Most people first hear about sourdough because someone tells them it’s easier to digest. Sometimes it’s a friend who says they can’t handle regular bread but feel fine after eating sourdough. Sometimes it’s a doctor hinting that fermentation changes gluten. And sometimes it’s pure curiosity. Bread, after all, has been part of human life for thousands of years, yet most of us don’t really know what happens inside the dough. I didn’t fully appreciate it myself until I began teaching others. Before founding The Sourdough Science Academy , I spent years in Italian kitchens. I moved from Italy to Australia in 2014, worked in well-known Italian restaurants and five-star hotels, and lived the rhythm of a chef’s life. Back then, my focus was taste, texture, and tradition. The science behind it all was there, but it mostly lived in the background. Everything changed when I started meeting people who loved bread but couldn’t eat it anymore. They missed its smell, its crunch, its comf...