Beta glucan is fast becoming a household name to the health-conscious.
Consuming three grams daily of this soluble fibre, when combined with a healthy diet, may lower the blood’s level of so-called bad cholesterol, diminishing the risk of heart disease.
Beta glucan is in a functional food market that generates several billion dollars in annual sales. Whole oats are the chief source of the health-imparting fibre, a fact not lost on U.S. oat breeders. While several breeders have been selecting for the trait in oats, they’ve not yet released any cultivars with high beta glucan.
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The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service, or ARS, and North Dakota State University scientists published their joint registration of HiFi in the August issue of Crop Science. HiFi is a new spring oat cultivar they bred specifically for its elevated beta glucan content.
“HiFi is about 50 percent higher in beta glucan than the oats you’d buy in the grocery store, so you don’t have to eat as much to get the same health benefits. Or you can eat more oats to get more of the benefits from beta glucan,” said Doug Doehlert, a cereal chemist with ARS in Fargo, N.D.
Doehlert is part of a team that’s been co-operatively breeding oats since 1993. Mike McMullen, a professor in the university’s plant science department, oversees the breeding process. Doehlert analyzes the oats’ grain quality and biochemical properties.
During one such analysis in 1999, Doehlert noticed something odd. One of the lines furnished by McMullen contained more beta glucan than the others. Suspecting an error, Doehlert repeated his tests, only to confirm his initial observation. HiFi, short for high fibre, also has good agronomic properties and excellent disease resistance.
“It hasn’t been grown very much as an ordinary oat” since certified seed was released to area farmers a few years ago, Doehlert said.
A company called Organic Grain and Milling of Hudson, Wisconsin, is negotiating licensing rights with the university to market HiFi. It plans on targeting the organic marketplace.
