This post mainly discusses shopping for instant yeast in 2024.
In 2000, in Beth Hensperger in her Bread Lovers’ Bread Machine Cookbook, suggested that bread machine recipes should be different if the bread machine baker used Lesaffre’s SAF Red Instant Yeast, as opposed to other bread Machine yeast. In my 2018 post Dry Yeast, I suggested that yeasts sold as Quick Rising or Bread Machine yeasts were equivalent to, or were instant yeasts with confusing names. I used SAF Red Instant Yeast but I experimented with the amount of yeast and salt. I have tried to reduce salt in the bread I eat, and spend time reconciling recipes to the bread machines I used.
Over the last few years, I was able to buy SAF Red Instant in 450 g bags from King Arthur online either directly from King Arthur’s e-commerce “sales” pages or in the Amazon market twice since 2018. I stored it in a freezer – a bag lasted for a couple of years, and hundreds of medium bread machine loaves.
There was a shortage of yeast in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic. Active dry yeast is now available. There is no discussion in the media of a shortage of instant yeast products. Indeed, there are instant yeasts available in the USA and Canada.
Red Barn stores, a local grocery chain was sold vacuum bags of instant yeast, branded as Red Barn, a few years ago. I bought and used a bag.
I was not able to purchase SAF Instant Red in July 2024. King Arthur still sells it but its web store the site refuses to process and order that is to be shipped to a buyer outside the USA. It was possible to buy active dry yeast in grocery stores in Victoria, BC, Canada but product called instant yeast had disappeared. Walmart.ca showed 3 instant yeasts in their e-commerce but not in stock in local (Victoria) stores or available online:
SAF Instant Red,
Bob’s Red Mill Instant Yeast (Bob’s Red Mill no longer offers that an Instant Yeast in it e-commerce pages),
Lallemand Instaferm was available on some Canadian e-commerce sites and at Costco, but shipping charges and Costco membership fees added to the price. Searches of the Walmart stores and markets returned active dry yeasts, including Fleischmann’s, and Bob’s Red Mill Active Dry Yeast to searches for instant yeast.
Fleischmann’s markets instant yeast as “Quick-Rise” in 139 g. glass jars sold at about $5 a jar (Walmart). Fleischmann’s also sells instant yeast as Bread Machine yeast. The Real Canadian Superstore’s Wholesale Club warehouse store listed 139 g. jars of both kinds of the instant yeast online at about $6 a jar.
I found a 450 g. foil vacuum bag of Fleischmann’s IDY (instant dry yeast) in the Real Canadian Superstore’s Wholesale Club warehouse store in Esquimalt for $6. It performed as well as SAF Instant Red in my bread machine
It would appear that the yeast manufacturers have been making yeast but perhaps deceasing the total amounts sold to for retail sale, and playing with regional supply and distribution. The search engines for many retail stores are not useful at finding things,
My browsing led me to a hit about pizza dough. In 2003 Peter Reinhart had published recipes for pizza dough in his book American Pie made with instant yeast. Daniel DiMuzio had a recipe for pizza dough made with a preferment made with instant yeast in Bread Baking: An Artisans Perspective (2010). The baking yeast companies market “pizza crust” yeast, which is not sold, as far as I can see, in Canadian retail stores. Pizza crust yeast:
… is a type of instant yeast … does not require proofing … . In addition to this, pizza crust yeast are also fortified with dough relaxers to prevent snapping back of dough when rolled, and these relaxers can cause the dough to rise quickly in the oven.
… differs from instant yeast … contains L-Cysteine which is an amino acid that serves as a reducing agent for breaking down the proteins in gluten. L-Cysteine helps to soften gluten and therefore relax dough. This is what makes dough not to shrink or spring back when you roll it.
Through this conditioning, a softer, better textured and high volume end result is achieved. Also, it becomes possible to mix, roll and bake pizzas without any proofing needed.
Another difference you’ll notice when comparing the instant dry yeast with the pizza crust yeast is that doughs made with the latter will have a much lower temperature, better consistency and will be easier to handle, even though the difference is by a small degree.
Pasta is a starchy food products that has been cooked in Italy for centuries. Other food productd made with wheat – e.g. couscous – are known in countries around the Mediterranean.
Italian buyers have favoured semolina, a coarsely ground flour ground from Durham wheat, a hard, high-protein wheat. Modern “fresh’ pasta recipes for pasta dough for manual and electric pasta machines (that press and cut the dough) call for some semolina, some lower protein “soft” flour (e.g. US “all purpose”) or white bread flour, and water. Some recipes call for some salt, and for eggs to make egg pasta noodles. The dough recipes are similar in proportions of flour and water to bread formulas
Wheat flour will form gluten when water is added, which makes the dough extensible and elastic. Pasta is an unleavened product; the dough, made of flour and water, does not ferment or rise. Dough is pressed and cut into noodles. Gluten makes the noodles hold their shapes. The noodles are cooked in boiling water. Fresh noodles may have to be cooked fairly soon; industially manufactured fresh pasta has become a refrigerated product available in grocery stores.
Dried
Dried pasta was developed by Italian manufacturers in the 19th century and the early 20th century. It is more durable than fresh pasta. It is made by mixing flour and water into dough, extruding the dough through dies, cutting it, moving it on conveyor belts to drying machine, drying it and packaging the dry noodles. The Wikipedia article pasta processing provides an overview. Whole wheat and gluten-free dried pasta products became available during the late 20th century. Dried pasta generally is made without salt and has very little sodium.
Dried pasta noodles vary: long, short, and shaped. Noodles gain weight and volume when cooked in water. Dried pasta of any given weight generally absorbs about the same amount of water as the same amount of differently shaped dried pasta. The Dry to Cooked Pasta Calculator: A Comprehensive Guide at the Lyn’s Kitchen site provides the amounts of gain, by volume, in tables. Four US ounces (112 g.) of dried elbow pasta (macaroni), a short pasta, which is one US cup by volume, yields 2.5 cups of cooked pasta. (The same amount, by weight, of dried long or shaped noodles yields different volumes of cooked pasta.) The tables at that site do not estimate the weight of the wet, drained, cooked pasta. The USDA tables, discussed below, suggest that the main difference between 100 g. of uncooked and cooked dried pasta is that cooked pasta has an additional 51 g. of water, suggesting that less than 50 g. of dried uncooked pasta gains over 50 g. during cooking.
The USDA FoodData Central data has nutritional information about some cooked pasta in the Survey Foods (FNDDS) and Legacy Foods (2018) databases. and states nutritional information for a stated volume (e.g. 1 cup) or weight (100 g.). The Legacy Foods data has separate entries for uncooked dried pasta and salted cooked pasta. Noted with respect to 100 g. of uncooked dried pasta or cooked pasta:
uncooked dried pasta contains about 9 to 9.9 g. water;
cooked pasta contains about 62 g. water;
dried pasta cooked without salt has 1 mg. of sodium; and
dried pasta cooked with salt has 131 mg. of sodium .
Culinary Advice
Recommended Practices
Many culinary sources discuss the best practices for cooking dried pasta: to drop dried pasta in boiling water and drain it when the pasta has been hydrated and cooked al dente (which may vary from the time specified by the manufacturer). The sources vary on the amount of water. The majority recommend a gallon of water (4 US quarts, or 16 US cups, by volume) for one pound (454 grams) of dried pasta. A pound of dried pasta is said by many culinary writers to be enough for four servings of cooked pasta. A US gallon of water weighs about 3,800 grams, and has a volume of 3.785 liters. A cook may decides to use less cooking water:
to cook less than 1 lb. of dried pasta, or
to use a recipe or method that uses less water for other reasons.
Low-salt and other health oriented cookbooks (e.g. The American Heart Association’s Low-Salt Cookbook) counsel against salting pasta water while most culinary sources advise the home cook to cook the pasta in salted water to make the pasta taste better. Older culinary sources say that pasta has been traditionally cooked in water “as salty as the sea” but modern sources dismiss that standard. Some sources also say salt slows the gelatinization of starch in the pasta and makes the pasta more firm. The majority of culinary sources recommend 1 Tablespoon (3 tsp.) or 4 teaspoons (of ordinary table salt – i.e. made of moderately fine crystals) in 1 gallon. A printed example: The Complete Italian Vegetarian Cookbook, (1997) by Jack Bishop. Web sources:
1 Tablespoon of table salt weighs 17.1 grams. 1 Tbsp. of salt dissolved in water adds to the total weight of the cooking water by about .005. It contributes 6,720 mg. of sodium ions to 1 gallon cooking water. Some of the boiling cooking water evaporates, and some is absorbed by the pasta. There is a question about how much sodium dried pasta absorbs when cooked in salted water.
The America’s Test Kitchen/Cook’s Illustrated site, a culinary site, minimizes the sodium added by cooking dried pasta in salted water on the basis of “independent” testing. But, it did not say how the test was conducted and state the results:
Adding salt to pasta’s cooking water ensures that the pasta is flavorful. Throughout the years we’ve zeroed in on a preferred ratio of 1 tablespoon of table salt to 4 quarts of cooking water per pound of pasta for the most well-seasoned pasta of any shape or size.
Give or take a few milligrams of sodium, all the shapes absorbed about the same amount of salt: 1/16 teaspoon per 4-ounce serving or a total of 1/4 teaspoon per pound of pasta. … even if you are watching your sodium intake, the amount pasta actually absorbs is so small that it’s probably not an issue.
An article published on the culinary MarthaStewart.com web site suggested the amount of sodium added to pasta by cooking it in water with 1 Tablespoon of salt was minor:
Sodium patrollers can rest easy knowing that your pasta will not absorb the full tablespoon of salt. In fact, a pound of pasta is estimated to absorb only about a quarter of that amount.
The estimate of a quarter of a tablespoon of salt is not explained. This would be 4.3 grams, which would include nearly 1,700 mg. of sodium. This works out to 425 mg per serving, which is not alarming but is a significant amount for one course of one meal in a day.
Culinary Writing and Publishing
“Tastes better” is an opinion delivered as culinary advice.
The culinary sources above implied there is scientific evidence that cooking dried pasta in salted water does not present health concerns for consumers. The sources have failed to identify the experimental evidence or papers that anchor their opinions. If the writers, editors and publishers understood the heatlh risks, they might have said what they knew. The culinary publishing industry has not been giving advice based on food science or medical science.
The culinary sources suggest that cooking dried pasta in salted water does not add much sodium in terms of the US National Research Council’s Recommended Daily Allowances (“RDAs”). The RDA for sodium is 2,400 mg. (or 1,500 mg. for many individuals). The legal and regulatory context:
there is no law against sodium in cooked pasta or adding salt to dried pasta through the cooking water; but
sodium in cooked pasta or salt added to dried pasta through the cooking water is not “approved” or recommended by US authorities.
The RDA is not a government standard for sodium in food. U.S. public health guidance warns about sodium in prepared, processed and cooked food and requires disclosure of sodium by the manufacturer or seller of a packaged product in precise terms.
There is no law or regulation requiring a culinary writer to explain the consequences of following a tradition, a recipe or advice on cooking. There is no RDA for culinary advice from journalists.
Web Forum
A threaded discussion in the Seasoned Advice site (“a question and answer site for professional and amateur chefs”in the StackExchange network) of the question “When cooking pasta in salted water how much of the salt is absorbed” began in 2010. The discussion includes a couple of published scientific research papers, some theories, and a little math. The references in that discussion to scientific sources:
“Changes in Sodium Content in Potatoes, Pasta and Rice with Different Cooking Methods” a report written for the Scottish Food Standard Agency in 2006. The report is not in the publications of Food Standards Scotland in 2024. The report is in the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, but that service often returns a 503 error – “no server available” – to requests. There is a copy in the USDA National Agricultural Library at https://www.nal.usda.gov/research-tools/food-safety-research-projects/change-sodium-content-potato-pasta-and-rice-different.
Science
Search
A search engine search can lead to the Seasoned Advice web forum discussion noted above. Finding other papers published in scientific journals about the salt in pasta cooking water with a search engine is not easy. Understanding or applying a paper is not easy. Food scientists writing for publication in academic journals do not explain the effects of cooking in the terms used in culinary writing. I located a paper that addresses, and seems to answer, the question, by searching the citation of the 1986 paper in Cereal Chemistry.
VTI Paper
There is a paper published in Food Chemistry in 2019: “Cooking parameters affect the sodium content of prepared pasta” (“VTI paper” – some of authors were at the Virginia Technical Institute at the time). It was based on experiments cooking one pound (454 g.) of dried spaghetti pasta, and other pasta samples in 6 quarts (1.5 gallons) of unsalted water, and salted water. The VTI experiments tested pasta made from wheat. Some pastas are made from rice or other gluten-free starch products. Some dried pasta products may have more sodium or take up more sodium from salted cooking water (as discussed in the 2006 report to the Scottish Standards Agency (noted above).
The VTI paper discusses cooking by a reference method (“Ref.” M.”): adding 36 g., 1the team used the conversion factor of 1 Tbsp = 18 g. 2 Tablespoons of table salt (Morton® iodized) to 6 quarts (1.5 gallons) tap water, bringing the salted cooking water to a boil, and cooking the pasta for 9 minutes. There were tests at several different concentrations of salt in water, listed in the table below. The team used a fixed amount of salt for a fixed amount of dried pasta in one control experiment. The VTI paper used the term “concentration of salt” of water (i.e. salinity, a specific mass concentration) in grams of salt in a liter of water (g/liter).
The VTI team did not test at the concentrations the culinary sources recommend, as such. These values are interpolated in the table below on the linear basis found in the paper (see below):
1 Tablespoon of table salt, 17.1 grams (some would say 18 g.); 4.52 g/liter.
4 teaspoons, 22.8 g.; 6.02 g/liter.
The VTI experiments tested for sodium in the cooked pasta:
Sodium was quantified using inductively coupled plasma spectroscopy-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) after digesting the samples using a two-day, open vessel, nitric acid/hydrogen peroxide digestion procedure
The paper reported results by sodium in milligrams divided by the mass of the cooked pasta for 100 g. of cooked pasta and for 140 g. of cooked pasta. The paper correlates experiments and data by identifying the experiments with letters of alphabet. The results of experiments A, B, G, H, I, J can be listed in a table. the results and the interpolations are ranked in the ascending order of sodium in cooked pasta:
Test and salt
Salt g/liter
mg. sodium /100 g.
mg. sodium /140 g.
G – unsalted
0
≤5
≤5
B – 50% Ref. M.
3.17
91.2
128
H – Ref. M. & rinse pasta after cooking
6.34
115
162
Interpolation*: 1 Tbsp. /gallon
4.52
125.5 *
176.1 *
Interpolation*: 4 tsp. /gallon
6.02
167. 2 *
234.5 *
A – Ref. M.
6.34
176
247
I – 150% Ref. M
9.51
267
373
J – 2x Ref. M
12.7
350
490
The VTI paper noted:
…. Dry pasta is itself low in sodium, but significant and varying sodium content results from salt added during preparation. Reducing (or eliminating) the amount of salt added when cooking pasta and/or rinsing after cooking is a simple and quantitative way to reduce dietary sodium. The purpose of salt in cooking pasta is generally agreed upon to be for taste.
The VTI experimental results supported:
… a predictive equation for sodium in cooked pasta as a function of the salt concentration in the cooking water … based on differing amounts of salt added during pasta preparation, and whether or not the pasta was rinsed.
The connection between the concentration of salt in the cooking water and sodium in the prepared pasta was linear, i.e. it graphed as a straight diagonal line in graphs in the paper. The VTI paper suggested:
The linear relationship between the concentration of salt in the cooking water and sodium in the prepared pasta … can be used to obtain a more accurate estimate of the sodium content …
This information could also be communicated to consumers as demonstrable and simple way to reduce sodium intake, by relating how much salt in pasta cooking water increases sodium, and that rinsing after cooking could reduce by 1/3 the sodium content of pasta cooked in salted water
The Culinary Sources’ Advice
The VTI team did not test at concentrations that the culinary sources recommended – 1 Tbsp. or 4 tsp. of salt per gallon of water. The results suggest that the 1 Tbsp. would add about 125 mg. and 4 tsp. about 167 mg. of sodium to 100 g. of cooked pasta.
The culinary sources are justified in saying that salting a gallon of cooking water with 1 Tbsp. or 4 tsp of salt does not make the cooked pasta very salty, and in saying pasta cooked in water with salt at those concentrations adds sodium to the cooked pasta in amounts that can be calculated as in the table above. The sodium in 100 g. of cooked pasta is less than 200 mg. Then, think about the size of serving. A serving of cooked pasta may begin as 100 to 150 g. of dried pasta, which swells in volume and gains weight. That serving of pasta may weigh 200 to 300 g. when cooked in water and may contain 350 to 500 mg. of sodium if the water has been salted to the level recommended by culinary sources.
Public Health Guidance, Flavor and Appetite
The VTI paper helps understand how much sodium a person who eats pasta cooked in salted water consumes. The paper does not prove that it is “safe” to eat pasta cooking in salted water. The health effects depend on the person, the concentration of salt, the size of the serving, and other variables.
Science-based RDAs and label warnings are not much use in preventing cooks from cooking with salt. Cooks do not often:
weigh or measure salt or water,
know, let alone understand, the sodium or salt RDAs, or
weigh the portions of cooked pasta.
Cooks commonly serve much more pasta than 100 g., topped with a sodium-rich sauce (highly processed and/or made with salt), accompanied by sodium-rich food.
Milk, discussed in a Wikipedia entry, is the milk of dairy cows, processed. Fluid milk used in baking, by commercial bakers and home bakers, in Europe and America is mainly cows’ milk. Milk must be taken to a dairy plant to be processed within hours after being harvested in a dairy farm, and only lasts a few days, even with the benefit of refrigeration. Milk sold in retail outlets in North America has been pasteurized – as required by public heath law.
At one point in history, milk was obtained by human by milking cows by hand. Milk is still obtained from cows, but in modern times, the cows are cared for on dairy farms and milked with machines. Milk naturally separate into cream and milk. The high butterfat cream was, historically, churned manually to make butter. The leftover fluid, if the milk had not soured, was sweet traditional buttermilk. If the cream was churned from sour milk, the buttermilk was sour. Milk became sour due to bacteria in the milk, which started fermenting the milk.
A writer for Slate suggested in 2012:
“As long as people have made butter there’s been buttermilk,” says Anne Mendelson, a culinary historian and the author of Milk: The Surprising Story of Milk Through the Ages. Careful: Here, she’s talking about a byproduct of churning whole milk or cream—the thin, white liquid that [Laura Ingals] Wilder wrote about.
So how did that buttermilk, the original buttermilk, turn into the thick, sour, yogurty beverage I sampled … ? The confusion surrounding this drink dates back to the 18th century or before. Until the age of refrigeration, milk soured quickly in the kitchen, and most butter ended up being made from the slightly spoiled stuff. As a result, some historical sources use the word buttermilk … to describe the byproduct of butter-making; others use it to describe butter-making’s standard ingredient at the time—milk that had gone sour from sitting around too long. To make matters more confusing, the butter-byproduct kind of buttermilk could be either “sour,” if you started out with the off milk that was itself sometimes called buttermilk, or “sweet,” if you started out with fresh cream (like Laura’s mom did). So, prior to the 20th century, buttermilk could refer to at least three different categories of beverage: regular old milk that had gone sour; the sour byproduct of churning sour milk or cream into butter; and the “sweet” byproduct of churning fresh milk or cream into butter.
In industrial dairies, milk is refined by removing butterfat from whole milk with a centrifuge. The process is discussed in web pages other than Wikipedia. Some internet material on industrial dairy methods and science:
… the stuff known as cultured buttermilk at your local supermarket—i.e. milk that has been deliberately soured—is a 20th-century invention, and the product of a health-food diet craze dating back to the flapper era.
….
In Western Europe and America, the only people who bothered to drink buttermilk of any kind were the poor farmers and slaves who needed all the calories and nutrition they could get. Everyone else fed sour milk and butter-byproduct to their farm animals.
….
While farmers’ wives and other home cooks were using sour milk in their baked goods, America saw an influx of immigrants from parts of the world where sour milk was considered a refreshing everyday beverage. Ashkenazi Jews from Eastern Europe, who have a tendency toward lactose intolerance, may have been especially inclined to drink it, since the bacteria make it more digestible. The nonimmigrant American public was generally mistrustful of sour milk as a beverage until 1907, when [a] Russian biologist … concluded that the relative longevity enjoyed by people living in the Balkans was a direct result of their consumption of sour milk. Health-conscious Americans started going crazy for sour milk, thinking it would prevent aging. At his sanitarium in Battle Creek, Mich., holistic doctor and breakfast-cereal enthusiast John Harvey Kellogg began serving an ultra-tart, deliberately soured version with the catchy name “Bulgarian buttermilk.”
Naturally-occurring sour milk had in the mean time become increasingly rare, thanks to modern refrigeration. So commercial dairies, spotting an unfilled niche, began to culture it themselves, and sold the new product widely as buttermilk starting in the 1920s. This was much like the buttermilk we find in grocery stores today: Made from low-fat milk and lactic acid bacteria that grow best under moderate heat conditions. Dairies used low-fat milk because it was cheaper than whole milk, but still took on a thick, creamy body when cultured.
L.V. Anderson, in Slate, cited above
The milk solids remaining after milk is centrifuged include the cell membranes of the fat cells, casein (a protein) and lactose (a sugar). The casein reacts to acid to curdle milk.
Full butterfat milk – often marketed as Homogenized milk (all milk processed for retail has been homogenized) – is about 3.5 % butterfat. It depends on the cows, the fodder, and the dairy. Fluid milk processed for retail sale is sold as reduced butterfat milk by the percentage of butterfact -ie. 2%, 1%, or as skim milk, which as butterfat content at a fraction over 0%.
Buttermilk
Buttermilk, since the industrialization of dairies, has been a dairy product produced by processing fluid milk. Some fluid buttermilk is produced by fermenting partially skimmed milk. Dairies also produce acidified buttermilk – milk treated by mixing milk with an acid. A dairy may use fermentation or acidification or a combination of both. The production methods are not discussed on product labels or in an ordinary dairy’s promotional materials. Nor do bakers say how the buttermilk used to mix dough was made.
The home baker’s hack to make acidified buttermilk, comparable to store-bought dairy buttermilk is to add an acid, in the amounts noted here to one cup of milk:
1 Tablespoon lemon juice;
1 Tablespoon vinegar; or
1 teaspoon cream of tartar.
Available in Victoria BC.
Most retail grocers in Victoria sell pasteurized milk processed by the Island Farms dairy, which distributes a fermented and/or acidified buttermilk said to be about 1.5% butterfat. The weight of a “1 cup (250 ml.)”1A US cup is 236.59 ml. Most cookware manufacturers label 250 ml measuring cups as 1 cup. The people who write recipes mainly say “1 cup or 250 ml.” It usually does not make a difference. serving is not stated. Conventionally, a cup of buttermilk weighs 245 grams (compare a US cup of water at 237 g.).
Dry Milk
Dehydration
Dry milk (aka milk powder) is made by dehydrating milk – removing water. Dry milk can be made with whole milk, or reduced butterfat milk. It is reconstituted by adding water. Dry milk can be added to baking recipe or formula as a dry ingredient. Adding water (or milk) to dry ingredients and mixing the ingredients to make dough is a normal process in baking bread. Manufacturers can dehydrate whole milk, skim milk and buttermilk.
Buttermilk Powder
Buttermilk powder is dehydrated dairy cultured buttermilk, made from reduced butterfat milk. It is possible to substitute buttermilk powder and water or plain milk in a recipe (e.g. for pancakes, cakes or bread) for fluid buttermilk. One way is to mix the powder with water and use the reconstituted fluid as buttermilk. Another is to add the amount of powder that would make buttermilk with the water in the bread recipe.
Buttemilk powder can be purchased online from King Arthur Flour and other suppliers. The King Arthur Flour blog, discussing and promoting King Arthur Dried Buttermilk:
Use dried buttermilk as a substitute for the liquid buttermilk called for in your recipe. It’s simple as (buttermilk) pie: For every cup of liquid buttermilk, substitute 1/4 cup (30g) dried buttermilk plus 1 cup (227g) water (or milk). Don’t worry about reconstituting the powder by stirring it together with liquid: Simply mix dried buttermilk into your recipe at the same time you add the flour, and add the liquid when the recipe says to add the buttermilk.
….
Dried buttermilk yields results nearly identical to liquid, with just two small differences: Baked goods made with dried buttermilk are slightly lighter in color than those made with liquid cultured buttermilk, and their flavor is a bit richer — more creamy-buttery than tangy.
….
Another discovery: When replacing fresh buttermilk with dried, using milk in place of the water typically called for in this substitution gives baked goods even better texture and flavor, thanks to the additional milk solids, fats, and sugars.
As of 2024, retail grocers in Victoria BC have skim milk powder for sale. I have not seen whole milk powder or buttermilk powder on the grocery store shelves for years. I have been able to get buttermilk powder in a local outlet of the bulk foods chain Bulk Barn (which also sells full fat milk powder and skim milk powder). Bulk Barn uses a serving size of 100 g. of buttermilk powder for the Food Facts label. 100 mg. contains 517 mg. of sodium. Bulk Barn suggests 25 g. to make 1 cup of buttermilk. This can be scaled to 28 g. of powder in 1 ⅛ cups of water. These are normal liquid quantities in recipes for medium loaves, in bread machine terms.
Fluid dairy buttermilk, reconstituted buttermilk and buttermilk powder added as a bread ingredient before mixing all produce similiar loaves.
A “1 cup” serving of Island Farms buttermilk contains 270 mg of sodium. “1 cup” of buttermilk made with 25 g. of Bulk Barn Buttermilk powder (and 1 “cup”) of water contains just under 260 mg. of sodium.
Substitution for buttermilk powder
Some internet resources suggest that mixing cream of tartar with skim milk powder, produces a powder that can be substituted for buttermilk powder. I am skepical in the absence of a scientific explanation and test/experimental evidence:
Would adding cream of tartar (or one of the other acids) to a cup of reconstituted skim milk work – skim milk is very low in butterfat – make buttermilk that compares to dairy buttermilk; and
Doesn’t the cream of tartar, added as a powder to the dry dough ingredients (and not to the fluid milk) act like vinegar or other acids that relax dough – affecting the gluten and producing soft crumb.
Google has been in the process dropping Google Podcasts. It has tried to enrolling users of Google Podcasts in YouTube Music. I did not want to use the YouTube service for anything except streaming video. I started to deal with this before Google Podcastsdisappeared. I deleted Google Podcasts and the BBC App.
Google Podcasts was adequate, although it sent many notifications, some pointless, and did not carry all the podcasts I wanted.
I tried Podcast Addict. The App developer complained about changes to Google Android software on my phone and began to suggest that I grant more permissions for more apps and Android services on my phone.
In February 2024, I installed the open source podcatcher AntennaPod, which seems to working smoothly. Podcast Addict and AntennaPod are each different from Google Podcasts. I had to learn interfaces and methods. I paid to remove ads from Podcast Addict, but decided not to pay for a subscription. Neither app can block ads that are inserted by podcasts’ producers, in the podcasts’ production processes.
The design of apps and services makes it easier for different interests to sell advertising and to prevent users from avoiding listening to watching ads. A podcast app works when the app can connect users to sites where a user can download or stream a podcast. A developer may try to give uses reasons to pay for a full featured “pro” app, or sell advertising. Some developers plan to make money by building a user base and selling the app as a machine to make money by selling ads. A developer may make its app collect data and sell user data to a broker or ad service.
The reviews of podcatcher apps or any Android apps in internet publications are limited. The Alphabet/Google Android Play Store mainly says how many time an app has been downloaded. A developer shares revenue with Alphabet, to get in the Google Play store but works on spec (i.e. hope). The user reviews in the Play store may note problems in whether an app seems to perform like a user may have expected. Play store reviews can be gamed.
I will modify and add to this post. (It is an endless post.)
Devices and Technological
Garmin Edge 130 elevations
My Garmin Edge 130 cycling computer which I used until 2024 was an “entry level” GPS device, no longer on the market, with a barometric altimeter. . The software was written several years ago , and has many glitches. Riders complained in forums. Garmin closed discussion on some complaints and issues.
One criticism: the rechargeable battery is soldered in, small and weak, and does not perform well if the ambient temperature is below 10℃.
Another is that the device is as small as a watch face or simple cycling computer in the fashion of many speed and distance computer.
The Garmin Edge 130 has data fields that allow a rider to display elevation, distance ascended, distance descended and grade. The manual says the “grade” data field displays:
“The calculation of rise (elevation) over run (distance). For example, if for every 3 m (10 ft.) you climb you travel 60 m (200 ft.), the grade is 5%”.
The barometer appears to read the surface elevation from point to point. The elevation field displays disparate readings for the same location on different rides depending on wind and the location of cells of high pressure. The calculations of total elevation gained or total descents vary for the same ride on different days. The software returned data sampled a few seconds and many meters earlier in the ride.
Garmin seems to correlate location data with elevation data from some maps. The head unit seems to supply a starting elevation for rides starting at known points. Information on how Garmin gets this data and programs the head units is proprietary.
Trying to read the device display is a distraction. Using Garmin programs and apps – for instance reviewing a ride track in Garmin Connect to get an elevation for a particular point on a trip is slow. Garmin Connect uses map data from Garmin’s “OpenStreetMaps” and displays a track on a map. It seems possible to place a cursor on a location and get the elevation. It was not a useful exercise.
Garmin Edge Explorer 2
The Edge Explorer 2 cycling computer has a altimeter; Garmin suggests it is barometric. It displays data fields for elevation, distance ascended, distance descended and grade. The manufacturer’s manual states:
Your device was already calibrated at the factory, and the device uses automatic calibration at your GPS starting point by default. You can manually calibrate the barometric altimeter if you know the correct elevation.
The reading of current elevation and grade do not lag. The calculations of total elevation gained or total descents are more consistent from ride to ride.
Google Earth Pro
The Google Earth Pro app, in Windows, on a desktop computer, can show location and elevation if you use the “Ruler” tool to draw a “path”. Google Earth will calculate and display “slope”, a % of distance along a path (“grade” in the language of Garmin). Finding a precise levation in Google Earth depends on:
the way the application was built to match maps and aerial photos to satellite and drone data for the devices and systems used to record the elevation of specific locations on the surface of the eath as map coordinates;
the accuracy of the maps and data the application searches; and
how screen magnification and the plotting of a path affect the way the program identifies map coordinates and retrieves the recorded elevation.
I draw a section in Google Earth with the ruler tool, very occasionally.
Smart Phone Apps (Android)
Several Android smartphone apps can locate the phone as a place on a map and provide an elevation. They vary in accuracy depending on factors involving the use of the smartphone sensors and the network connection including the cell phone network.
Any given elevation or altitude app may need device permissions to use a device’s location services. Some use cellular data. Some share data with third parties and decline to delete data. Many apps do not provide ride tracks to riders.
I occasionally stopped during a ride to use the Android App My Elevation (by RDH software) and logged readings in a notes-taking App.
Places
The table that follows list the approximate elevation of waypoints that I pass in riding from home. In the table that follows:
Areas are municipal divisions in Greater Victoria, and areas within large municipal areas (e.g. Victoria West in the City of Victoria).
Elevation data in the table is the elevation in meters, above mean sea level according to the My Elevation app on my smartphone. It sometimes varies from Google Earth Pro.
Area
Trail, Street, Route
Crossing or Point
Elevation
Esquimalt
Home, Local, indoors (basement)
18
Esquimalt
Home, Local street level
21
Esquimalt View Royal
Admirals Rd.
Craigflower
12
Esquimalt View Royal
E&N
View Royal Boundary (S end of Hallowell)
17
Esquimalt
E&N
CFB, Graving Dock entrance, Admirals Road at Colville
27
Esquimalt
E&B
Crossing Hutchison
23
Esquimalt
Rockheights Ave.
Highrock Ave. (high point in W. Esq. is 64 m.) Notes in narrative above.
37
Esquimalt
Esq. Rd.
Civic offices, library W of Fraser Avenue
30
Esquimalt
E&N
Lampson Street
19
Victoria Vic West
Goose
1 Km Sign end of Harbour, beginning of trail along the harbour
7
Victoria
Beacon Hill Ring Drive
Childrens’ Farm
25
Oak Bay Uplands
Upper Terrace
Cordova Bay Rd E end of Cedar Hill X
53
View Royal
Goose
Ridge West of West Tunnel, Helmcken; near Victoria General
30
View Royal
Goose
Atkins Avenue Transit park n ride lot Trail rest stop
Overpass of MacKenzie Avenue, east end along Douglas Street
21
Saanich
Lochside
Near 3 Km. post Rest stop, Don Mann
37
Saanich
Lochside
Royal Oak Drive at Lochside School
41
Saanich
Lochside
Near 9 Km. post Cordova Bay Road
36
Central Saanich
Hunt Valley: Welch
At Martindale
39
Central Saanich
Lochside
At 14 Km post i.e. Ocean View
26
Crossing Esquimalt N to S
A route on side streets is preferable to sharing the road with the heavy traffic on Admirals Road on the climb from Woodway to Esquimalt Road (average slope 4% over a distance of 350 m., with a 150 m section with slopes of 10% to 15.5%).
One option is to ride south along Hutchison from the E&N trail up to Rockheights and follow Rockheight past the intersection of Highrock Avenue. The elevation of the junction of Rockheights Avenue at Highrock Avenue is in the table above, I can draw a path in Google Earth from the E&N trail, along Hutchison and Rockheights to the intersection of Rockheights. The path is 514 meters long, from the low point of 17 m. above mean sea level on the E&N trail to a high point of 43 m., with a drop to 37 m. at the measurement point. The gain to the high point is 27 m. The average slope is 6.5 % . The slope goes to over 10% where Hutchison crosses Lockley. The slope goes from 10% to 15% for 150 meters. The slope gets shallower at Rockheights, but the climbing continues. The smaller chain ring on 2x drive trail system is useful.
Another is to turn south on Intervale, then west for a block on Lockley, then south up Intervale (it continues after the offset) and Highrock to Rockheights
Rockheights is gentle or level, and runs into Old Esquimalt which descends to Park Terrace, Grenville and Esquimalt Road.
Avoiding the climbs to travel from my Local CRD3 in NW Esquimalt to the library on Esquimalt Road in SW Esquimalt means riding north on the E&N trail and east of Lampson to a street that crosses Esquimalt Rd and gives access to the EW streets in the West Bay area.
I moved to NW Esquimalt to the house I refer to as location CRD3 in late June, 2023. I have noted distances from home on the routes I ride often. There are many ways of adding to a ride; I am concentrating on simple routes.
This post will be updated without a change in date. (It is an endless post.)
Local
Most rides involve riding west on Craigflower to Admirals Road, and south on Admirals Road to Hallowell. I get off Admirals Road at Hallowell. There is no bike lane, and Admirals Road going S narrows to one lane, climbing. The trail is safer and has a milder grade.
Distances in Km., recorded on a Garmin GPS cycling computer; elevation in meters above mean sea level:
Road & Direction
Waypoint
Distance
Elevation
Home
0
21
Craigflower W
Admirals Rd
.6
12
Admirals Rd.
Hallowell
1.16
20
Hallowell, E&N W
Tracks (S end Hallowell
17
E&N W
N side of Island Highway, junction with Galloping Goose
4.3
The main choice is whether to take the E&N:
S along Admirals Road to Colville and E to Lampson Street, Esquimalt Road and the Bridge), or
W across View Royal towards the Western shore municipalities.
Lochside Rides
The choice at Hallowell affects the ride to the Switch Bridge and along Lochside.
E&N
GG
Lochside
Place
Distance
S
W
Km 1 sign; W end of Harbour Rd
7.2
S
W
Switch Bridge, N end, Goose 4 Km sign (start of Lochside)
10.2
W
E
Switch Bridge, N end, Goose 4 Km sign (start of Lochside)
10.5
S
W
N
Don Mann buildings; rest stop First gravel, 3 Km post
13.02
W
E
N
Don Mann buildings; rest stop First gravel, 3 Km post
13.3
S
W
N
Royal Oak (Lochside School)
16.
W
E
N
Royal Oak (Lochside School)
16.2
S
W
N
Claremont
W
E
N
Claremont
18.2
S
W
N
9 Km post Cordova Bay Road
19.2
W
E
N
9 Km post Cordova Bay Road
19.4
W
E
N
14 Km post at Ocean View (after Hunt, Welch, Martindale)
26.5
The initial choice makes a small change in the distance of a ride to the Switch Bridge and north on the Lochside trail.
More routes
Choices
I have more choices:
at the Bridge.
cross the Bridge across west end of the Victoria Inner harbour and use bike lanes along Wharf or Pandora, or
cross the multi purpose bridge over Esquimalt Road and merge onto the Galloping Goose trail along Harbour Road, and the cross the Gorge on the Selkirk Trestle.
at the Switch Bridge:
W on Galloping Goose (“GG”) or
N on the Lochside Regional Trail (“LRT”).
Table
Distances are Garmin GPS, in Km.:
E&N
GG
LRT
Route
Waypoint
Distance
S
Cross tracks: Admirals Rd at Colville CFB, Graving Dock
2.7
S
Lampson Street
4.05
S
Esquimalt Road
5.5
S
Bridge
S
Pandora, Denman
Richmond at Coronation (Royal Jubilee)
10.5
W
W
E&N, Goose
Wale Road
7.03
W
W
Goose, Colwood streets, Kelly, Jenkins, Hull,
Hull trail E of Starlight Stadium
W
W
Goose, Colwood streets, Kelly, Jenkins
Starlight Stadium
12.5
W
W
Glen Lake Rd, Happy Valley Rd., Marwood, Luxton
Goose post 20 Km SI Rangers
16.4
The first choice makes about a 200 meter change in the distance of a ride to the Switch Bridge, and north on the Lochside trail.
I moved to Victoria West in 2020, part of the City of Victoria on the Esquimalt side of the Gorge, west of urban Victoria.
As of November 2020, I was north (or west) of the Bay Street Bridge, north of the Johnson Street Bridge, near the Selkirk Trestle. I was few hundred m. west of the 1 km Galloping Goose post, where the bike lane along Harbour Road ended and the trail became a cycling trail with an adjascent walking trail, I was a few hundred m. east of the 2 km post at the west end of the Trestle. I could get onto the Goose by riding along Catherine Street north across Skinner/Craigflower, and down the eastern part of Raynor Avenue onto Regatta, a road across the housing developments on along the Gorge. This local route let me get onto the Goose at the Trestle. I could take the Goose north, or south to Esquimalt Road, and the Bridge. I also had access to the Bridge by taking Catherine Street south, crossing Wilson and Esquimalt Road and riding on Kimta and the 2023 extension of the E&N tail on a bike lane along Kimta to the Bridge.
I could take the Goose along the Gorge to the Swingbridge and either the Goose or the Lochside. I was a little closer some of the waypoints on routes that I took regularly. From CRD 1, in James Bay, I had to travel about 2.5 km to reach the Bridge and another 1 Km to reach the Selkirk Trestle. My trips up the Goose to the Switch Bridge and north on the Lochside were a bit shorter that trips from James Bay:
Point
Catherine North & Trestle
Catherine South & Bridge
Royal Oak at Lochside (Lochside School)
8.9
11.3
Claremont Road at Lochside
11.0
Cordova Bay Road at Lochside (Mattick’s Farm)
12.2
14.6
Island View Road at Lochside (Michell’s Farm)
17.4
19.8
I could get onto the E&N Trail at Wilson. I could also reach the E&N trail by taking side streets out of my immediate area, crossing Hereward and taking Devonshire to the E&N trail.
I began many rides by taking either the Goose or the E&N to the point that the Island Highway intersects with Highway One; it was about 9.5 Km along the Goose, and about 8 Km along the E&N.
I could get into the West Bay area of Esquimalt, south of Esquimalt Road by taking Wilson to Dominion, crossing Esquimalt Road and taking Wollaston or Dunsmuir west o reach Lampson. Going south on Lampson would take me to Lyall, which would takes west me past the back (south side) of the Archie Browning (a curling arena that served as a vaccination center in 2021) and Esquimalt recreational buildings, to Fraser Street close to the Esquimalt branch of the library. The ride to the library and back was 6.2 Km. by that route. Or a trip to the library can be part of a ride across the Bridge or a ride past the base on Admirals Road and out the E&N. I can also get onto the south end of Admirals Road, which gives me a way to reach the naval base and to connect to the E&N at the base.
This post was updated or republished periodically since January 3, 2023. It was concluded May 6, 2023, when the World Health Organization declared the end of its formal determination that Covid-19 had become a world-wide emergency (Pandemic). It follows earlier posts:
Omicron, Pango lineage B.1.1.529, was discovered in South Africa and recognized as a variant of concern of Covid-19 by the WHO in November 2021. By the end of September, 2022, reports and studies of variants in the Omicron lineage that infect vaccinated persons and persons who have been infected were being published: BA.2.75.2, BA.5, BQ.1, BQ.1.1, BA.2.10.4, BA.4.6. (See Papers discussing). B.1.1.529 evolved into 5 lineages known as BA.1 and BA.2, etc.. The BA.2 lineage includes XBB. The first variant in the XBB line was identified in Singapore in August 2022. The latest WHO variant of concern, as of January 2023, is XBB.1.5, nicknamed (not a formal scientific name) Kraken. XBB 1.5 was identified in Singapore in late 2022, in the USA in November 2022 and in Canada in December 2022. The Omicron sub-variants are the most antibody-evasive strains tested.
CBC reported March 11, 2023 in the post/article “World Health Organization updates variant names to track Omicron’s rapid evolution that the Omicron parent lineage (B.1.1.529) is a varient of concern but its subvariants are variants of interest. “Since February 2022, ‘Omicron and its many sublineages have almost completely replaced other variants,’ [quoting] Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, an infectious disease epidemiologist who serves as the technical lead for WHO’s COVID-19 response”.
The illness caused by Omicron and its subvariants is milder than the SARS caused by the original Covid-19 virus. It is severe or fatal for some people. In aggregate, it has been fatal for more individuals than the original virus and the early variants of concern.
Links
BC
After April 2022, the health authorities in BC reported the weekly reports of the BC Centre for Disease Control BCCDC (an agency of the BC government) every Thursday. CBC reported the reports, generally promptly, in its BC News section. I listed those weekly reports in 2022:
The CBC News BC reports resumed in January 2023 and remained weekly until mid-March 2023. In October 2022 the BCCBC had started to make a weekly Respiratory Epidemiology Summary report with a COVID-19 Weekly Summary section. The BCCDC moved the links to weekly updates to its COVID dashboard to the Respiratory Disease web site, and gradually changed the reports.
CBC reported other BC government announcements of health programs, policy and advice. All dates are in 2023.
February 4, the CBC, responding to the first season of “The Last of Us”, a popular premium TV show, did a piece on fungal diseases.
The CBC covered announcements in March by Canadian federal government health officials about vaccines, boosters and the circulation of the virus.
March 11 the CBC announced that Omicron Kraken was a varient of interest but not a variant of concern and would not be given its a name, and that the new naming convention was “WHO will continue assigning Greek alphabet labels for variants of concern, but it will no longer do so for variants of interest.” It added:
More than 76 per cent of Canadian adults and close to 90 per cent of young adults (aged 17 to 24) are estimated to have previously had the disease as of mid-January, according to national blood donor data released by the federal government’s COVID-19 Immunity Task Force.
Adam Miller, March 11, 2023, CBC
US, China, W.H.O., World News
Public health medicine and policy, lockdowns, supply chains, protests about government policy in China, end of mandates in China, the Omicron surge in China, and other disease outbreaks or risks. All dates are in 2023 :
People in BC had almost given up wearing masks, as of March 2023. As of May, many are paying attention to social distancing. Most people are acting as if the SARS disease has vanished and been replaced by a mild flu.
The Canadian national government and the BC provincial government have treated Omicron as a mild flu that causes minor illness since the spring of 2022. The Omicron variants were recognized as contagious, but the illness was regarded as a mild flu. The government treated the illness as treatable, to be managed by providing health care including hospitalization and intensive care. The public authorities gave the public months of relief from masking, social distancing and other public health measures. Public heath mandates were dismantled except in health care locations – hospitals, testing and diagnostic services and medical offices. That ended in April 2023. The government viewed vaccine hesitation as a source of discontent with governance, largely tolerated the resistance to mandates in 2023..
Health care professionals agree that the illness is treatable in most cases. Health care practitioners are unhappy about working conditions, pay and policy.
The public wants to be cared for in the event of illness. Many members of the public do not want to trust to medical experts and bureaucrats, and take vaccines or wear masks. They believe they will be well and that they have no duty to minimally decease the transmission of the virus.
Freedom Rallies
The provincial authorities in BC did not take action against anti-vax protesters in 2022. Some of the protesters were protest veterans; some were novices. Some were true belivers in an ideology. Many Canadians who protested vaccines and mandates were adherents of QAnon and other anti-government movements.
The protests declined but have not stopped. Local governments have started to ask the courts to grant orders against protesters and protest organizers.
Some protests were or are impulsive and naive. Protesting gives people a sense of meaning and status and some happiness.
Many of protester organizers appear to be adherents of Pseudolaw – Tax Protesters, Sovereign Citizens, Freemen on the land – a loose association of persons who oppose obedience to civil law on the principle that they may exercise their own judgment guided to higher law or natural intuition. The analogy to the sociology and ideologu of religion is that protester organizers and some protesters respond to government rules in a Gnostic (or Manichean) mode – they have higher secret knowledge – rather than an Antinomian mode. Some of the organizers also have a monetary hustle. They are making contacts with people who show up and selling them pseudolaw advice. Some of the organizers may be trying to bring down a system.
Some anti-government movements in the United States have advocated violence, armed themselves, organized militias, prepared for violence and caused violent riots. Some adherents of anti-government movements have engaged in acts of violence against public officials.
The public authorities have had concerns that some protesters are adherents of anti-government movements. This partially explains why the 2022 Trucker Convoy, the Ottawa occupation, the ancillary protests in other cities, and the border crossing blockades (Windsor Ont., Coutts Alta.) were managed they way they were.
In my view, CyclingTips was the leading source of information on maintaining and repairing bicyles in 2020, 2021 and 2022. CyclingTips started as an online magazine (web publication in 2008; commercial web publication in 2013). It was published successfully as a web publication, with associated podcasts and other internet content. The Nerd Alert podcast was informative.
Mergers and Acquisitions
Pocket Outdoor Media, the corporate owner of Beta, a site focusing on mountain bike and endurance cycling acquired Outside Inc.’s brands in February 2021. 1Outside Integrated Media, OutsideTV, Gaia GPS, athleteReg, Yoga Journal, SKI, BACKPACKER, VeloNews, Climbing, Rock & Ice, Gym Climber, Trail Runner, Women’s Running, Triathlete, Better Nutrition, Bicycle Retailer & Industry News, Clean Eating, Fly Fishing Film Tour, IDEA Health and Fitness Association, Muscle & Performance, NASTAR, National Park Trips, NatuRx, Oxygen, PodiumRunner, Roll Massif, SNEWS, The Voice, Vegetarian Times, VeloPress, VeloSwap, Paleo Mag, Beta, FinisherPix, and Warren Miller Entertainment. The entity renamed itself Outside and acquired Peloton Magazine, a publication about competive road racing. In July 2021, Outside acquired CyclingTips and the mountain biking brands Pinkbike and Trailforks. Outside bundled its publications into the Outside+ subscription service.
The Suits’ Purge
CyclingTips founder Wade Wallace left CyclingTips and Outside in August 2022.
Publishing, like other retail businesses in the 21st century, is dominated by marketing, appearance, and financial engineering. Outside had some bicycle maintanance content, and technical material by Lennard Zinn (a column and some articles in VeloNews). Outside appears to have had doubts about the tone and direction of the CyclingTips material. Outside appears to have thought that stories about:
lifestyle,
travel,
the challenges of outdoor activities,
new products, including new electronic ways of bragging about how readers have achieved success,
the rebirth of Lance Armstrong as a new media celebrity, and
bike racing gossip news
would attract readers, which would drive ad sales and generate revenue, while coverage of maintenance, repair and criticism of bike industry trends would not.
It has developed a lifestyle cable TV channel which appears to attempt to fill a “lifestyle” niche.
In November 2022 Pocket Outdoor/Outside laid off the CyclingTips staff who had been addressing cycling tech issues, including the writers who had recorded the content for the Nerd Alert Podcasts. The Nerd Alert podcast disappeared. Cycling tech sites noticed – Zero Friction Cycling reacted November 18, 2022.
Escape Collective
Many of the writers, editors, producers, podcasters and web designer associated with CyclingTips content reappeared, in stages, in March, April and May 2023 as the team of a new venture. In April 2023, Escape Collective launched as an online magazine on a subscription service basis, with a paywall that gives readers some free web articles a month. Subscribers have access to a Discord server and a newsletter and some perks.
Podcasts in the Escape Collective network were not subject to the paywall for a few months but some podcasts have introduced a subscribers only version, releasing “public” teasers. The Geek Warning podcast produces the content that Nerd Alert had produced.
