SKIRMISHER

The special wheat developed by researchers at Japan’s National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO) and Nippon Flour Mills has twice the sugar concentration of common wheat, which makes it so sweet bakers don’t even need to add sugar in their cakes or pastries. Unless they’re working at Krispy Kreme, whose donuts everybody knows are just colorful, tasty agglomerations of concentrated tons of sugar.

But back to the “sweet wheat,” researchers repeatedly bred wheat varieties with low levels of enzymes associated with starch production, until they’ve lowered the starch content enough that maybe it’s better if you start calling this wheat “sugar.”

In this way, sweet wheat is similar in concept to sweetcorn, which also was specifically bred to increase its sugar content.

Sweet wheat is identical in appearance to common wheat, except that it withers and develops wrinkles when dehydrated. Its natural sweetness gives it a distinctive flavor when it is ground into flour and used as an ingredient in baked goods.

Nippon Flour Mills hopes to make sweet wheat commercially available in two to three years. In the meantime, the company is looking into the possibility of developing new types of food products that draw upon the natural flavor of sweet wheat.

via PINK TENTACLE

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