Pacific Northwest Direct Seed Association: Cropping Systems Conference: January 2017 Part 1: gluten Prof. Andrew Ross Oregon State Univ. Francesco Ciusa, Il pane, 1907, bronzo, 68,8 x 49 x 105 cm.
Milling and baking industry partners
Pacific Northwest Wheat Quality Council Serving the Needs of the Wheat Industry USDA ARS Manhattan KS
Wheat is under assault The primary target is gluten Davis: gluten is the food component that causes innumerable different pathologies. Davis has also made headway with the anticorporate community: insinuating that modern wheat & gluten is the outcome of at best, thoughtless breeding, at worst, a monumental, globally coordinated conspiracy amongst wheat breeders to make people sick. Eva M. Selhub.
Nutritionally, quinoa is a powerhouse of a grain (as well as gluten-free) Millions of individuals around the world have started consuming gluten-free products, not only because of being diagnosed with celiac disease but also because of a general perception of maintaining better health.
What is gluten? Gluten Gliadin Glutenin Viscoelastic & cohesive Viscous and flowing Elastic snap Molecular Modeling of Unusual Spiral Structure in Elastomeric Wheat Seed protein. 2001. O. Parchment, P. R. Shewry, A. S. Tatham, and D. J. Osguthorpe. Cereal Chem. 78(6):658 662 Deduced Amino Acid Sequence of an Alpha-Gliadin Gene from Spelt Wheat (Spelta) Includes Sequences Active in Celiac Disease Authors: Kasarda DD. DOvidio R. Source Cereal Chemistry. 76(4):548-551, 1999
Some complete on gliadins complete It's [modern wheat is] an 18-inch tall plant created by genetic research in the '60s and '70s, this thing has many new features nobody told you about, such as there's a new protein in this thing called gliadin. It's not gluten.
More Read the science. The gluten "problem" coincides with the introduction of the Norin 10 cultivar with the Rht dwarfing genes in the early 1960's.
Wheat is not completely off the hook: Potential problems related to wheat Celiac disease: definite Specific wheat allergies: definite Non-celiac wheat sensitivity: fairly certain Non-celiac gluten sensitivity: under challenge
Fasano et al 2015 No biochemical or immunological markers
A grounded guide to gluten Kissing-Kucek 2015 No large scale epidemiological studies
The overall prevalence of NCGS in the general population is still unknown, mainly because many patients are currently self-diagnosed and start a gluten-free diet (GFD) without medical advice or consultation. The disorder seems to be more common in females and in young/middle age adults. Some authors think that the incidence of NCGS seems to be higher than celiac disease and wheat allergies, its estimated numbers reaching 0.63 to 6% of the population.
Looking back over the last five decades, several trends are apparent in wheat consumption: an increase in wheat consumption per capita (Rubio-Tapia et al. 2009) (http://www.ers.usda.gov/amberwaves/september08/fi ndings/wheatflour.htm)
Has gluten concentration fundamentally changed in the modern era? One possible explanation is that the selection of wheat varieties with higher gluten content has been a continuous process during the last 10,000 years, with changes dictated more by technological rather than nutritional reasons.
Has gluten content increased? Hammed, A. M., & Simsek, S. (2014). Hulled Wheats: A Review of Nutritional Properties and Processing Methods. Cereal Chemistry,. NDSU
Human beings did not evolve to eat grains until relatively recently in history. As such, our digestive systems are still finding grains problematic. Refutations A large assemblage of starch granules has been retrieved from the surfaces of Middle Stone Age stone tools from Here we present unprecedented new findings of the presence of small-scale trial cultivation in.., a 23,000-year-old hunter-gatherers' sedentary camp on the shore of the
Has gluten composition fundamentally changed over time?
Subunit Frequency Hard wheat glutenins Gliadins Glu D-1 1.20 1.00 0.80 0.60 5+10 2+12 0.40 0.20 0.00 1910's 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 Decade
The gluten-free market: how big, what threat? Harry Balzer, vice president at the market research company NPD Group... One in three of us say they want to cut back on gluten in their diet, but by 2016, gluten-free is projected to be only 1.5 percent of all food sales but 30 percent of the population claims they re cutting back or about to cut back on wheat and gluten, how come there s such a wide discrepancy? It s the difference, between what you say you re going to do and what you do. Yafa, Stephen (2015-05-12). Grain of Truth: Why Eating Wheat Can Improve Your Health (Kindle Locations 625-628). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Have our big domestic customers contributed to market erosion for wheat? Why is it, I m asking, that [big domestic wheat buyers] haven t mounted a kind of kick-ass defense of wheat I mean with Super Bowl commercials and such? Yafa, Stephen (2015-05-12). Grain of Truth: Why Eating Wheat Can Improve Your Health (Kindle Locations 696-699). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. Interestingly, gluten-free is all about avoidance: GF says nothing about the quality or qualities of the product
Part 2: Why Falling Number & why 300 seconds?
This presentation is primarily about... -Why there is a cutoff -Why the cutoff is 300 seconds -Discussion of new test options and variability in PHS testing -Some discussion of the impact of grain storage on FN This presentation is not about... -the mechanics of the FN test, -the genetic and environmental triggers that can induce low FN results, either through pre-harvest sprouting (PHS) or latematurity alpha-amylase (LMA)
Why Falling Number?
There is an analogy between what happens in FN test tube and the development and breakdown of structure in foods For Pre Harvest Sprout (PHS), alpha-amylase (AA), a key starch breakdown enzyme, is also a marker for synthesis of other detrimental enzymes that affect proteins and color Falling Number timeline: -Invented in Sweden: 1960 -Reported in Cereal Chemistry journal: 1964 -ICC standard method: 1968 -AACC Approved Method: 1972
In my view: 300 seconds is a market-driven signal about the level of risk that the customers (processors) will accept with respect to PHS or LMA, while still paying full price for the grain. Is there any evidence that 300 seconds is... -technically valid? -market driven? Isn t this less than 300 sec?
alpha-amylase activity: Ceralpha units 0.35 Technical validity: The figure shows the relationship between FN and alpha-amylase (AA) activity for 1026 samples of soft and hard wheats harvested in the PNW in 2014. 0.3 0.25 0.2 0.15 0.1 3 2 1 0.05 0 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 FALLING NUMBER: seconds
However, the question arises, what specific level of AA activity is likely to be damaging? Sensitivity to enzyme load is the key WWQL Meera Kweon & Perten Instruments
Let us look at PHS versus LMA. In PHS there is a massive increase in AA, which is both easy to measure and an important marker for the presence of elevated levels of other enzymes, such as proteases. LMA, as far as we know, is only the production of AA, not the other enzymes. Some folks have suggested that LMA is not an issue because it is "just" AA. In my reckoning, excessive AA, from PHS or LMA, in itself is an issue.
Ral et al Time v temperature? When and where and how much starch was susceptible to attack?
Another perspective on product sensitivity comes from commercial-level studies done in the UK in the early 1980s by Spillers Ltd. Inset 1 shows FN versus AA activity for six flour samples created by adding wheat malt to flour. 3 Inset 1 The samples were supplied to five commercial plant bakeries, all making standard white sliced sandwich loaves. Each of the five bakeries did a one hour run of around 2,800 lbs of flour for each of the six samples. 2 1 What was striking was that one bakery could deal with flour with a FN of 180 seconds, whilst another could only cope with flour with a FN of 270 seconds, corresponding to 0.12 units of AA activity (Inset 1).
The main problem was AA induced stickiness of the bread crumb (interior) that jammed the bread slicers. A bad problem was made worse by the structural weakness in the breads, also caused by AA induced starch breakdown. Canadian Grain Research Laboratory So in thinking about the risk of failure, if I was a wheat buyer for a mill supplying flour to all of these bakeries, I would need to be extremely conservative in my assumption of risk, and buy wheat that would mill into flour satisfactory in the most sensitive bread plant that I supplied. Bread Research Institute: Australia
Now look at Boxes 2a and 3a: There are two tales. Box 2a shows that there is the risk that there may be too much AA at any FN less than 300 seconds, hence some of the conservatism in buying practices by processors. 3 2a Dr. Camille Steber, a Molecular Geneticist with USDA-ARS in Pullman WA, is investigating differences in AA expression between varieties at equal FN in a strategic effort to identify usable genetic variability in AA expression to avoid this scenario. 2 Samples in box 3a are the other outliers, low FN in the absence of elevated AA. These samples are sound, no LMA, no PHS, but have low FN. Why? 3a 1 One reason that low FN without PHS or LMA may occur is being investigated by Dr. Amy Lin, a starch chemist at the U. of Idaho and WSU is investigating a possible change in starch deposition that could make the starch more susceptible to AA and hence have low FN even at low AA levels.
Another reason that low FN may occur without PHS or LMA : low protein FN declined about 11 sec per % protein
Market driven? How do I support my assertion that this is a market-driven signal? In February 1989, the U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) polled domestic and international users of U.S. wheat regarding what parameters, that were not already measured, should be included in wheat standards? Both domestic and international users identified FN as one test that should be added to the wheat standards.
Long-standing setting of FN specifications by international wheat buyers based on 300 seconds are indicative of their desire for unquestionably sound wheat
The falling number test has its issues, but it is a valuable metric in the marketplace because of its ability to identify wheat with a risk of poor performance in enduse applications. Our customers use it, so we can t afford to ignore it. But is there a better way? Constraints in test development: Precision/repeatability/destructive/sampling issues Natural biological variability Inhomogeneous distribution of sprout Inertia in industry to change an industry standard And now for something completely different What about the craze for sprouted wheat breads etc
1983 1984 2016 1985 1986/7 1985 1986
2011, Oregon 2012, Oregon Ross A.S., Orth R.A., Wrigley C.W., 1987. Rapid screening for weather damaged wheat. pp 577 583 In: Fourth international symposium on pre-harvest sprouting in cereals. D.J. Mares, ed, Westview Press, Boulder Colorado, USA.
Variation in the FN test: seed size, maturity, protein content, hardness Tiller maturity
https://www.agric.wa.gov.au/wheat/wheat-grain-quality-falling-number-and-sproutingtolerance?page=0%2c1#smartpaging_toc_p1_s0_h2 Resource intensive
Falling Number (seconds) Falling Number (seconds) Falling Number (seconds) Falling Number (seconds) Falling Number (seconds) Falling Number (seconds) Falling Number (seconds) Falling Number (seconds) Falling Number (seconds) GRAIN STORAGE 550 Aberdeen, -20 C 550 Aberdeen, +20 C 550 Aberdeen, +40 C 2014 450 350 450 350 450 350 Mean Falling Number (FN) values of soft wheats across storage time at Aberdeen, Kimberly, and Parma. 250 150 50 0 20 40 60 80 100 Storage Time (days) Kimberly, -20 C 250 150 50 0 20 40 60 80 100 Storage Time (days) Kimberly, +20 C 250 150 50 0 20 40 60 80 100 Storage Time (days) Kimberly, +40 C 550 550 550 Linear regression of overall FN activities (averaged across varieties) are presented in red. 450 350 250 150 50 0 20 40 60 80 100 450 350 250 150 50 0 20 40 60 80 100 450 350 250 150 50 0 20 40 60 80 100 Storage Time (days) Storage Time (days) Storage Time (days) Parma, -20 C Parma, +20 C Parma, +40 C 550 550 550 450 450 450 350 350 350 250 250 250 150 150 150 50 0 20 40 60 80 100 50 0 20 40 60 80 100 50 0 20 40 60 80 100 Storage Time (days) Storage Time (days) Storage Time (days)
Falling Number (seconds) Falling Number (seconds) Falling Number (seconds) Falling Number (seconds) Falling Number (seconds) Falling Number (seconds) Falling Number (seconds) Falling Number (seconds) Falling Number (seconds) 2014 600 Aberdeen, -20 C 600 Aberdeen, +20 C 850 Aberdeen, +40 C Mean Falling Number (FN) values of hard wheats across storage time at Aberdeen, Kimberly, and Parma. 400 300 200 100 0 20 40 60 80 100 Storage Time (days) Kimberly, -20 C 400 300 200 100 0 20 40 60 80 100 Storage Time (days) Kimberly, +20 C 650 550 450 350 0 20 40 60 80 100 Storage Time (days) Kimberly, +40 C 500 500 750 Linear regression of overall FN activities (averaged across varieties) are presented in red. 600 500 400 300 200 100 600 500 400 300 200 100 0 20 40 60 80 100 Storage Time (days) 600 500 400 300 200 0 20 40 60 80 100 100 Storage Time (days) 0 20 40 60 80 100 Storage Time (days) Parma, -20 C Parma, +20 C Parma, +40 C 600 600 600 500 500 500 400 400 400 300 300 300 200 200 200 100 0 20 40 60 80 100 Storage Time (days) 100 0 20 40 60 80 100 Storage Time (days) 100 0 20 40 60 80 100 Storage Time (days)