Alternative cereals for food processing

In recent years the variety of used cereal species has become smaller and smaller. Worldwide, more than 86% of the total cereal production is maize (31.3%), wheat (27.7%) and rice (27%). Within Europe (EU-25) the production of wheat is even more dominant (47.2%); production of barley is 21.5%, maize 18.6%, rice only 0.9% [3]. These data show that the use of alternative and specialty cereals and pseudocereals is lower than 14%. For nutritional and agricultural reasons this low biodiversity is not very positive. Ancient or alternative cereals show a different nutritional composition, especially different plant secondary metabolites, like dietary fibre, phenolics, amino acids, vitamins and minerals. Often their level of these functional components is higher. Additionally they show unique properties for new (functional) foods and they offer new taste and flavour perspectives. Investigations for food processing of various alternative raw materials (e.g. amaranth, quinoa, buckwheat, hull less and black barley species, purple wheat, sorghum, einkorn) showed that after adaptation of the processing parameters and recipes innovative, palatable functional foods can be produced. Such products could increase the range of cereal species within the human nutrition again and thus contribute to human health.