Marcel Bruins, the editorial director for European Seed, sat down with Nigel Halford, professor at Rothamsted Research, at the Euroseeds 2022 Congress to talk about low acrylamide wheat.
“Acrylamide is a processing contaminant only discovered in 2002,” explained Halford. “And it is quite a big issue for the food industry. It’s a highly undesirable chemical to have in your food.”
He said it forms during just normal cooking high temperature processing over 120 degrees.
“And it’s become a big issue for the food industry because the European Commission has been gradually tightening regulations. We currently have benchmark levels for the presence of acrylamide, including its presence in lots of everyday foods. A lot of your favorite foods contain some acrylamide, some more than others.”
He explained that these benchmark levels are set at different levels for different foods — but, they’re not a safety limit. The benchmarks are what the commission believes industry should be able to achieve.
“We’ve looked at the genetic control of free asparagine accumulation in wheat grain. And it turns out wheat has five genes that encode an enzyme called asparagine synthetase, that makes asparagine. And one of those genes is most active in the grain. It’s an obvious genetic target.”
He said they knocked it out using the CRISPR/CAS9 technique.
To hear more, watch the interview above.
