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Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Bread dough prepared with flour grown in a future climate with elevated atmospheric CO2 may not rise properly, claims Dr Fitzgerald, a senior Australian research scientist with the Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald;
On the right is a loaf made from grain grown in today’s climate conditions. On the left is a loaf made from grain that sprouted in concentrations of carbon dioxide that are expected by mid-century if greenhouse gas emissions aren’t reduced significantly.
So this is 2050 bread. It was baked at the Australian Grains Free Air CO₂ Enrichment facility (AgFace) in Victoria by a research group studying the effect elevated carbon dioxide will have on crops such as wheat, lentils, canola and field pea.
AgFace leader Glenn Fitzgerald said the effect of high carbon dioxide on grains is complex. On the one hand, it makes plants such as wheat and canola grow faster and produce greater yields but, on the other hand, they contain less protein. Elevated carbon dioxide also alters the ratio of different types of proteins in wheat, which, in the case of bread, effects the elasticity of dough and how well a loaf rises.
“We don’t understand completely why that’s the case,” said Dr Fitzgerald, a senior research scientist with the Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources.
I have hand prepared fresh bread at least twice a week, for the last 5 years. There are so many variables which can influence bread dough. The air temperature is the obvious variable, but bread is also very sensitive to the amount of water, the temperature of the water, the amount of salt and shortening or fat, how long you mix the dough, the type of bowl it is mixed in (metal bowls conduct heat, which tends to cool the dough below optimum temperature), the quality of the yeast, the age of the yeast, what soap you used to wash your hands (bread yeast hates dish washing detergent – even a trace can badly affect yeast growth), the humidity of the air (flour absorbs a lot of water, humidity affects how much water you have to add to achieve the optimum consistency), whether one loaf caught more of a breeze than the other loaf while the bread dough was rising, the list goes on.
To ignore all of this, and conclude that CO2 shrunk the slightly stunted loaf, in my opinion seems utterly absurd, even for climate science.
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Not a problem since the relentless scolding press says that we shouldn’t eat wheat, or rice, or soybeans, or any kind of meat, or…
If only these greenie warmists would do as they espouse – and starve themselves to death. That would help the overpopulation crybaby position greatly.
From the linked article, “For instance, yields increase by about 25 per cent, on average, under elevated carbon dioxide.”
So we can expect 25% more bread that is slightly less fluffy. Sounds like a win-win situation, not a catastrophe.
I have made my own sour dough bread for over ten years and I confirm what Eric Worrall says. There are many variables. Making two loafs like this is totally unscientific. It’s a good as going fishing with a grain of normal corn and a grain of CO2 enriched corn and weighing the fish you catch. You catch two fish and then publish: OMG in 2050 we’ll only be able to catch smaller fish.
This is science-speak for “we have no idea but we are supposed to be scientists so we can’t admit that”.
Also looking at the photo in the article, the right hand loaf looks like it was basted with something and the LH is slightly fallen and caved in. This can’t be the result of rising less, it indicates that it rose higher but got a bump as it was transferred to the oven.
This looks more like the Nye and Gore faked greenhouse experiment that was frigged to get the “right” result.
http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/h/s/h/d/9/image.related.articleLeadwide.620×349.ghshcq.png/1434950061165.jpg
Actually, the loaves look like Nye and Gore.
Also, the loaf on the right has a glossy top, as if someone put some butter or egg white on it to give it a sheen. That could’ve affected the rise as well. Jeez.
Global warming will also make things less shiny. The loaf on the left is a dull global warming loaf. /s
Interesting… I, too, make my own bread… Wonder if skeptics are more DIY types with more real experience….
I have done more experimental loves than most as a friend has gluten issues, the spouse doesn’t like heavy rich breads, and I can’t have corn… So things like millet four in corn bread recipies instead of corn, and bread with zero glutin (the protein they claim is the issue).
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2012/10/20/bread-potato-flour-millet-amaranth/ has my method and a recipe that worked well.
I usually make a dozen or so jars of identical ingredients in one sitting, then just add yeast and liquid at baking time. The loaf to loaf variation is far larger than in that picture.
Furthermore, the loaf to the right looks egg washed (glossy finish) that would stiffen the top and slightly darker. The one on the left looks fallen and light in color like cooked at lower temperature. That fallen look happens to me if the rise is too cold and takes too long. I have forgotten to keep a loaf warm, had it rise all day, and then at bake fall to totally flat with the pan top.
The rise must be warm to work right. I try for 105 F but the ban on incadescent bulbs makes a DIY warming box a problem, and new electric ovens block less than 175 F out of health scares. So I pulse the oven every so often trying to keep a steady temp. Works well until a Honey Do request interrupts attentiveness…
Bread flour varies a lot in protein and I’ve found using LESS makes a softer nicer crumb for toast. I now blend about 1.5 oz of tapioca flour or potato starch per 7 ounce of wheat to get that softer texture. Furthermore, wheat free bread made with rice flour and such works with just a bit of xantham gum as binder (plus a few other tricks ).
IMHO the article claiming CO2 caused the difference is flat out bogus. The protein may be lower, but that isn’t the problem.
This is an absurd assertion. Ludicrous…
Your taxes, hard at work.
Yep. I’m sure somebody got paid a lot of “dough” for this study….(sorry, lol – could not resist)
The same pun jumped into my head as well: “These guys are more concerned with raising dough than rising dough.”
Yep, typical of the CAGW catastrophists, their half-baked pretzel logic is a result of their loafing in pursuit of our hard-earned dough. It’s only a recipe for disaster for our civilization.
Their “science” is what we used to call “air bread” (from airheads, no doubt)…
That’s precisely why he should be unemployed. Stop any funding his department might be receiving as well.
This research amongst many other agricultural science research projects is financed by the Grains Research and Development Corporation[ Australia’s GRDC ] from which one half of it’s research monies come from a levy on Australian farmers grain tonnage production plus the other matching half from the government.
The three GRDC regional research panels formed from well regarded Ag advisers and farmers in each major grain growing region are the arbiters of where, what and who gets our research funds.
http://www.grdc.com.au/About-Us/GRDC-Regional-Panels
Sure, it is absurd and ludicrous. It is a ridiculous assertion but it is wondrous never the less.
Now we hear that bread will not rise and beer is endangered. The alarmists have reached the stage of self-parody. They are damaging belief in catastrophic anthropogenic global warming by their stupid scare stories far more than realists armed with facts and laws of physics.
Agreed, John. Beyond insane. They made bread from the future. Do they have future atmosphere? Just nutso.
But let them carry on with this insanity. Maybe Greenwald’s report today about how the internet trolls are the intellegence services (at The Intercept, can’t link, on iPad, too much trouble) will convince some that the climate change messages are of the same ilk. The 2011 report is a remarkable document, and they are involved in climate change messaging as well. Also see what they have to say about “obedience” and “conformity.” Warn your kids and grandkids.
So bread won’t leaven?
Sounds like kosher science to me.
Hahahahahahahahahahaha…cough, splutter… Mmmmmwahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! /sarc
But Fleischmann’s is a jewish name, isn’t it?
My sentiments exactly.
Hey, but matzo is very, very useful. Aside from not releasing that horrid global warming gas CO2 through the action of the yeast, it has many other beneficial characteristics. It never, ever goes stale. Matzo from last year or 10 years ago is every bit as fresh as matzo bought yesterday. Nothing eats it in general. It is thus fairly office scrounger proof against the person who works late and pillages the office desks to eat anything they find. It is useful as a shingle or Frisbee. There are some reports that if the Titanic had been carrying a sufficient load of it, they could have plugged the hole below the water line from the iceberg. So give some respect to the “bread of our affliction” and inflict it on somebody you dislike tomorrow.
Brilliant, you have also managed to explain why the latte-sippers dont want us to eat bread and the like, Yeast releases CO2 in HUGE quantities, DONT EAT BREAD!!
“It (matzo) never, ever goes stale.”
That’s because it’s pre-staled.
Good for making retaining walls too!
my first thought too. 😀
I’m another regular bread maker. Agree with all variables mentioned by others. I must say, I get consistently good rise here in AZ as compared to my winter breads in CO. We learn to adjust and adapt 😉
Ah, so many variables to consider, but it has to be CO2.
I’d like to see them duplicate the experiment. Only this time, make sure the baker doesn’t know which wheat is which so he can’t put his thumbs on the scales, so to speak.
Since the prevaricators/purveyors of such nonsense have recently enjoined us to eat insects, if we eat only the bugs which grow in our stock of wheat flour, will we still be on a gluten- free diet?
Let them eat cake.
Or Twinkies.
That is cake. (Theoretically.)
I stand corrected. (Theoretically. 😎
This is all Lavosh
Or tacos….
“At AgFace, experimental crops are grown in the open, surrounded by thin tubes that eject carbon dioxide into the air around the plants.”
Some scientists have discovered that CO2 fluctuates by a huge amount day to day / week to week / season to season.
http://co2.utah.edu/co2tutorial.php?site=7&id=1
I could change that graph and it’s comments 180 degrees and most people would take it as gospel truth as well.
“At AgFace, experimental crops are grown in the open, surrounded by thin tubes that eject carbon dioxide into the air around the plants. We can do this under very natural conditions, as close as you can get to an environment that crops would see in a farmer’s field in the future,” he said.
[see the field photo] http://www.smh.com.au/cqstatic/ghsl3q/facejb2.JPG
“As close as you can get?” Nonsense. There’s no control whatsoever over the CO2 concentration at the stomata of the plants. The distribution pipes are not clearly visible. but it’s likely that the CO2 gets swept away by the slightest breeze before it can reach and enter the stomata.
If they’re using pure CO2 gas, it will drop the humidity, which could dry the leaf interior and cause the stomata to close, assuming any of the CO2 supply reaches them. (Humidified CO2 would result in condensation in the supply piping and uneven gas flow.)
This is the stupidest attempt at an experiment I’ve ever seen. It ignores, as you point out, all of the variables except CO2 and how puffy the loaf looks. The results should be normalized according to protein content in grams, yielding more total bread weight for higher CO2 concentrations. If more protein is required, more fertilizer can be applied to the crop. DUH.
“This is the stupidest attempt at an experiment I’ve ever seen.”
——————————————————————————-
Oh, then you’d love Bill Nye proving CO2 is a GHG.
This post is bad enough but…
I expected more from a man that calls himself “The Science Guy.”
“The stupidest attempt ever”
Well you would have to include agriculture and forestry researchers in every continent in that remark.
Perhaps an attempt to understand and gain a little knowledge on just what is being done in the almost unknown to the public, world of agricultural research, the scientific research that in the developed world has made food so cheap that it takes around 20% of the average wage / salary to feed a family compared to our mediaeval ancestors where the cost of food took about 80% of the income of an average.
The same agricultural research being so harshly criticised by so many is feeding all 7.2 billions of you and doing it in a way where hunger and starvation now only exists because of war and corruption.
Only 40 years ago was predicted that starvation would be the lot of billions on this planet as we ran out of food
Agricultural researchers and farmers are truly worthy of admiration, not the contempt shown by so many in these comments.
Don’t criticize agricultural researchers and farmers with your mouth full.
In the posted Horsham Victoria AGFACE experiments the required CO2 concentrations using sensors and computer control of the releasing jets and taking into account wind directions, wind speeds, temperatures, humidity or lack of, soil moisture or lack of particularly in Australia’s grain belt and etc across the ring during the months long growing season are held to within 13% of the requirements for the specific experimental levels of CO2 they are testing the growing crops under.
The rings are located in a standard planted field with the same fertilizer treatments and etc unless otherwise demanded experimentally , so that comparisons can be made between the FACE ring CO2 enhanced crops and standard atmosphere crops.
There have been a number of North American forestry experiments using sensor controlled long term CO2 releases very similar in concept to the internationally used ring type agricultural crop FACE system on growing trees to ascertain the effect of changing CO2 levels on forestry
So in 35 years, bakers would not figure out how to increase the amount of leavening (if in fact this prophesy were to come about)?
And so what if developing countries get 25% more wheat!?! Horrors!
Just to split hairs, a baker does not need to add more yeast, but just has to let the dough sit a little longer as the yeast population doubles about every hour, if kept warm. Can even just put the dry yeast into warm water with a little sugar, and then let it sit for an hour in a warm place, before putting in with flour.
What a coincidence! Bread dough will need more warmth, but there will BE more warmth!
Just add Sodium bicarbonate to the dough. Who uses yeast nowadays, anyway?
With increased CO2, just add less yeast. Although I would have thought it would rise too much, then we’d need a bubble pricker to reduce the CO2, More employment.
And you think they didn’t do that withe “normal” bread?
“Psychotropic medication use has risen dramatically over the last 12 years, despite growing concerns over pharmaceutical industry influence and their questionable contribution to improving the mental health of Australians, new research suggests. The first comprehensive analysis of long-term trends in Australian psychotropic prescribing since 1987 found a “striking” increase of 58% from 2000 to 2011.”
http://www.uq.edu.au/ami/concerns-over-rising-psychotropic-drug-use
“There are so many variables which can influence bread dough.”
Doesn’t anyone notice this, I feel like I am taking crazy pills…
Nicky Phillips seems to be quite the ‘science editor’. Two sample and she can draw conclusions. Then again it is climate science where model output is considered ‘data’.
Let’s see there are around 200+ western bread style bakeries in Chiang Mai using flour from all over the world. We are now in our”cool” season temperatures have dropped to a tad below 40 c and the bread is still rising.
The only “dough” we have to worry about are the salaries wasted on Nongs like Nicky.
Why didn’t they try to Adjust and Homogenize the ingredients?
“For instance”? Really? “They are trying”? Really?
By any standard of logic, a 25% increase in yield is HUGE, while a slightly more dense bread (even if the attribution is correct, which is doubtful) would be laughable by comparison .
One would think that the 25% yield increase would be the headline of the story, but no… the headliner and text body detracts and diverts attention of readers to the facts of little importance. Anything to keep people from learning that CO2 is merely plant food. What a brave new world we live in now. GK
But what about the poor little children breaking their teeth trying to eat that stone-hard global warming bread? Oh the humanity!
So can we not now map the overall trend in CO2 and temperature since the Minoan period by comparing the density of archeologically retrieved samples of bread?
I feel that multi-proxy analysis of bread samples (Panechronology?) could become a very profitable field of research.
All that we need to do, is erase the naughty MWP and submit our “research” to Nature.
Early breads were generally of the flat bread variety, which suggests that the planet was formerly cool and that CO2 levels were very low.
Whereas modern French sticks are very low density with cavernous holes, suggesting that global warming started in France in the mid-1800’s.
Interestingly, indian chapattis, rotis and parathas are very dense and flat, which goes to show that they are not responsible for global warming and should be given massive amounts of dosh by the western nations.
The study of circuses can also help us to build a paleochronology of the climate.
Those are the only two things that people ever really needed, bread and circuses.
Bread, circuses and warm weather. THREE things. Bread, circuses, warm weather and an almost fanatical devotion to the pope…
… and a toothbrush.
… and a towel.
THREE things. Bread, circuses, warm weather and an almost fanatical devotion to the pope…
AND the palpable Papal Bull…
Paris is coming. Stay tuned for the inevitable deluge of doom and gloom, and BS…. for example…
But though it rises in the yeast, it should be better bread.
(For the solar crowd. I can’t quite remember the rest. From Gelett Burgess, Purple Cow. Anyone know the rest? Life ate my copy.)
Just another example of a “scientist” prostituting himself for his government pimps. Utterly shallow BS.
He is a crusty, ill-bread loafer.
If your bread looks like Elephant Man’s brain you need to go back to baking school.
We should all be eating less bread anyhow, according to some nutritionists.
97% of nutritionists don’t have the foggiest idea what they are talking about.
Which is effectively a consensus.
Dieticians don’t have a problem though!
I’ll buy futures in baking soda.
No,you want to buy baking powder futures-not baking soda,double acting baking powder is the thing you want to invest in-doubtful that it would work for brad-but at least we could still make good bisquits.
And as you sit there darkly scheming to amass panic-speculative profits, mankind commits sodacide.
Or is it flat bread for flat trends, maybe?
Let’s see. LST is in a pause. Doesn’t matter how K15 diddles the SST, even he et al. can’t shake the LST pause. And it must be admitted that most of the baking is done on the LS, not the SS. So there is no global warming to expand the bread, you see. Therefore I further hypothesize that in a cooling phase, the bread will be eventually pass the tipping point and become concave.
Do we have a link to the metadata on that? We’ll have to apply an equipment and TOB (Time of Baking) adjustment, of course.
You have to think these things through. Model upcoming.
Even more scheming-I’ll just adjust amount and type of flour used,time for dough to rise,baking time/temp,publish a recipe-sell it to those who believe this horsepucky for only $9.95
Then, I’ll just market a new “special strain” of yeast that will make perfect loaves of bread in 2050 – just for those special snowflakes-and they will be able to get it in 3 pkg strips in the grocery store for only $19.95. I’ll even use the 1970’s green ecology flag on the packages.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecology_Flag
kZPLV5NqwnReG2ZEAaRWfo
The sad thing is there are a lot of idiots who would buy the “special” yeast that combats changes due to climate change.
More magical thinking from the climate kooks.
Even if this was true(it is not) It is sad the journalist assumes we couldn’t figure out a way to make bread rise with more co2. Or gid forbid discover an even better product.
The Gluten Scare will get people to stop eating bread, anyway.
“Elevated carbon dioxide also alters the ratio of different types of proteins in wheat, which, in the case of bread, effects the elasticity of dough and how well a loaf rises.”
Most compelling reason yet to quit driving my Mustang GT. [/sarc]
+1 ( and I’ll keep on my 5.7 hemi Jeep, much needed in our winters btw)
If this is the claim then how come during WW II the galleys in American submarines pumped out plenty of wonderful fresh bread and rolls in an environment that quite often had Oxygen levels well below ambient and Carbon Dioxide levels well above? An environment where a crewman could not light a cigarette even if he wanted to!
The batter mixed and then laid on one of the crew mess tables to rise no matter if the sub was submerged or not, but the actual baking would be delayed until after the sub had surfaced to keep down the heat in the boat.
Subs were known for having some great cooks and bakers that would turn out end results as good as the best that could be found ashore.
Perhaps Dr Fitzgerald should have done a little historical research before pumping out such a line of BS?
The issue seems to be in the growing, or what is grown and harvested. The baking part and ambient CO2 is not the issue. I think.
OMG we are all doomed! Doomed!
Crumbs.
+1
http://www.smh.com.au/cqstatic/ghsl3q/facejb2.JPG
“Wheat growing in high carbon dioxide conditions in Victoria”.