By Deborah Hoeldtke

Minneapolis, Minn. --- If bread is the staff of life, Lynn Gordon’s new bread is the staff of menopausal women. She’s designed it that way.

“Woman’s Bread with Isoflavones” is the latest offering of Gordon’s nationally recognized French Meadow Bakery. Slated for a first shipment this month, the bread’s name was trademarked over two years ago when Gordon began dreaming of a bread to meet the needs of women. After months of development and testing, aided by AURI cereal scientist Charan Wadhawan, the bread is a reality warmly received by nutritionists, the Menopause Association and Gordon’s 15 national distributors.

“I’m getting an enormous response, more than I’ve ever experienced for a product,”says Gordon, who spent most of this fall on the road selling bread. “I have orders from my distributors ... The only problem was waiting until it’s available in stores. The consumers want it now.”

Old-world quality

Gordon, co-owner and president of French Meadow Bakery, began baking organic bread free from commercial yeast in 1985. She studied the old-world art of naturally leavened breadmaking under master baker Jacques de Langre and brought her enthusiasm for the process home to Minnesota. At first, Gordon sold about 40 loaves a week through a few local co-ops willing to give her a bit of shelf space.

The bread’s quality and taste caught on by word of mouth, Gordon says, and coverage over the years by INC. magazine, USA Today, “60 Minutes,” the New York Times, and others built national awareness. Twice named as one of the “best bread bakeries” in America by Bon Appetit, French Meadow now bakes 20,000 loaves per week; 85 percent are sold outside Minnesota, says Steve Shapiro, co-owner and vice president.

How do you slice relief?

Woman’s Bread began to take shape in Gordon’s mind after a premature hysterectomy in 1998 caused a forced menopause. “I experienced all of the symptoms immediately after my surgery,” Gordon says, “which was very shocking. I’m sure many women experience that; I’m not alone.”

Menopause and PMS can cause distressing physical and neurological changes, among them weight gain, hot flashes, mood swings and periodic bloating. “Our mothers and previous generations dealt with menopause symptoms differently; they chose to accept them,” Gordon says. “But baby boomers are more proactive. I wasn’t going to accept what was happening to my body and I didn’t want to take hormone replacement pills. I began researching what to do, what to take. ... Through my searching, I realized that soy isoflavones are really the most effective and natural form of estrogen.”

Extensive research has shown soy isoflavones can relieve menopausal symptoms, Gordon says, and some scientists believe they may play a role in preventing osteoporosis. Studies also demonstrate that soy helps lower cholesterol, and the genestein in soy may even fight cancer.

Woman’s Bread contains SoyLife, a high-isoflavone protein concentrate made from non-genetically modified beans, Gordon says. It’s super-loaded with other healthy ingredients, too: flaxseeds, oat fiber, rice bran, sesame and sunflower seeds, quinoa, amaranth, three more forms of soy, five varieties of sprouted grains -- even cranberries. They were added, she says, “because they’re helpful in preventing bladder infections.”

“It’s healthy bread with lots of whole grain and sprouted grain, that’s why it’s high in vitamin B. Flaxseeds give omega-3 and omega-6, too,” AURI’s Wadhawan adds.

A mouthful of sustenance

Aware of AURI and its resources for a long time, Gordon says she often recommended the Institute to other small companies but was too busy to call herself. “I’m so glad I finally did, because Charan is so knowledgeable. She has a real food sense in addition to her technical experience.”

From the beginning, Gordon wanted a product “that would be sustaining and taste delicious as an alternative to popping lots of pills.” To ensure high standards, Gordon and Wadhawan began with nutritional requirements and worked backwards. Gordon insisted every slice of bread have 7 grams of protein, 5 grams of dietary fiber and 40 milligrams of phyto-estrogen from soy isoflavones.

The bread also had to taste good, with no yeast, dairy, sweeteners or oil added, and the baker had to be able to knead it easily and it had to brown right and have a pleasing texture.

“Lynn told me the kind of ingredients she wanted to use, ” says Wadhawan, who works at AURI’s Crookston lab. Using software that calculates nutritional levels for ingredient combinations, she delivered formulas to French Meadow baker Mike Simon for testing.

Although Crookston has a pilot plant capable of baking bread, “We wanted to make sure that we used their equipment, their baker, their process, so that when the final formula was reached, they knew how to make it,” Wadhawan says.

Re-re-formulating

From the spring of 1999 through the fall, Simon baked about 20 loaves every three to four weeks as new formulas arrived. The AURI scientist took side trips to the Lyndale Avenue bakery whenever she was near Minneapolis to view and taste the results. Gordon, Shapiro and Wadhawan judged each attempt and discussed ways to improve.

“First the taste wasn’t good. So we switched the ingredients, used some more, some less,” Wadhawan says. Juggling texture, appearance and taste against the required nutritional content per slice was exacting work.  Once, the bread wouldn’t brown; on another try, it was too dry and stiff to knead. But eleven rounds of formulating, baking and evaluating later, they had a winner -- a firm textured, tasty bread complete with cranberry swirls.

“Once we got to the final formula, we did a few test runs to make sure that it would come out the same each time,” says Wadhawan, who also helped French Meadow source ingredients and comply with FDA packaging rules.

“I got (Woman’s Bread) analyzed by a certified lab to make sure that the protein and fiber were exactly as predicted,” Wadhawan says, “and it’s a very nutritious bread ... it has complete protein, with all essential amino acids.”

Bread without yeast?

Like all of its breads, French Meadow Bakery’s Woman’s Bread is a kosher, organic, naturally leavened bread. Gordon calls her breads “yeast-free” because they are leavened with “the mother,” fermented dough that is continually refreshed and can be maintained for a lifetime. Natural leavening, Gordon says, produces healthier breads that keep intestinal flora in balance and are easier to digest.

Baker’s yeast, or Saccharomyces cerevisae, was isolated and cultured in the mid-1800s for its ability to raise bread dough quickly. Natural leavening, by contrast, requires proofing of 24 hours or more before baking. In that period of time, Gordon says, the phytic acid in wheat grain is completely eliminated by natural micro-organisms. Bread risen with baker’s yeast breaks down only about 10 percent of phytic acid. That’s important, Gordon says, because phytic acid has been linked to anemia, rickets and nervous disorders.

Not just for women

Gordon’s geared up for market promotion with colorful bag wrappers and T-shirts. “I wanted women to relate to the bread and to say ‘I want this,’ ” Gordon says. “So we started with an artist’s illustration of a woman leaping. Everyone liked it, and we have T-shirts with that.” For the bread packaging, Gordon picked a more intimate pose -- two women sitting at a table having tea with bread.

Woman’s Bread is good for women in all stages of their lives, not just pre, during and post-menopause, Gordon says. Men seem to want it too, especially “men that eat a vegetarian diet and want more protein or men who follow The Zone Diet.”

Shapiro says men could be interested for another reason: “Why not buy it for the woman you love?”