hunza bread

Hunza is a fairy tale land and a lot of myth and reality has been associated to it. One thing is true of all that Hunza people are probably the most friendly people in the region. In the past it was quite common to see people crossing 100 and more years this indeed is true and can still be seen to some extent however the modern civilization has changed a lot in this valley of the longativity.

One secret of longativity of the hunza people is their low fat diet and diet full of fibre and organic vegetarian food. Hunza bread (Phitti as it is called locally) has inherited a huge fame and here is some thing about it.

Hunza Bread: the diet plan or diet scam

by the Phantom

The Bread diet...

Have you received that spam email yet explaining how you can lose weight by eating this special Hunza bread? The diet pitch goes this way: You just eat this bread and the weight falls off -- you just eat bread, that's it. Supposedly, one piece will fill you up for hours and hours on end, so you won't even want more than one piece -- but if you do, that's okay. Go ahead, gorge yourself on this stuff. You'll still lose weight. Yeah, right.

Uh-huh. And the spam goes on to say that you have to bake the bread yourself and you can buy the recipe for only $7.95 from the spammer. Oh, sure, and here's my credit card information...

If you search the internet, you can find dozens of "free" Hunza Bread recipes and lots of info on the whole deal to boot. Here's what I found out. There are two Hunza Bread (umm) schools. One features Millet flour, which is a very ancient flour, first used in Asia. and the bread made from this flour tends to be dry and not very tasty. The Hunza bread recipe just below is typical of the Himalayan bread school and is most likely the diet bread recipe.

A typical Hunza Millet Bread Recipe (Himalayan):

1 cup Millet flour
1 cup grated carrots
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon vegetable salt/iodized salt
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 eggs

Combine flour, carrots, oil, honey, and salt. Mix well, then stir 3/4 cup of boiling water into the mixture. Beat the egg yolks well adding 2 tbs. of cold water, continue to beat and then add to the mixture. Fold in stiffly beaten eggs and bake in a hot oiled pan at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes.

I didn't actually cook up this bread recipe, (it doesn't sound too good to me) but from the ingredient list, I couldn't help but notice there is no yeast or baking powder involved, so the bread is going to be rather flat. So I would bake it in a 9x12 baking pan.

After it has cooled, it hopefully can be cut into pieces, say approximately 2"x2" pieces, so there would be about 30 pieces total. According to my rough calculations, each piece would contain about 50 calories. That doesn't sound like much nourishment to me!

(Calories: 1 cup Millet flour=800; carrots=100; honey=60; oil=240; eggs=200)

Here's some info on the subject:

Many of the Hunza bread recipes don't use Millet flour. They are most likely from the Hungarian Bread school. According to one site, the word "Hunza" is Hungarian for "golden raisin". Their bread recipes are more like typical Western yeast or soda breads and they feature many kinds of flour, none that I found used Millet flour. They usually contain raisins, nuts and spices as well, so they are more like a dessert bread than a diet staple.

Here's a Hunza Bread typical recipe (Hungarian style):

1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
2 cups bread flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup wheat germ
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons butter
3/4 cup golden raisins
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1-1/2 cups warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)

Follow the directions on your bread making machine. After the first rise, remove the dough from the machine pan. Shape into two loaves and place into lightly greased 7x3 loaf pans. Allow to rise until doubled in volume but not more than one inch above the top of the pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes.