A research team believes that its flour derived from chickpea can produce just as tasty white bread and reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes.
Wheat flour in white bread can cause blood sugar levels to rise suddenly.
Researchers from the Quadram Institute and King’s College London have shown that replacing wheat flour with a new ingredient derived from chickpeas improved the glycemic response (the increase in blood sugar seen after eating a meal) of humans. eating white bread.
The research team argues that the new ingredient uses specially developed grinding and drying processes that preserve cell structure, making its starch more resistant to digestion. Developing foods that contain more of this resistant starch would help control blood glucose levels and reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes.
Starch from wheat is a major source of dietary carbohydrate, but in bread and many other processed foods it is quickly digested into glucose in the body, causing a sharp spike in blood glucose levels. There is much evidence linking long-term consumption of foods that stimulate high glycemic responses to the development of type 2 diabetes. With this condition being elevated, along with obesity and other metabolic disorders, with providing foods and ingredients that help consumers manage their blood glucose levels can help fight these health challenges.
In many strokes, such as chickpeas, peas, beans and lentils, there is a lot of resistant starch, which is digested slowly and avoids potentially harmful blood glucose spikes. However, when these crops are ground into flour and processed into food products most of this beneficial protection is lost, leaving the starch very digestible.
For this reason, the scientists created another milling process, which preserves the cell wall structures of a plant (dietary fiber) that surround the starch. This ‘Type 1’ resistant starch is the same as those found in whole foods, but with the advantage that it can be used in a form that can be introduced to a wider range. of foods.
Funding from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), part of the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), has been used to develop the commercial potential of this novel ingredient, called PulseON®, and is it expands the opportunities for the introduction of large amounts of resistant starch into processed foods to improve nutritional quality.
Now, in a new study published in the journal Food Hydrocolloids, the research team has claimed for the first time that the protective properties of starch are maintained during bread-making, and that people who ate bread rolls where PulseON has been replaced with some wheat flour. ® blood glucose responses were lower.
In a randomized double-blind study, the scientists replaced PulseON® with zero percent, 30 percent and 60 percent of the wheat flour in a typical white wheat bread recipe.
Healthy human participants would eat each of the types of bread roll for breakfast in random order on separate days, with no knowledge of what type of roll they were eating. Their glucose levels were recorded using continuous glucose monitors.
Blood glucose responses to the PulseON® rich breads were on average 40 percent lower than after eating the controlled breads. The bread rolls contained the same amounts of starch and wheat protein (gluten) per serving, so the different blood glucose responses reflect carbohydrate quality.
These results raise the potential for the use of such foods to improve dietary management for diabetes patients, but it needs to be evaluated in future studies.
Starch extraction in all types of bread was also studied in a laboratory using biochemical methods and a microscope. These tests showed that, after two hours of digging, the wheat starch was completely digested, but the starch remained Type 1 resistant. This confirms that bread had the lowest glucose response rich PulseON® due to the fact that the resistant starch enclosed in the chickpea ingredient was not digested.
“The introduction of our new type of flour into bread and other staple foods provides the opportunity to develop the next generation of low glycemic food products to support public health measures to improve health through better diet ”said Dr Cathrina Edwards from the Quadram Institute.
“Consumers who replace wheat bread with PulseON® rich bread would benefit not only from the type 1 resistant starch, but also from the higher fiber and protein content. ”
According to researchers, participants gave scores similar to the rich PulseON® bread for texture and flavor like the white bread. Quality tests showed that any effect on bread quality (texture, appearance, etc.) was subtle and most pronounced when a lot of PulseON® was used.
Although scientists need to test the sensory properties of a broader user group in a non-clinical setting, the results of the experiment are nevertheless encouraging for efforts to produce healthier white bread without harm. impact on product quality.