"New research presented at the Canadian Nutrition Society annual meeting (May 28 - 30, 2015) in Winnipeg, Manitoba shows that the nutritional composition of modern wheat is similar to wheat grown in Canada 150 years ago. Photo courtesy of G. Gingera, Department of Plant Sciences, University of Saskatchewan. (CNW Group/Healthy Grains Institute)"

 

Newly published research shows that the nutritional composition of modern wheat is similar to wheat grown in Canada 150 years ago.

The research was led by Dr. Ravindra Chibbar and Dr. Pierre Hucl at the University of Saskatchewan.

They say the discovery casts doubt on critics of wheat, who claim the protein composition of the grain, which includes gluten, has been fundamentally altered by the agriculture industry.

The research shows that while the increase in grain yields over the past century have been significant, the increases in the total grain protein concentration, including gluten, in wheat grain, has been very modest.

They say that means the overall nutritional quality and composition of wheat grain over time has seen little change.

They took seeds from 37 varieties of wheat representing grain from each decade from the 1860s onwards, grew the wheat and compared the nutritional composition against modern Canada Western Red Spring varieties in field trials over 2013 and 2014.

The research team analyzed the concentration of starches and proteins including gluten and what they found is that wheat grain today has a very similar nutritional composition to wheat grown more than 150 years ago.