Bread in IRAN
All over the world, bread is considered a staple food that contains carbohydrates, fiber, oil, salts and some vitamins;breads play important role in our diet in Iran as well, But the same bread has different types and it can be more or less valuable depending on the cooking method and the ingredients used in it.Bran is the outermost layer of wheat grain, the benefits of which are not understimated to anyone , according to various studies, no food item is equal to bran in facilitating and improving the digestive system. In general, breads are divided into two categories: white bread and whole grain or brown bread.nan-e-sangak (stone baked bread)is Iranian type of bread which is most nutritious among all Iranian types of bread due to high percent of wheat’s bran .The word (nan-e-sangak) consists of (nan) which means bread in Farsi and sangak means baked in stone also (sang = stone in Farsi). Although there are some type of breads that prepared with other type of grain like oat , they are less common than wheat’s breads.
Dark breads (containing more bran) have higher nutritional value than white and light breads. Eating whole grain bread prevents the rapid absorption of sugar and fat in the blood.
Based on the compiled standards, each bread has a specific amount of bran.
Sangak bread is the most nutritionally rich bread. The amount of bran removed from the flour of this bread is in the range of 6-12%, and its flour is considered almost full diet and has most possible bran.based on this fact, its color is darker and its digestion takes a little longer compare to other iranian breads.Nowdays we find (manual stone baked )Sangak &( mashin baked) one that looked the same but have a bit diffrent taste so mashin baked is more rampant . manual stone baked is showen in below image
Lavash and Tufton bread have lower bran’s precentage than Sangak, and the amount of bran extracted from this flour is like 12-18%. Usually, the amount of baking soda and salt in these breads is higher and leads to problems in the body. Lavash & Tafton are looked the same as each other at first sight but they have minor different composition, shape, size, texture, color, and flavor.
In Barbari bread flour, the highest percentage of bran’s extraction is 18-21%, and in fact, it is considered the whitest flour among traditional breads in Iran. During the preparation of this bread, some bran is added to partially compensate this lack of bran, but such a practice is the most harmful and dangerous to health.
Sometimes it has been estimated that the appropriate flour with the permitted amount of bran has not been used, and instead, special pastry flour is used along with baking soda and some unauthorized compounds, which is also harmful for health for making some sweets and biscuits.
In Alamut valley almost every house has its own furnace to prepare local bread which is called Kolas in Farsi ( نان کولاس) which are shown below .If you are intrested in more information about persian cuisine you could check our other post about Iranian cuisine here
