14/05/2015: Want to know the way to healthier wheat products? Scurry along and get your ticket to hear Professor Peter Shewry at the Global Milling with GRAPAS Conference

Image: wwarby

Ladies and Gentlemen, meet Ron (Well, Ron's feet and tail, anyway).

As you can see, Ron is having a somewhat less-than-ideal day.

If only he had booked a ticket to the Global Milling with GRAPAS Conference at Victam International in Köln, Germany. 

I hear they have a strict 'no snake' policy.

But that's not Ron's only cause for regret. He also won't have the chance to meet and hear Professor Peter Robert Shewry, Distinguished Research Fellow at Rothamsted Research and Professor of Plants and Health at the University of Reading, UK.
    

Professor Shewry will be speaking on 'Optimising the health benefits of wheat products by exploiting variation in grain composition and processing conditions.'
 
Ready? Here comes the science:

"In addition to providing energy, wheat is also a major dietary source of essential nutrients (notably protein, minerals, B vitamins), dietary fibre and phytochemicals with potential health benefits. There is significant variation in the contents and compositions of these components among samples of wheat, which may be determined by genetic differences between cultivars and/or impacts of the environment during grain development.

"It should therefore be possible to enhance the health benefits of wheat products by exploiting these effects. It has also been suggested that older types of wheat, including ancient species, have greater health benefits than modern high yielding wheat cultivars, although this has not been established by rigorous scientific studies.

"The contents of bioactive components in wheat products are also affected by grain processing, particularly milling and dough fermentation. Firstly, because most bioactive components are concentrated in the bran and germ their contents in flour are affected by extraction rate and are low in white flour products.

"Nevertheless, their contents can be enhanced by innovative processing procedures to develop more healthy products with high consumer acceptability. Secondly, the amounts and compositions of bioactive components in wheat products may be modulated during processing, resulting in differences between the compositions and health benefits of breads produced by traditional long fermentation and sough dough systems and modern short fermentation systems.

"However, these effects are currently poorly understood. I will therefore review the evidence that differences in wheat type, milling and fermentation affect the content of bioactive components and health benefits of wheat. I will then present a proposal for a new research European research programme which will provide definitive information on the relationship between these parameters and health benefits measured in human dietary intervention trials."

Sounds pretty good to me.

What do you think, Ron?

Sorry, what did you say? We can't quite hear you.

See the agenda and register HERE.

 

The Global Miller
This blog is maintained by The Global Miller staff and is supported by the magazine GFMT
which is published by Perendale Publishers Limited.

For additional daily news from milling around the world: global-milling.com