Sweet wheat was born

Japan's National Agricultural Food Research Organization (NARO) on Dec. 12 announced it has produced sweet wheat plants, which have twice the sugar content of regular wheat.

This is the first sweet wheat to be bred, enabling consumers to avoid adding sugar when cooking or making cakes.

The continuous breeding process with low enzyme content reduced starch content from 70% to 25%. As a result, sweet wheat has much higher levels of sugar such as maltose and sucrose.

New plant species will be available in the market in the next 2-3 years. During that time, researchers will develop recipes from this crop.

MT