HEALTHGRAIN is the acronym for
"Exploiting Bioactivity of European Cereal Grains for Improved Nutrition and Health Benefits",
an Integrated Project of the European Union's Sixth Framework Programme's "Food Quality and Safety" activity (Priority 5).
The HEALTHGRAIN Integrated Project aims to improve the well-being and reduce the risk of metabolic
syndrome related diseases in Europe by increasing the intake of protective compounds in whole grains or their
fractions. The aim is to produce health promoting and safe cereal foods and ingredients of high eating quality. A
whole grain diet is increasingly demonstrated to be protective against development of diet related disorders such as
cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. HEALTHGRAIN will carry out an integrated, multidisciplinary effort
to establish the variation, process-induced changes and human metabolism of bioactive compounds in the major
European bread grains, and to reveal the physiological mechanisms underlying their significance in prevention of
metabolic syndrome and related diseases. The target bioactive compounds are vitamins (folate, tocols, choline etc.),
phytochemicals (lignans, sterols, alkylresorcinols, phenolic acids) and indigestible carbohydrates. Also other
product characteristics that may add to the metabolic benefits of whole grain products are promoted.
The work is carried out in 17 work packages, distributed within
five modules:
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Module 1: Consumer research
Module leader: Prof. Richard Shepherd, University of Surrey (United Kingdom)
Studies in four European countries (Finland, Germany, Italy and UK) are made to
understand consumer expectations of healthy cereal foods, and to give a basis for dissemination practises.
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Module 2: Plant breeding and biotechnology
Module leader: Prof. Peter Shewry, Rothamsted Research Limited (United Kingdom)
Plant biotechnology, including "omics technologies", is used to identify and generate new sources of nutritionally enhanced grain and to provide a "biotechnology toolkit" for plant breeding programmes.
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Module 3: Technology and processing
Module leader: Prof. Jan Delcour, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium)
New fractionation and bioprocessing methods are developed to allow for incorporation of more of the whole grains and their outer parts in consumer foods with sensory quality appealing to European consumers.
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Module 4: Nutrition
Module leader: Prof. Inger Björck, Lund University (Sweden)
Bioavailability of bioactive compounds is determined, and their role as well as that of glycemic properties of cereal foods in reducing metabolic risk factors is established.
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Module 5: Dissemination and training
Module leader: Dr. Jan Willem van der Kamp, Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (Netherlands)
An education, training and dissemination element communicates the technology tools and know-how about healthy cereal foods to European grain processing industry and health professionals.
Companies can be linked to HEALTHGRAIN by joining the Industrial Platform.
HEALTHGRAIN Basic data:
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