The Real Reason Bread in Italy Doesn't Make You Bloated
By Andris Lagsdin
Every time a friend gets back from Italy, I get the same text: "I ate bread and pasta every single day and somehow felt better than I do at home. What gives?"
I've been making pizza for 13 years. I have a theory.
It's not the wheat. It's not the water. It's not magic Italian air.
It's time and it's flour.
Real Italian bakers ferment their dough for days, not hours. 24, 48, sometimes 72 hours of cold, slow fermentation. During that time, wild and cultivated yeasts break down the starches and gluten in the dough, before you eat it.
What you put in your stomach is already partially digested. That's why it doesn't sit heavy. That's why you don't bloat. That's why you can eat bread three meals a day in Florence and walk away feeling lighter than you do at home.
But it's not just the time. It's also what's in the flour. Italian bakers use organic, stone-milled flour, wheat that hasn't been sprayed, processed, or stripped of nutrients. Most American grocery store flour is bleached, treated, and grown in soil pumped with chemicals. Your gut knows the difference, even if your taste buds don't.
Most American bread? Mixed, proofed, and baked in 2-4 hours with industrial flour. The yeast hasn't done its job. The gluten is still tight. Your gut does the work the dough should have done.
And let's be honest about something else, bread you buy in a grocery store, wrapped in plastic, with an expiration date two weeks out? That's not bread. That's a product engineered to survive a supply chain. Real bread is alive. Real bread doesn't last two weeks because real bread isn't trying to.
Here's what I do
I make my pizza dough on Sunday and don't touch it until Wednesday or Thursday.
Cold ferment in the fridge. 72 hours minimum. The dough comes out slack, bubbly, alive, you can see it in the photo above. Those bubbles are gluten breakdown. That's flavor. That's digestibility. That's what real bread feels like.
The recipe is simple:
- 500g organic flour (I use High Mountain Organic from Central Milling, it's the best I've found. King Arthur Bread Flour works in a pinch, but organic matters)
- 350g water (room temp)
- 16g salt
- 1g instant yeast
Mix it. Let it sit covered at room temp for 1 hour. Then into the fridge for 72 hours.
On baking day, pull the dough out of the fridge. Ball it. Let it rest at room temp for 3-4 hours. Stretch. Top. Launch onto a hot Baking Steel.
Don't want to make pizza? Make bread. Same dough, same ferment, same result. Shape it into a rough loaf, slash the top, bake on the steel. Long ferment, easy to digest. The bread you've been missing.
If you want to skip the measuring
I package this exact ratio in our 72-hour pizza dough mix, with the same organic flour I use at home. Just add water and time.
But honestly, even if you never buy a mix from me, try the 72-hour ferment once with real organic flour. Just once. You will notice the difference.
That's the Italian secret. There's no secret. Just patience and real ingredients.
Andris
Common questions
Why doesn't Italian bread make you bloated? Long fermentation. Italian bakers let dough ferment for 24-72 hours, which lets yeast break down gluten and starches before you eat them. American bread is usually proofed in 2-4 hours, your gut ends up doing the work.
How long should I ferment pizza dough? 72 hours in the fridge is the sweet spot. Anything less than 24 hours and you're missing the digestive and flavor benefits.
Does organic flour really matter? Yes. Conventional flour is bleached and grown with synthetic inputs. Organic, stone-milled flour preserves more of what your gut actually wants.
Can I make bread with this dough? Yes. Same dough, same ferment. Shape into a rough loaf, slash the top, bake on a hot Baking Steel.
About the Author
Andris Lagsdin invented the Baking Steel in 2012 using steel from his family's Stoughton Steel Company in Hanover, MA, a shop his family has run since the 1970s. What started as a Kickstarter project (backed after an endorsement from Kenji López-Alt on Serious Eats) has grown into the go-to tool for hundreds of thousands of home pizza makers. Every Baking Steel is still made there today.
Before launching Baking Steel, Andris trained under renowned chef Todd English and spent 15 years in the family steel business. He's the co-author of Baking with Steel with Jesse Olson Moore.
Today he teaches thousands of students how to make pizzeria-quality pizza at home through his free online classes and recipes.
In 2026, Andris launched the 72-Hour Pizza Dough Mix, the same recipe he's been teaching for over a decade, now in a bag. Just add water.
