EU-Project to Target Healthier Bread Options for Europe

The HealthBread project will enable Europeans to significantly increase their options for purchasing a range of healthier breads – white or whole grain – rich in grain fibres, vitamins, minerals and anti-oxidants.

29 Nov 2012 --- Recently a European consortium started the HealtBread project. The aim of this two-year collaborative EU funded project is to develop and market whole grain and white breads which have an improved nutrition quality. At the end of the project the HealthBread  Manual will provide know-how to bakers on how to produce and market healthier breads to a growing customer base across Europe.
 
White bread is the dominant bread type sold across Europe. Whole grain breads are known as healthier bread options and are rich in fibre, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants.

Nutrition research has demonstrated that a diet rich in whole grain based products lowers the risk of heart diseases, diabetes and some forms of cancer. Such a diet can also reduce the risk of obesity – seen as a major health concern across Europe. The HealthBread project will enable Europeans to significantly increase their options for purchasing a range of healthier breads – white or whole grain – rich in grain fibres, vitamins, minerals and anti-oxidants.  
 
The HealthBread consortium is a unique team including research organizations TNO from the Netherlands and VTT from Finland, eight innovative bakeries from Austria, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands  and seven companies for linking  science and craftsmanship  and for supplying new materials and technologies to the bakeries. 

A number of the partners were also involved in a previous European project called HEALTHGRAIN. The bakeries will present products developed in the project to customers to test their ‘likeable’ factor. New healthier bread types which meet the needs of customers will be produced to a commercial viable level. HealthBread brings together scientific and technological knowledge with the craftsmanship of bakers from across Europe.

HEALTHGRAIN is the acronym for "Exploiting Bioactivity of European Cereal Grains for Improved Nutrition and Health Benefits", an Integrated Project of the European Union's Sixth Framework Programme.

HEALTHGRAIN continued till June 2010. HEALTHGRAIN related activities are now continued in the HEALTHGRAIN Forum association (www.healthgrain.org). Organisations supporting the aims of the forum are welcome to join as member.

The HEALTHGRAIN project has aimed at improving the well-being and reduce the risk of metabolic syndrome related diseases in Europe by increasing the intake of protective compounds in whole grains or their fractions and by producing health promoting and safe cereal foods and ingredients of high eating quality. A whole grain diet is increasingly demonstrated to be protective against development of diet related disorders such as cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes.

HEALTHGRAIN carried out an integrated, multidisciplinary effort to establish the variation, process-induced changes and human metabolism of bioactive compounds in the major European bread grains, and to reveal the physiological mechanisms underlying their significance in prevention of metabolic syndrome and related diseases.