3-16 FB Beta Glucan

 Cancer cure in an ice cold beer? According to the Cancer Cure Foundation, beta glucans are used to stimulate the immune system. Science indicates that beta glucan activates a certain type of white blood cell called a macrophage. Macrophages improve overall health by boosting the body's ability to fight infection and disease. So what does that have to do with agriculture? Growers are taking another look at barley, these days and that may end up altering the types of varieties planted in southern Idaho. Don Obert, at the U.S. Department of Agriculture Research Service's Aberdeen laboratory is a barley breeder, and he’s working overtime on two types of hullless barley. In areas where growers still rely on surface irrigation in the Magic Valley, Don thinks hulless has potential as an alternative to malt barley.  The key here is health in the form of a compound called beta glucan which has great fiber content that the food industry would like to extract and add to some of their products: Here’s Don: “They have high beta glucan which is a fiber so a lot of health benefits to it.” Hulless barley has twice as much beta glucan as varieties with hulls. Obert also says that if you’re not making beer there are disadvantages to growing barley with hulls: “When they run through the combine, they look basically exactly like wheat. You don’t have the hull on that a barley would have. The hull is good for malting but for anything else it’s pretty well waste.” Nuts…no cancer cure through a pale ale but good information.