Filling the fibre gap: functional and metabolic potential of high amylose wheat

Wheat is the most widely grown food crop and the most traded cereal in the world today. It is therefore a perfect foundation for raising the nutritional quality of the food supply to help improve overall health of communities worldwide. Selective breeding of commercial wheat has produces a variety which is very high in resistant starch, a type of dietary fibre which has documented beneficial metabolic effects for glucose and lipid metabolism. Dietary fibre is the nearest thing we have to a super-food with the known beneficial effects on the gut microbiome, gastrointestinal cancers and metabolic disease, but intakes fall well below recommended levels. The question is, can this new type of wheat can fill this fibre-gap?
This high-amylose wheat clearly has a great potential to improve human health if it enters the food chain, but at the moment there are several challenges which need to be overcome such as understanding how to incorporate this high insoluble-fibre wheat into food staples in the diet such as bread, biscuits and pastry, and further define the metabolic effects of consumption in humans.
Using a combination of cutting-edge food technology methods and dietary interventions in human volunteers, this project aims to investigate and maximise the incorporation of this wheat into different food products; evaluate the sensory qualities and consumer attitudes to this novel wheat variety and quantitate the glucose lowering effects of consumption in a dietary intervention trial.