Yeast

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squarewheels66
squarewheels66 Posts: 25 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I've been putting together a recipe for pizza

Needs 7g of fast action yeast - apparently this adds calories.

Surely yeast should take away calories as it's 'eating' the flour to produce water and CO2

I expect the pepperoni and mozzarella more than compensate for the greedy yeast though!

Replies

  • RuNaRoUnDaFiEld
    RuNaRoUnDaFiEld Posts: 5,864 Member
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    I've never heard that yeast eats flour. It is activated by sugar. I'd still count the calories.
  • Wynterbourne
    Wynterbourne Posts: 2,203 Member
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    I'm a homebrewer. Yeast eats sugar not flour. And as was already stated, you should count the yeast calories. Granted, 7g is only 21 calories.
  • amusedmonkey
    amusedmonkey Posts: 10,330 Member
    edited August 2016
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    Yes, yeast does digest some sugars into alcohol and CO2, but it doesn't affect the calories by any meaningful amount. If you want to get technical, yeast also produces alcohol which has 7 calories per gram as opposed to 4 in carbs, so some of the sugar energy (calories) lost by CO2 production may be somewhat mediated by the higher calorie content of alcohol.

    It's hard to know the exact calorie difference with the calories in yeast, alcohol, digested sugars, CO2 lost...etc, but it can safely be said that it's not significant enough to matter. Count your yeast or don't, at the end of the day a ±5 calorie difference in intake due to fermentation is way under the threshold of acceptable margin of error.
  • squarewheels66
    squarewheels66 Posts: 25 Member
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    Yeast is using aerobic respiration when bread making so it doesn't make alcohol. It can convert the starch in flour to glucose.

    I appreciate it's only marginal but was curious - Thanks
  • fishshark
    fishshark Posts: 1,886 Member
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    squarewheels66 wrote: »
    Yeast is using aerobic respiration when bread making so it doesn't make alcohol. It can convert the starch in flour to glucose.

    I appreciate it's only marginal but was curious - Thanks

    sorry but you are wrong... when yeast eats sugar its by product is ALWAYS carbon dioxide and alcohol regardless of if its baking or fermenting.

    source- masters in nutrition, pastry chef for 10 years.

    you could probably do a simple google search.
  • squarewheels66
    squarewheels66 Posts: 25 Member
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    fishshark wrote: »
    squarewheels66 wrote: »
    Yeast is using aerobic respiration when bread making so it doesn't make alcohol. It can convert the starch in flour to glucose.

    I appreciate it's only marginal but was curious - Thanks

    sorry but you are wrong... when yeast eats sugar its by product is ALWAYS carbon dioxide and alcohol regardless of if its baking or fermenting.

    source- masters in nutrition, pastry chef for 10 years.

    you could probably do a simple google search.

    So it is

    Presumably the alcohol evaporates when it is baked at 400 degrees and is not consumed


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