How can I know if a food or ingredient contains yeast or yeast-producing ingredient? My condition requires yeast-free foods and ingredients.
1 Answer
There are no "yeast-producing" ingredients - either you have yeast present or not.
Yeasts are fungi that live on many plant-based ingredients. Whether they will multiply depends on the environemental conditions.
Without discussing medical aspects (which are clearly off-topic here), you might expect natural yeasts on the skin of most fruit and grains, they are the reason that these can be fermented1 without adding yeast from another source. Heat kills live yeasts, but the required temperatures are different depending on the strain. Classic baking yeast starts to die at around 50°C for example, boiling your food should eliminate them.
And then theer are the typical foods that have yeast added, which are baked goods and alcoholic beverages. Many of these are heated, thus killing he yeast, but not necessarily so for some beers and some (young) wines may still contain a few live cells. A dietician should be able to answer this in detail.
1 e.g. in the production of alcoholic beverages like wine and beer or for sourdough in baking
-
Yeast is all around you. It's in the air you breathe. Bottle conditioned beer quite clearly has yeast in it. You can start a new batch of beer from the yeast that's in there. See that gook at the bottom of the bottle? That's live, but dormant yeast. Even forced carbonated beer can have live yeast in it. Are you sure you meant yeast or something else...like gluten? If bread, sourdough or otherwise, was cooked to 190-200F then it's unlikely there's any live yeast in it.– user36802Commented Sep 15, 2015 at 18:12
-
Sorry Stephie, I am not boiling my bread. :) Ruins the texture.– user36802Commented Sep 15, 2015 at 18:16
-
@ChefBrooksie and I wasn't writing about bread but about food, referring for example to fruit. But if I may add I personally bake my bread...– Stephie ♦Commented Sep 15, 2015 at 18:18
-
I know. Just having some fun.– user36802Commented Sep 15, 2015 at 18:43
-
Not to belabor the point but as yeast is ever present, it is likely on any food exposed to the air. This is why you don't need to add anything to cabbage when you make sauerkraut. The microorganisms are already there, in this case bacteria, but you can bet yeast is there as well. You can reduce the chances of it being present by washing said fruit. Not practical for some things but heat will kill yeast. If you want to be absolutely sure, get yourself some petri dishes and a microscope. I know they make cleaners for fruit but I've never used them.– user36802Commented Sep 16, 2015 at 18:14