Amylase in bread?

[boatsteem1]

I thought you guys could help me out with something. Yesterday I bought some "greek" bread which seemed to be totally vegan. There's one thing I'm unsure of, however. The bread contains amylase. Now, I suspect that may ring a bell for many of you. For those of you who haven't heard of it, amylase is an enzyme we have in our saliva and somewhere below the stomach. It helps digestion.

Now before you go on thinking I'm crazy I should say the bread looked very tasty and has a lot of healthy ingredients

I'm wondering where this amylase comes from, though. Is it from an animal or produced in a laboratory (god, I really hope it's not spit, haha)?

Thanks

[sprite1986]

I found this from: http://www.vrg.org/nutshell/faqingredients.htm#amylase

What is amylase?
Amylase is an enzyme that breaks down starch into a simpler form. It can be derived from bacterial, fungal, or animal (pig-derived) sources.Typically vegan.

So I guess that doesn't reaaally clear things up.

[boatsteem1]

"Typically vegan." Argh!

Thanks for the research! I better stay clear of it unless it says where it derives from.

What annoys me is that they use pigs for everything, not one part of them returned to earth to rest in peace. That's sad.

[leesally]

Hello

Amylases are mostly produced by fungi or bacteria on large scales, as it is much much much much more economical than extracting them from animals.
Bacteria such as Bacillus (which incidentally also make the enzymes found in detergents), and fungi such as Asperigilus (bread mould) are typically used for amylase production.

As an aside, yeasts are not very good at digesting starch. In order for the yeast to make those lovely bubbles (carbon dioxide) in your bread from simple sugars, you have to either rise for a long time or provide some amylases so that there's adequate digestion of starch into simple sugars. I suspect that was why there were amylases added to your bread.