Research reveals Canadian-made wheat as useful, healthy as ever

Researchers studying the makeup of western Canadian wheat cultivars have found that many of the crop’s traits have remained unchanged over the last 100 years.

Their findings offer a rebuttal for grain industry advocates when engaging in internet forums and dinnertime debates with anti-gluten crusaders and adherents to low- and no-carb diets who link wheat’s consumption to health concerns.

Among the many claims circulated online and in best selling books is that the wheat in farmers’ fields and the grain products in consumers’ homes are different than those in previous generations as the pursuit of higher yields affects the crop’s healthfulness.

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“I think wheat really is wheat — at least Canadian wheats,” said Nancy Ames of Agriculture Canada.

“Canadian wheats really haven’t changed.”

Ames was among the researchers who contributed to a project studying 20 modern and heritage varieties used in Western Canada since the turn of the 20th century.

Breeders’ efforts have focused on yield, disease resistance and milling and baking properties, but Ames found that wheat’s nutritional profile has remained largely the same.

“Even though we didn’t select for or against, we really haven’t changed those things too much,” she said.

“There’s a little up and down, enough up and down that I think there’s probably genetic variation that we might be able to go in should we want some higher types of fibre or something like that in various locations.”

Red Fife and Marquis were among the heritage varieties that the researchers tested.

“(They) were the starting point basically for the CWRS varieties,” Nancy Edwards of Cereal Grains Consultancy, who contributed to the project, told the Canadian Wheat Symposium in Saskatoon last week.

“We had an exceptional starting point, and we’ve done a really good job of maintaining some of those characteristics that we saw in Red Fife and wanted to continue.”

Researchers found consistency across most varieties in protein and gluten content and baking and milling performance, as well as dietary fibre, starch and antioxidant activity.

Wheat consumption can offer a number of nutritional benefits, said Julie Miller Jones, a nutritionist and University of Minnesota professor. Only six percent of the population should be eating a gluten-free diet, she added — those with a specific condition such as Celiac disease.

“Celiac and other autoimmune diseases are increasing and despite the fact that (Wheat Belly author William Davis) says it’s due to the wheat, there’s all kinds of factors that are different and many theories and I think we need more exploration of those,” said Miller Jones.

Ames said breeders’ efforts have focused on the needs and demands of farmers and millers, screening cultivars for a host of traits, none of which are for nutrition.

Wheat buyers and ultimately Canadian breeders will have to respond if wheat and gluten critics stick around, she added.

“I don’t think we have room for specialty wheats, but I do think it may be time to start screening wheats when we’re going to have new varieties to make sure we’re selecting ones that do well in a whole grain system,” said Ames.

“That we are looking at whole grain products and that we’re able to make better products with wheat out of whole wheat, and we’re not doing that right now.”