Government-approved health claims support dietary intervention as a safe and practical approach to improving consumer health and provide industry with regulatory guidelines for food product labels. Claims already allowed in the United States, United Kingdom, Sweden, and The Netherlands for reducing cholesterol through consumption of oat or barley soluble fiber provide a basis for review, but each country may have different criteria for assessing clinical evidence for a physiological effect. For example, the FDA-approved barley health claim was based on a petition that included 39 animal model studies and 11 human clinical trials. Since then, more studies have been published, but with few exceptions, clinical data continue to demonstrate that the consumption of barley products is effective for lowering total and LDL cholesterol. More research is needed to fully understand the mechanism of cholesterol reduction and the role of beta-glucan molecular weight, viscosity, and solubility. In an assessment of the physiological efficacy of a dietary intervention, consideration should also be given to the potential impact of physical and thermal food-processing treatments and genotypic variation in the barley source. New barley cultivars have been generated specifically for food use, possessing increased beta-glucan, desirable starch composition profiles, and improved milling/processing traits. These advances in barley production, coupled with the establishment of a government-regulated health claim for barley beta-glucan, will stimulate new processing opportunities for barley foods and provide consumers with reliable, healthy food choices.

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Five Canadian oat genotypes were grown at six environments in Manitoba to assess the effects of genotype, environment, and genotype‐by‐environment interaction on oat starch properties and end‐product quality. Genotypic variation was significant for total starch, amylose content, starch swelling volume (SSV), Rapid Visco Analyser (RVA) pasting viscosities, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) thermal properties, and starch gel texture as well as the quality of flakes and cooked oatmeal made by laboratory‐scale methodologies. Environment was the dominant factor contributing to the total variation of starch content, RVA pasting viscosities, SSV, and DSC thermal properties. Most measurements of starch gel and oatmeal texture were not affected by growing environment. Cross‐over analysis revealed that changes in the ranking of genotypes across environments occurred for starch RVA hot paste, breakdown and shear thinning viscosities, work of gel compression, flake hydration capacity, and the proportion of large flakes, indicating that breeding for these traits would require multiple testing sites. Trends were observed between oatmeal texture and several flake and starch gel properties, warranting further study. Results of this study indicated that there is a potential to breed Canadian oat cultivars with improved functional end‐product quality for use in the milling and food manufacturing industries.

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Pasta is a popular food whose quality can be measured by appearance, flavour and texture. Several instruments have been devised to measure texture but there is little comparative information. This study compared the TA.XT2i texture analyser with the viscoelastograph of thirty spaghetti samples. There was a high correlation between these instruments and good agreement in ranks. While both instruments provide comparable data it is not the same. Two laboratories used the texture analyser to measure cooked spaghetti firmness using their own procedures. There was good agreement in firmness, however; there were differences in the ranks for samples that fell between the extremes in firmness. We attributed these differences to variations in the instrument settings, cooking method and sample presentation used by the laboratories indicating the need to standardise the method. Using a standard method greatly improved the correspondence between the laboratories improving the r 2 to 0.99 with excellent agreement in the ranking of ten samples.

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