Bread - Thursday

I have been thinking about baking bread at home and how much it means to us.

A little fat or oil is often added to the dough. I myself use olive oil. To a degree, oil inhibits the action of the yeast by coating the flour particles, but the bread keeps better and doesn’t go dry and hard so quickly.

It’s a shocking statistic, but it is estimated that two point six million slices of bread go into the dustbin every day in Scotland because they have gone dry or past the use-by-date on the bag.

It’s a terrible waste but perhaps bread, and food in general, isn’t at the forefront of our minds these days, although it is in some countries. In the mountains of Nepal, for example, if you meet someone on the path, instead of saying ‘Hello’ or ‘How are you?’ you might ask, ‘Have you eaten rice today?’

Jesus and his disciples showed respect for food when they collected all the crumbs left over after Jesus had fed the five thousand. Perhaps the challenge for some of us today is that we are so busy in our daily lives. Too busy, perhaps, to give the attention deserved to food, both food for the body and food for the soul.

I am greatly indebted to Mairead McIver for her advice.