Last summer a University of Guelph food scientist found better health outcomes from eating sourdough bread.

Prof. Terry Graham studied four types of breads to determine which had the most positive health effects when it comes to carbohydrate metabolism, blood sugar and insulin levels.
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He said it’s likely that the fermentation of the sourdough changes the nature of the starches in the bread, creating a more beneficial bread.

And while sourdough came out on top, the whole wheat varieties used in the study came out on bottom - even below white bread.
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In collaboration with Scarborough bakery Stonemill Bakehouse, they have developed a whole grain sourdough bread and are currently testing the long-term health benefits of the bread on subjects. They are comparing the results to the subjects’ responses to a standard white bread.
— Sourdough Bread Has Most Health Benefits, Prof Finds U of Guelph 2 Jul 2008

Today I started the process of making a sourdough starter culture to make whole wheat sourdough bread.
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Kristof has a piece in the Times about how as an openly intellectual person his election is momentous. Recent presidents, he says, either hid their intellectualism or just had none.

It is interesting that, similarly, in Canada, the Tories wak, attack, puffin ad smeared Dion as “professor Dion.”

Barack Obama’s election is a milestone in more than his pigmentation. The second most remarkable thing about his election is that American voters have just picked a president who is an open, out-of-the-closet, practicing intellectual.
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We can’t solve our educational challenges when, according to polls, Americans are approximately as likely to believe in flying saucers as in evolution, and when one-fifth of Americans believe that the sun orbits the Earth.
– Obama and the War on Brains NYTimes 9 Nov 2008