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The future of pet food kibble: Enhancing plant protein bioavailability with enzymatic preconditioning

albertapulse on June 1, 2017

Pulse crops go to the dogs

A major trend in pet food manufacturing is using plant protein in combination with, or instead of, meat. For Alberta-grown pulses, it’s a huge opportunity and APG is on it.

It goes without saying that pet owners want to feed their animals the best nutrition available. For years, that meant meat and plenty of it.

Times are changing. Just as many consumers want more pulses in their own diet, they’re also demanding better options for plant-based pet foods. Observing this trend, University of Alberta professors Thava Vasanthan and Ruurd Zijlstra saw opportunity for pulse growers.

“We grow a lot of pulses in Western Canada,” Vasanthan said. “Pulses are not only high in protein but have very good protein quality, and the amino acid balance is much better than with cereal grains. Our question was, could we create a vegetable protein-based kibble that suits where the consumer trend is moving?”

In 2016, Vasanthan secured funding from Alberta Pulse Growers and others for a three-year study to develop pulse protein-based pet food kibble through lab and pilot scale studies. The work is being done in partnership with a leading Canadian pet food manufacturer.

Create the kibble, determine how to manufacture it

As Vasanthan explains, the pulse crops under consideration for pet food kibble are field peas and faba beans. Lentils could also work, but are currently far more expensive than the other pulses.

A key component of the study will be how to overcome antinutritional factors associated with peas and faba beans in a dog diet.

“Over the past year and a half, with funding from the Alberta Pulse Growers, we started the characterization of the grains and how to concentrate the protein,” Vasanthan said. “If you take field pea and faba bean, nearly 50% of the seed is starch, 25% to 30% is protein and the rest is fibre and other. But, high-fibre and high-starch is bad for dogs. So, we’ll try to process the grains to minimize the starch and the fibre but maximize the bioavailability of the protein through cost-efficient technologies.”

For a pet food manufacturing company, the trend to plant-based pet food offers an interesting opportunity. Dry pulses are much easier to handle than perishable meat products, and cost far less per tonne of raw material. Vasanthan believes that as the fraction recipe is refined and the manufacturing process is improved, pulse crops stand a good chance of growing their footprint in the multi-billion-dollar North American pet food market.

The manufacturer could use plant rather than animal protein, or blend with some combination of both, and reduce their overall cost of production.

Of course, the final word on the success of pulse-based kibble rests with the target audience: the pets themselves. The final phase of the product will include taste trials with dogs.

“There’s a lot we can do in the lab,” Vasanthan said, “but until you test the product on animals, the project is not complete.”

Improving pea standability using inter-row seeding and Plant Growth Regulators

albertapulse on June 1, 2017

Wheat stubble aids pea standability

Until better standability genetics arrive, pulse growers need other ways to keep their crops from lying down. Here are two ideas that could play a role.

Back in 2011, Alberta Pulse Growers surveyed the province’s farmers about what they saw as the most significant barriers to growing pulses. One of the most frequently cited production and agronomy barriers was lodging and its impact on harvest management. Growers want pulse crops that resist lodging and stay standing for easier harvests.

Sheri Strydhorst, Barrhead-based Agronomy Research Scientist with Alberta Agriculture and Forestry, believes that future pulse varieties will have gene-based standability traits. That’s still some way off. In the meantime, if Strydhorst comes across a good standability idea, she’s all ears.

“Steve Larocque at Beyond Agronomy had been working on one idea for a while,” Strydhorst said. “You seed your peas into standing wheat stubble, with the peas going in between the rows of wheat. At a point when the peas might be susceptible to lodging, the wheat stubble keeps them from lying down flat.”

Plant Growth Regulators (PGRs) are another possible way to prevent a crop from lying down, although no PGRs are currently registered on peas. A four-year study, led by Strydhorst and funded by Alberta Pulse Growers and others, has been working on both the wheat stubble idea and PGRs since 2014. In 2014, wheat was seeded to create the stubble treatments. Peas were seeded in 2015 – which was unfortunately a dry year with little lodging.

Two stubble heights considered

In 2016, the project looked at the standability of peas inter-row-seeded into 8-inch and 12-inch wheat stubble and a check area with no stubble, at two Central Alberta sites.

“What could happen is that the peas actually get taller because they are competing for light, and taller peas is not what we want,” said Strydhorst. “We saw that where we had inter-row seeded, the stubble held up the peas.”

This tactic, of course, also requires some planning and extra work on the part of the producer because in the season prior to planting peas, harvest requires leaving sufficient stubble.

The PGR component examined the performance of three different products. By applying a PGR in the first part of June, at the early reproductive stage of peas, the products will stop a plant hormone that makes the plant taller. So far, the PGRs are performing as expected without any reduction in yield or seed size, and that work will continue.

For her part, Strydhorst sees positive progress from inter-row seeding and PGRs. Both, however, can be considered temporary measures until a more lasting genetic standability solution comes into focus.

“Today it can take five days to harvest a quarter-section of peas,” Strydhorst said. “If we can get that down to 3 1/2 days, that’s better but it’s still not great. I think the tools in the toolbox are getting better but, at the end of the day, good standability genetics is what we need.”

Low Glycemic Index Diet to improve Glycemic Control and Cardiovascular Disease in Type 2 Diabetes

albertapulse on June 1, 2017

Study links pulses to lowering of bad cholesterol

Eating as little as 3/4 cup per day of pulses can reduce LDL by 5%, according to this analysis of 26 studies. That’s good news for the health of Canadians, and for pulse growers.

Evidence for the health benefits of pulses is accumulating rapidly. In study after painstaking study, physicians and nutritionists are producing data showing that pulse consumption is associated with significant improvement in many health conditions.

Over the past few years, the work of John Sievenpiper has taken aim at the biggest health issue of our time.

“Cardiovascular disease is the number-one killer, along with cancer, in Canada,” said Sievenpiper, a medical researcher at the University of Toronto and Toronto’s St. Michael’s Hospital. “There is a huge opportunity to potentially reduce the burden of cardiovascular disease — for individual Canadians, for the healthcare system and for the economy.”

Sievenpiper believes that the consumption of pulses could help reduce LDL – the so-called bad cholesterol – and with it the incidence of associated cardiovascular, cancer and diabetes events.

Many health studies have examined the question from various angles. In 2012, with funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Sievenpiper set out to review and aggregate available research data to support an evidence-based claim for pulses lowering LDL-cholesterol.

“This is a systematic review and meta-analysis looking at the totality of evidence in randomized, controlled trials,” Sievenpiper said. “This is how the best studies are designed.”

Data shows significant LDL impact

Sievenpiper examined data from 26 separate research projects, encompassing 1,000 human subjects, involving pulses and LDL. This allowed him to characterize the potential LDL impact of eating 130 grams or ¾ cup of beans, peas, lentils or chickpeas per day.

“When we look at the totality of evidence in terms of the effect of dietary pulses, eating pulses was associated with a 5% reduction in LDL or bad cholesterol,” Sievenpiper said. “This is clinically meaningful, and puts us in with other cholesterol-lowering foods, such as oats and barley.”

There’s a catch, he notes, and it’s a big one. Despite all the evidence for the health benefits of pulses, most Canadians eat far less beans, peas, lentils or chickpeas than recommended. Sievenpiper cites one survey that found only 13% of Canadians eat even half the recommended amount of pulses each day.

That’s why he believes that his work on the LDL-lowering effect of pulses isn’t the final word on the subject – just an important part of the developing foundation.

Sievenpiper doesn’t mince words when he talks about the devastating impact of cardiovascular disease, cancer and diabetes on Canadians, and the costs borne by our healthcare system and economy. He invites pulse growers to be part of the solution.

“We can reduce the body count,” Sievenpiper said. “We’ve come a long way to show the benefits of pulses to health. This is one piece of the puzzle, a clinically important effect. It is time to push and make the connection even stronger and make some public health policy.”

Glycemic impact of selected Ontario beans: comparison with corn, macaroni, rice and potatoes

albertapulse on May 31, 2017

Beans for health: a little goes a long way

With partial funding support from Pulse Canada and others, this study has built a body of data to support a label health claim that even a small serving of beans can lower your blood sugar.

“A serving of beans, instead of low-fibre starchy foods such as corn, rice, potatoes or macaroni, results in reduced blood sugar after a meal.”

Imagine the impact of these words, or something close to them, on the label of a Canadian food product. At a glance, consumers concerned about high blood sugar could see that beans will deliver a benefit.

As Dan Ramdath explains, Health Canada requires a solid body of credible data to support the claim. The reduction in blood sugar must be significant — at least 20% compared to the alternative — and a minimum dose of beans to achieve this effect must be identified.

“Lots of work has been done on the blood glucose lowering effect of beans,” said Ramdath, Senior Research Scientist (Nutrition) with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in Guelph, ON. “But there are still gaps we needed to address in order to get the health claim.”

In 2015-16, Ramdath led a study to determine the blood sugar (also known as glycemic) impact of consuming six different types of beans, compared to commonly consumed starchy foods like corn, macaroni, rice and potato.

A smaller serving size

“Our methodology was very simple,” Ramdath said. “We had between 12 and 24 healthy volunteers involved in the study. They came in 10 times and consumed randomly a half-cup or quarter-cup serving of six different beans, as well as the four starchier alternatives.”

An overnight fast ensured that any effect seen in blood sugar could be linked to the foods consumed that morning. Finger-prick blood tests were performed on each volunteer seven times in the two hours following their test meal.

To support a health claim, it was necessary to find a 20% improvement. As it happened, consuming one of the six types of beans resulted in blood sugar that was 32% to 65% lower than with the corn, macaroni, rice and potato. What’s more, the half-cup and quarter-cup bean servings performed roughly comparably in terms of glycemic impact.

Based on this study, Ramdath sees a data set that should be highly compelling for Health Canada as it considers a blood sugar health claim for beans.

This is great news for Canadian consumers, who may soon have an easy way to choose beans on scientific health evidence. As Ramdath sees it, the news is also good for anyone who grows beans for a living.

“If I was speaking to bean growers, I’d say we found that even a small amount of beans makes a huge difference,” he said. “Keep growing them, and we will continue to find ways to improve the health of Canadians and the economic vitality of the pulse-growing sector. And a big thank you to growers for financially supporting research that is critical to advancing a pulse health claim.”

Increasing pulse intake in primary care patients: The CHANGE Cancer Alberta Intervention’s increase pulse module and toolbox

albertapulse on May 31, 2017

Physician studies impact of pulses in disease prevention

With the right advice and nutrition, people at higher risk of heart attack, stroke and diabetes could see improvement in their health status.

When you get sick, a doctor treats the sickness with medicine. That sounds true enough, but today, medical science is embarking on a new approach. Rather than look solely to medicine management to restore health, it seems possible to maintain or enhance patients’ health status in other ways.

The Change Cancer Alberta initiative is one avenue for this development, according to Dr. Doug Klein of the University of Alberta’s Department of Family Medicine.

“For the Change Cancer Alberta initiative, we’re focusing on diet and exercise intervention to hopefully take the place of what we have traditionally done with medicine management,” said Klein. “It addresses a broad condition known as metabolic syndrome, that can put people at a high risk for heart attack, stroke and diabetes.”

Alberta pulse growers could be a key part of the province’s health transformation. If higher-risk patients increased the amount of peas, beans, lentils, chickpeas and faba beans in their diets, their health conditions could improve. This, combined with exercise, would improve these patients’ lives at a fraction of the cost of medicine-focused therapies.

We’ve known as much for years. The challenge, according to Klein, is getting people to actually do it. This, in fact, is the focus of a three-year study Klein is leading, with funding support from Alberta Pulse Growers, Alberta Health Services, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and others.

Will help and information make a difference?

“For this study,” Klein said, “we’re offering people the opportunity to work with a team that includes their exercise specialist, a dietitian and their family doctor, to make some lifestyle changes.”

Started in 2016, and running to 2019, this study is a randomized control trial of two groups of patients. One group will receive support and counselling to help them improve their diet, include more pulses, and exercise more. One group will not. As changes to the two study groups’ health status are observed and compared, the impact of increasing pulse intake in primary care patients should come into focus.

From Klein’s perspective, pulses are an important part of a healthy diet and an under-recognized component of healthy living. Unfortunately, most Canadians have not acted on this information.

“We just completed a demonstration project at three sites across Canada, and of 300 people, very few knew about pulses,” Klein said. “Here in Alberta, working from baseline data of 60 people, only one individual eats pulses regularly. So there’s lots of room to grow.”

Many of these patients don’t know that peas, beans and other legumes are all pulses. They might not know how to prepare them. Thus, the medical nudging of the family doctor and the advice of a dietitian could help these patients get the improvement they need. That’s the idea behind this study.

“Physicians and healthcare professionals have known this about pulses for a long time,” Klein said, “but so far, it really hasn’t turned into behavioral change for that individual patient yet.”

Application of Canadian Pulses in Traditional Chinese Dry Noodles, Biscuits and Steamed Buns

albertapulse on May 31, 2017

Market development opens doors for pulse flours in China

Three proof-of-concept projects enabled Chinese scientists and food companies to experiment with Canadian pea and lentil flours in popular Chinese food products.

China has long been considered a high-potential market for Canadian pulse crops, and the destination of many trade missions involving our producers, processors and other industry leaders.

In 2014, Pulse Canada took market development in a new direction. Working with the Beijing-based Chinese Cereals and Oilseed Association, the organization facilitated three one-year research projects conducted by Chinese researchers and food companies. This project was supported by the Canadian International Grains Institute and co-funded by Alberta Pulse Growers and Saskatchewan Pulse Growers.

“The idea is that, if we are going to interest Chinese companies in Canadian pulses, they need to be involved in the research early on in the development process,” said Tanya Der, Pulse Canada’s Manager of Food Innovation and Marketing.
Under these projects, three scientists from Academy State Administration of Grain and Henan University of Technology tested the addition of up to 50% Canadian-supplied pea and lentil flours in three widely popular food product categories: noodles, biscuits and steamed buns.

A value-added opportunity for Canada

“These are staple items that are eaten by people from all walks of life,” Der said. “Whether you live in the north or south, you’re eating some version of these. If we can get these high-volume products to use flour from Canadian pulses, that can have an impact.”

The three lead researchers each worked with a Chinese food company that specializes in one of the three product categories. Each team received a supply of pea and lentil flours, milled in Canada from Canadian-grown crops. This ensured that the quality, particle size and functionality of the pulse flours would be consistent.

Co-operation between the research community and food companies allowed them to study how Canadian pulse flours perform when blended with Chinese-milled wheat flours in various proportions, and when processed in a commercial manufacturing facility. The addition of pulse flours – which are high in protein and fibre — would also enable the companies to improve the nutritional profile of their products.

Der emphasized that market development in China must be viewed as a long-term effort. Pulse Canada’s approach was to work with Chinese partners to introduce them to Canadian pulse flours and build relationships that can grow over time and pay dividends in the future.

“This was really the initial stages of market development,” Der said, “a proof-of-concept looking at what percentage of pulse flour can be used in these products, and what is the impact on functionality and taste?”

Building on the relationships and technical knowledge developed with these three projects, the next stage of Pulse Canada’s Chinese market development is now taking shape.

“We’re close to finalizing some new projects on product innovation and consumer research for Canadian pulses in China,” Der said. “We’ll be announcing these in the summer of 2017.”

Soybean genotype study

albertapulse on May 31, 2017

The road to 60-bushel soybeans

Manjula Bandara’s evaluation of promising soybean lines is helping southern Alberta producers consider this new crop with the best possible set of information.

How much room is there to increase soybean acreage in this province? Consider that in 2016, Manitoba grew 1.6 million acres of soybeans, with Saskatchewan contributing 240,000 acres. Last year, Alberta farmers grew 15,000 acres of soybeans.

On the face of it, then, Alberta seems to have plenty of runway for more soybeans. In practice, however, Manjula Bandara believes the crop could be a tough sell in the region south of Highway 1 where it’s best suited.

“We have so many cropping options in southern Alberta today,” said Bandara, Brooks-based Pulse and Special Crop Research Scientist with Alberta Agriculture and Forestry (AF). “Beyond the traditional crops, there’s now more corn, perennial forage crops like alfalfa, sugar beet, potatoes as well as dry beans. So when we have the option to introduce a new crop into southern Alberta’s irrigated areas, it has to be competitive.”

As AF Economist Ron Gietz pencils out the costs and returns of soybeans in southern Alberta, he finds the proposition interesting but not necessarily compelling, yet. Assuming soybeans sell for around their long-term price of $9 per bushel, a grower would need to produce a 60 bu./ac. crop to earn a place in a crop rotation.

Yields approach economic competitiveness

Over the past four years, Bandara has been working on a project that could tip the balance in soybeans’ favour. With funding support from the Alberta Funding Consortium including Alberta Pulse Growers, he’s been evaluating soybean varieties under southern Alberta growing conditions. This is part of a longer-term involvement with soybean that, for Bandara, began in 2004.

“Based on the varieties that are available, not a lot of people will be growing soybeans north of Highway 1,” he said. “Our goal is to evaluate soybean varieties south of Highway 1, in order to minimize the risk for growers.”

Soybean breeders send their lines to Bandara, who evaluates them based on agronomic criteria such as seeding date, density and spacing, as well as the use of nitrogen. At any one time, he’d like to see 16 to 18 promising lines in his program.

Overall, Bandara sees soybean yields approaching a threshold where southern Alberta farmers will start to get interested. Yields in recent years’ evaluations have ranged from 35 bu./ac. to 60 bu./ac., with the occasional spike north of 70 bu./ac.

Bandara suggests that, for areas with 2,300 to 2,400 heat units available, and 115 to 121 days of growing season, soybeans can be competitive with other high-value southern Alberta crops. One wild card is the incidence of disease under irrigation.

After 12 years evaluating soybeans in southern Alberta, Manjula Bandara isn’t predicting explosive acreage growth to the levels seen on the eastern Prairies. Still, if the right factors align, there’s a good chance Alberta will see more soybeans in the coming years.

“That is our hope,” Bandara said, “but it all depends on the price and how crushing capacity unfolds. As long as the price is reasonable, a moderate increase can be expected.”