Abstract
As bakery products contribute considerably to the daily intake of the carcinogen acting substance acrylamide (AA), the aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of the management system (conventional vs. organic farming) on AA precursor levels of free asparagine (Asn) across different cultivars of the cereal species, namely winter wheat (Triticum aestivum), winter spelt (Triticum aestivum ssp. spelta) and winter rye (Secale cereale) with simultaneous consideration of gained grain yields and flour qualities. For this purpose, orthogonal field trials were established at two sites in Southwest Germany over two growing seasons (2006–2007 and 2007–2008). The results indicated a significant impact of the management system on free Asn contents in white flour. Across all species, free Asn contents in the white flour was 26% lower under organic compared to conventional farming. The impact of the management system on individual cultivars was obvious with a maximum reduction in free Asn contents of 50% in wheat cultivars if organically produced (e.g., for cultivars Ludwig, Privileg, Capo). For spelt, a significant impact of the management system was only found in 2008 with a reduction in free Asn of up to 25% if organically produced. Across both cropping systems, cultivar Franckenkorn reached the lowest levels of free Asn. For rye, a significant impact of the management system was observed only in 2007 with 33% higher Asn amounts in the conventional management system. Independent of the cropping system, rye reached the highest levels of free Asn followed by wheat and spelt. Depending on species, there was also an impact of the two systems on crude protein. The organically cropped wheat had a significantly lower level, but this was not observed for spelt and for rye only in 2007. The possible reason for the low free Asn content in the organically produced wheat flour could partially be the lower crude protein amount. Furthermore, the results indicated that lower AA contents in bakery products can be achieved by proper selection of species (e.g., 66% lower if rye is replaced by wheat) and cultivars. With an appropriate choice of the cultivar, a reduction of up to 65% was possible within wheat, along with a reduction of 44% within spelt and 12.5% within rye. In summary, the results indicated that organically produced wheat especially offers the opportunity to significantly lower the AA potential of bread and bread rolls by the choice of raw materials low in free Asn.
Highlights
Since 2002, it was successfully shown that AA is formed during a thermal treatment of carbohydrate rich food like cereals and potatoes [3,4], where ’reducing sugars’ react with the amino acid free asparagine (Asn) within the Maillard reaction [5]
Quality parameters and free Asn content of the three cereal species were significantly influenced by management system and year (Table 5)
In 2007 and in 2008, Asn contents of each of the ten tested wheat cultivars were significantly lower under organic compared to conventional farming (Figure 1)
Summary
Due to a current announced regulation of the European Commission [1] food industry and gastronomy face the challenge of establishing immediate mitigation strategies and benchmark levels for acrylamide (AA). Since 2002, it was successfully shown that AA is formed during a thermal treatment of carbohydrate rich food like cereals and potatoes [3,4], where ’reducing sugars’ (mostly glucose and fructose) react with the amino acid free asparagine (Asn) within the Maillard reaction [5]. While reducing sugars are the limiting precursor in heated potato products [6], free Asn is the limiting precursor for processed cereal based products [7,8,9,10]. Strongly heated potato products can contain much more AA than cereal based products, foods like bread, rolls, biscuits and crisp bread contribute to about 25%
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