You know those advertisements for the products of Mulino Bianco (or of Barilla), in which the mother yeast is mentioned ? From snacks (I heard it for the Flutes just the other night) to bread to scones (Focaccelle, is the product), it’s all one to specify that they are made with mother yeast . Given the growing interest of consumers in natural foodand above all the fashion of mother yeast, which as some of you may know is a leavened dough that is gradually fed with new dough and which, added to the dough, allows a hundred percent natural and healthier leavening (unlike brewer’s yeast which blocks some chemical processes typical of leavening, thus impoverishing the finished product), Mulino Bianco seems to have smelled a new market , and so it has begun to inform in advertisements that in snacks and focaccia there is mother yeast.

However, an investigation by the Food Fact has revealed what lies behind this indication: the mother yeast would only serve to give flavor, and it would not exist in the natural form but freeze-dried. Now, imagine a freeze-dried mother yeast (the real mother yeast is shown in the seductive jar in the ads): it is not the real mother yeast. But apart from this, according to Mulino Bianco it does not even serve as a leavening : but if the yeast does not serve as a leavening agent, why give so much emphasis to the fact that it has been put into the products? In fact, the real leavening agent used by Mulino Bianco is brewer’s yeast. In short, mother yeast is an additive in freeze-dried form.