New interest in tasty, all-oat or all-barley breads might be sparked by the laboratory experiments now being conducted by chemist Wallace Yokoyama and postdoctoral nutritionist Hyunsook Kim. These delicious, healthful breads could appear on bakery or supermarket shelves that today are dominated by wheat flour-based loaves, yet would provide a different array of vitamins, antioxidants, fiber, protein, and other components that “aren’t present in whole-wheat breads,” says Yokoyama.
“The large variety of multigrain loaves currently available in U.S. supermarkets and bakeries suggests that people have a growing interest in trying new kinds of whole-grain breads,” says Kim. Both scientists are with the ARS Western Regional Research Center in Albany, California, near San Francisco.
In preliminary experiments, Yokoyama, Kim, and colleagues used a commercially available, plant-derived fiber known as HPMC (short for hydroxypropyl methylcellulose) as a substitute for the gluten that’s present in wheat but lacking in other grains. Gluten nimbly traps the airy bubbles formed by yeast, lifting doughs and yielding high, attractive, nicely textured loaves.
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