New Vegetarian Food With Several Health Benefits

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New Vegetarian Food With Several Health Benefits

 

Barley tempe. (Credit: Emma Jönsson, Chalmers)

 

ScienceDaily (May 30, 2008) — A new vegetarian food that boosts the uptake of iron and

offers a good set of proteins. This could be the result of a doctoral

dissertation by Charlotte Eklund-Jonsson at the Department of Food Science.

 

The food, called tempe, is moreover a whole-grain product with

high folate content. It is generally accepted in medicine that whole-grains

reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases, and it is also believed that it

protects against age-related diabetes and certain forms of cancer. The B

vitamin folate is the natural form of folic acid and, among other things, is

necessary for normal fetal development.

 

" Tempe

is designed for vegetarians, but also for people who want to eat less meat for

environmental reasons, for example, " says Charlotte Eklund-Jonsson.

 

" We also had the environment in mind when

we chose to base it on barley and oats, which are suitable to cultivate in Sweden

and therefore do not require long transports. "

Tempe is produced

through fermentation with the aid of the micro fungus Rhizopus oligosporus. Tempe fermentation originates from Indonesia, but

soybeans are used as the raw material there.

In her work, Charlotte Eklund-Jonsson developed

methods to preserve the high fiber content of the cereal grains and at the same

time to enhance their content of easily accessible iron. Normally these two

considerations work against each other.

 

The findings show that the uptake of iron

doubled after a meal of barley tempe

compared with unfermented barley. In other studies both oat and barley tempe moreover produced

low blood sugar responses and insulin responses, which is typical of

whole-grain products.

 

The dissertation is titled " Nutritional

properties of tempe fermented whole-grain barley and oats ­- Influence of

processing conditions on the retention and availability of iron, starch and

folates " will be publicly defended on June 5 at 10:00 a.m. in Hall KB,

kemigården 4, Chalmers University of Technology, Göteborg, Sweden.

 

 

 

Adapted from materials

provided by Swedish

Research Council.

 

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