Wheat Belly Banana Bread

Much as I hate to admit it, using wheat flour does have its advantages–in baking, though not in health. There is no denying that wheat, due to the unique properties of the glutenin polymer in gluten, has extraordinary strength, pliability, and flexibility when molded into various shapes, and also achieves a lightness through the process of “rising” with the assistance of yeast. We lose all that when we eliminate wheat for health.

So we struggle to recreate two characteristics in our wheat-free baking:

1) How do we generate “rise”?
2) How do we create strength and flexibility?

Rise is generally created by mixing an acid and a base to create carbon dioxide, while strength is provided by polymers other than glutenin.

This bread demonstrates two variations from many of the other bread recipes featured here in this blog and in Wheat Belly:

1) The use of lemon juice as an acid to react with the alkaline sodium bicarbonate in baking soda to yield carbon dioxide, and
2) The use of guar gum to increase cohesiveness of the bread.

Both techniques are optional. You can make perfectly fine “bread” without the use of guar gum or lemon juice, but their use of improves the quality of your bread.

Note that this bread is bit higher in carbohydrate content, given that it contains one banana and a cup of chocolate chips. Using one medium-sized banana and Trader Joe’s dark chocolate chips, this totals around 150 grams carbohydrate (“net”) for the entire loaf, or 15 grams per slice. Use half a banana and 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips, or a higher cocoa, lower sugar brand of chips, and you can cut this nearly in half.

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