I add sugar to the warm water in which i dissolve the (dry) yeast. It seems to give it a little “jump start”. I read somewhere that yeast loves that stuff. Is that a mistake or valid?
It’s 100% valid that yeast loves sugar, and using sugar the way you mention, or mixed into the dough, is common.
The flavor of the finished product will differ from a slower rise with just flour, which would supposedly be more complex/nutty.
I’ve read the same, I suppose if you wanted the yeast to work more slowly, to allow the flavour to develop before the dough over rises, then maybe the sugar would hinder that?
You could always just do a cold rise to counter, but then what’s the point of the sugar?
Thinking about this some more, you can control almost everything else about your ingredients, but not the speed of the yeast, which falls off as the yeast slowly goes bad.
Maybe you could use sugar to boost older yeast to try maintain consistency?