SR9077 - Nutritional Quality of Organic Spelt Products

Lead researcher

Dr. Elsayed (Sayed) Abdelaal, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Guelph

Objectives

1. To evaluate the nutritional profile of spelt products in comparison with those of common wheat.
   
2. To study nutrient digestibility of spelt and its products.
   
3. To investigate effects of milling, mixing, fermentation and baking on spelt nutrient digestibility and the formation of resistant starch.
   
4. To study changes in dietary fibers and oligosaccharides composition during processing.
   
5. To initiate establishment of a nutritional database for spelt products to aid processors and consumers to better understanding some of the therapeutic properties of spelt products.

Expected benefits

1. Evaluation of spelt products will aid in establishing the organic food market in Ontario where big demands for spelt products already exist.
   
2. Spelt as alternative wheat will provide diversification in the wheat industry.

Results

Consumers of organic spelt products claim health benefits or a sense of well-being from their consumption as opposed to normal wheat products. In order to evaluate the validity of this claim, organic spelt and common wheat products were evaluated for nutritional properties of starch, protein and fiber. Spelt whole meal flour, dough and batter products showed noticeably high levels of resistant starch, and lower rate and extent of starch digestion as indicated by lower values for starch digestion index and rapidly available glucose compared with common wheat products.

These differences, however, were eliminated by baking processes in which spelt and common wheat bread, cookie, biscuit and muffin products had similar rate and extent of starch digestion suggesting different effects of baking. Within products, cookies possessed the lowest rate and extent of starch digestion followed by biscuits and muffins and finally breads. Spelt and common wheat bread products somewhat had similar protein digestibility within each type of bread. Sour dough breads had the highest protein digestibility among the three bread products. Whole spelt and wheat bread products are excellent sources for total dietary fiber providing about 7.3 g per serving. Biscuit and muffin products also provide very high levels of total dietary fiber compared with cookie products. Some differences in the composition of soluble dietary fiber were found between spelt and common wheat suggesting distinct properties for spelt. Additionally, significant changes in the fiber composition occurred after baking in spelt and common wheat bread products. These results provide a nutritional database on organic spelt products that will be useful for spelt producers, marketers, processors as well as dieticians and consumers.

Related information

• Other projects funded through the New Directions Research Program in 2001