A UNIQUE AND PIONEERING INGREDIENT

To increase the consumption of fibres in different populations, Limagrain Ingredients is proud to introduce a unique and pioneering ingredient on the European market after 20 years of research: LifyWheat.

LifyWheat is part of this health approach, providing a practical response to the expectation of consumers looking for health, naturalness and transparency.

LifyWheat, like any other wheat, is a multipurpose ingredient. The flour can be used in a wide range of applications that fit into your / consumer’s daily life: bread, pasta, biscuits, breakfast cereals… It can be incorporated as a partial or total replacement for wheat flour or wheat grains without any major change in the process.

WHAT MAKES LIFYWHEAT DIFFERENT?

LifyWheat is a unique ingredient that achieves 4 objectives:

• Eat “high-fibrely” every day.

LifyWheat white flour contains 10 times more fibres than common white wheat flour. With 25% fibres compared to 2.5% in a standard wheat.

• Diversify with a smart fibre.

80% of the fibres in LifyWheat are resistant starch.

LifyWheat can easily enrich and diversify your fibre consumption. Its richness in resistant starch confers health benefits to the wheat.

• Trust a native fibre.

Fibres are naturally present in the wheat grain; it is not extracted and processed

• Improve your diet without changing your habits / Improve diets without changing consumer’s habits / No change in your habits, only in your body / Same habits/diet, better health / No compromise.

LifyWheat flour allows to improve diet without compromising on taste and texture. This flour increases fibres intake without changing eating habits compared to a traditional white flour. It offers the same taste and the same white colour as traditional flour with the ability to naturally enrich products with fibres.

CURRENT HEALTH SITUATION IN EUROPE REGARDING FIBRE

Dietary fibres are part of the large carbohydrate family and are characterized by their inability to be digested in the small intestine.Daily fibre intake recommendations for adults vary from 25 to 35g/d depending on the European country. For children, the values are based on their daily energy requirements, and therefore vary with age and gender, from around 15g/d at 4-6 years old up to 21 to 30g/day for adolescents. Most dietary guidelines advise to consume fibre-rich foods such as whole grain cereals or fruits and vegetables to ensure daily fibre intakes.

Many Europeans do not meet the recommended daily fibre intake.

The gap between consumption and recommended fibres intake is undoubtedly a Public Health issue.

Increasing daily dietary intake of fibres is required for European populations to reach a better balanced diet. This could proceed through changes in eating habits in favour of fibre-rich foods, such as cereals, fruits and vegetables and products containing them. Indeed, cereals, cereal-containing products, fruits and vegetables are the most important sources of dietary fibres in Europe.

WHAT LINK BETWEEN DIETARY FIBRES AND HEALTH?

A high intake of dietary fibres has consistently been associated with lower risks of mortality and lower risk of diseases, such has cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, obesity, or colon cancer. This is due to their varied physiological and metabolic properties that include slowing down digestion and transit, but largely lie on the fermentable character of many dietary fibres. Indeed, fibres are not digested in the upper gut and are fermented in the colon, where they nurture the gut microbiota and favor the production of metabolites with many health-promoting benefits.

WHAT ABOUT RESISTANT STARCH?

Because different fibres have different structures and functions, not all fibres have all these physiological and health effects. Resistant starch is an important asset in reducing the carbohydrate response to meals. In addition, resistant starch is efficiently fermented in the gut: it’s a good substrate for bacteria to produce short-chain fatty acids, which are able to regulate many functions in the gut and beyond. And all this with no undesirable symptoms, as resistant starch is very well tolerated, even at high doses.

As part of this campaign, Limagrain Ingredients is at the initiative of a consumer observatory on dietary fibres in collaboration with the CREDOC (Centre de Recherche pour l’Etude et l’Observation des Conditions de vie). Renewed every 3 years, this observatory will provide updated information regarding the evolution of the perception and knowledge of fibres and consumption habits of fibre-rich products among different European populations.

WHY DO WE NEED TO EAT FIBRE?

This observatory will provide a comprehensive and regularly updated overview of the situation in the different countries by studying consumers’ knowledge, perception, and attitude towards fibres. It is carried out in two phases:

WOULD YOU CONSUME MORE HIGH-FIBRE FOOD IF...

WHAT DO EUROPEANS THINK AND KNOW ABOUT DIETARY FIBRE?

Click here to discover the 7-country representative survey.

A SOLID SCIENTIFIC BASIS AROUND FIBRES

Led by Véronique Braesco, the scientific advisory board is composed of 4 experts, with varied and complementary expertise in the field of dietary fibre: Martine CHAMP (France), Denise ROBERTSON (UK), Petra LOUIS (Scotland) and Stefano RENZETTI (The Netherlands).

Their missions? They have been brought together in a scientific advisory board to:

• provide scientific information on dietary fibres and their effects, for all fibres and in particular on resistant starch,
• contribute to Limagrain Ingredients’ scientific activities on dietary fibres, including the methodology of the fibres observatory
• react and advise on science-based communication messages concerning fibres, including resistant starch

Dr Veronique BRAESCO

Véronique Braesco is an agronomic engineer from ENSA Rennes with a specialisation in food science and nutrition. Followed by a certificate in epidemiology applied to nutrition (CNAM-Paris) and a PhD in Food Science and Nutrition at Paris INA-PG.

Position and scientific activities

A former research director at INRA, she then headed the Nutrition Research Department of the Danone Group. In this position, she managed the design and implementation of scientific strategies to support the Group’s nutrition and health positioning and the development of innovative products. She was also responsible for the Human Nutrition Research Centre in Auvergne. She is now at the head of VAB-nutrition, a consulting firm specialized in human nutrition that she created.

Dr Martine CHAMP

She studied biochemistry, chemistry and food sciences at the University of Paris-XI and has a PhD on the use of starch by Lactobacilli.

Position and scientific activities

She was a senior scientist at INRA (National Institute for Agronomic Research) and the director of the Human Nutrition Research Centre of Nantes (France) and taught nutrition in various universities. Her scientific activities mostly linked to nutrition, carbohydrates, and dietary fibres, including resistant starches, contributed to the understanding of their digestion, fermentation and physiological or metabolic effects. Moreover, she focused on analytical methods of dietary fibres, starch and resistant starch. Finally, she set up her own consulting company in nutrition and food industries.

Dietary fibre: 3 questions to Martine Champ… 

Dr Petra LOUIS

Petra Louis has a diploma in biology and a PhD in microbiology.

Position and scientific activities

She currently is an Senior Research Fellow at the University of Aberdeen Rowett Institute (Scotland, UK) and has worked in the field of gut microbiology, human nutrition and health since 2002. She uses a multidisciplinary approach to study the role of fibres in maintaining human health via their effect on the intestinal microbiota. More precisely, she studies the microbial metabolism of non-digestible carbohydrates in the diet, with a particular interest on short-chain fatty acid production.

Microbiome and health: 3 questions to Dr Petra LOUIS…

Dr Denise ROBERTSON

Denise Robertson has a PhD from the University of Newcastle on starch kinetics.

Position and scientific activities

She is a reader in nutritional physiology at the University of Surrey in the UK, with a particular interest in dietary carbohydrates, including resistant starches. She studies the role of fibres in human metabolism. She masters the challenges of regulating blood sugar levels in relation to resistant starches.

Dr Stefano RENZETTI

Stefano Renzetti has a master and a PhD in food science.

Position and scientific activities

He is a senior scientist and project leader at Wageningen Food & Biobased Research in the Netherlands. His research activities focus on cereal constituents (structural and physico-chemical properties of starch, proteins and fibres, and their techno-functionality in cereal processing) and food structuring in bakery applications (ingredients interactions and physico-chemical transformation during processing). Functionalisation of cereal ingredients for improving nutritional composition of food, including starch metabolism, are among is interests.Stefano Renzetti received the Harald Perten prize for his contribution to the furtherance of cereal science and technology towards practical applications.

Fibre and process: 3 questions to Stefano Renzetti…