down in proportion to whatever else you used.-- Loris, Feb 08 2010 Rotting tofu is still good. It's just tempeh, sort of (actually not, but fairly close). There are also rotting soya beans as such which you can buy canned. I think tofu is probably some kind of colloid.
Soya flour is used in most loaves already, just with wheat flour as well. I have to say i like the spongy plastic loaf. I can imagine chewing it as a sort of bad habit.
In the meantime, i feel an irresistable urge to post a Not Safe For Dinner link. See above.-- nineteenthly, Feb 08 2010 I would like to try meat bread. [+]
Wouldn't using tofu bread instead of regular bread for everything you use regular bread for have the consequence of reaching your lifetime tofu limit much sooner than you would otherwise?-- notexactly, Dec 04 2019 // lifetime tofu limit //
That's a very interesting concept - please tell us more about it. It sounds like the "lifetime radiation dose" beloved of Health Physicists.-- 8th of 7, Dec 04 2019 //chicken and pork which are essentially flavour- and texture-neutral//
I don't know where you get your food, but I never want to eat there.-- Voice, Dec 04 2019 We guess a subsidiary of Wal-Mart...-- 8th of 7, Dec 04 2019 All mass-produced chicken and pork is pretty tasteless; only the gristly, fatty, skinny bits have any flavour. Bear in mind that an intensively-reared chicken is slaughtered at about 6 weeks of age, and factory-farmed pigs are killed at just 6 months.
This is what happens when you decide it would be a good idea to sell a whole chicken for £2.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Dec 04 2019 // That's a very interesting concept - please tell us more about it. //
I had read somewhere that there's a certain amount of tofu that you can eat, and, once you've eaten that amount, you're no longer able to eat tofu for the rest of your life. But I can't find anything that backs that up at the moment. Maybe I'm thinking of some other food?-- notexactly, Dec 05 2019 Tofu is just about my favorite food. Lay off my Tofu, you meat-eating thugs.-- blissmiss, Dec 05 2019 random, halfbakery