ARS | Publication request: Fiber Variation in Whole-Grain Soft Wheat Flour within the United States

Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: April 15, 2010
Publication Date: N/A

Technical Abstract: The Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends consumption of three or more ounce-equivalents of whole-grain products per day, with the rest of the recommended grains coming from enriched or whole-grain products. Yet, in 2009, whole grains as a percent of total grains consumed in the American diet was only 11%. Of the soft wheat snack food products, wheat crackers comprised 2.9% of whole grain intake. Increasing consumption of whole grains in the American diet will require increasing whole grain content across the spectrum of food products. Yet, limited information is available on the actual amounts of fiber present in soft wheat flour. The USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference is used as a standard reference for labeling and dietary formulation. The profile is largely based on hard wheat flour samples and differs from the expected profile for soft wheat whole grain flour samples for important nutrients, most notably total grain protein concentration. Also, the fiber content of the flour in the database is imputed, that is derived but not measured directly. We use the new AOAC fiber analysis method 2009.01 (Mc Cleary All-in-one method ) to measure samples in commercial and experimentally milled whole-grain soft wheat flour. For commercial flours, the average fiber concentration was 13.0% (14% moisture basis) compared with the previous imputed value of 11.7%. The commercial whole-grain soft wheat flours differed from the USDA database for protein concentration (9.2% for the study and 13.1% for database value) and selenium concentration (7.6 mcg/100g for the study and 67.8 mcg/100g for the database). Information from the experimental milled whole grain soft wheat flour also will be presented.