From wheat waste to functional ingredient for future foods

Scientists in Sweden have created a wheat-based gel made entirely from wheat bran fibre and wheat gluten protein — turning one of the grain industry’s least valued by-products into a nutritious, sustainable ingredient for future food products.

Millions of tons of wheat bran are left over when flour is milled, and bran often ends up as feed for chickens and other livestock despite the fact that it’s loaded with valuable dietary fibre. Research at KTH Royal Institute of Technology shows this leftover part of the grain can be transformed into soft, jelly-like hydrogels — a material that could be used to give structure, thickness and texture to many foods.

Francisco Vilaplana, professor in glycoscience at KTH and director of the PLENTY research centre at KTH, said these gels could potentially be used to thicken, stabilise or add texture to foods, such as plant-based meat and dairy alternatives, high-fibre snacks, sauces or sports and medical nutrition products. Early tests have indicated that this method could also be applied to other plant proteins, such as pea or soy.

The research team extracted arabinoxylan (AX), a natural fibre found in wheat bran, and mixed it with proteins from wheat. “We developed new functional food ingredients that combine two of the most nutritious components in our diets, the protein and the fibre,” Vilaplana said.

To make the gel, the researchers used an enzyme called laccase, which links the fibre molecules (the arabinoxylan, which also contains natural antioxidants like ferulic acid) together. The result is a stable gel, and when the protein is added, it simply gets trapped inside the fibre network. Vilaplana said this method improves how the protein behaves, because it cannot form a gel as easily as the fibre molecules can, which can create a problem for food texture.

The work was carried out by postdoctoral researcher Niklas Wahlström under a funded project by Lantmännen Research Foundation.

The results were published in Food Hydrocolloids.

Image credit: iStock.com/Ivan Bajic