New dietary fibre content results for cereals in the Nordic countries using AOAC 2011.25 method

The definition of dietary fibre (DF) has been revised, and an analytical method AOAC 2011.25 is based on the updates. DF content and monosaccharide composition in composite samples from Swedish, Norwegian, Estonian and Finnish wholegrain wheat flour, rye flour and rolled oats were analysed and compared. Furthermore, DF amounts of 11 industrial and 6 commercial Finnish cereal products were analysed. New DF results are needed, since the national Food Composition Databases (FCDBs) currently contain DF values obtained using older methods underestimating some DF components, such as resistant starch and non-digestible oligosaccharides. The total DF amounts of rolled oats and rye flour were similar among countries, but variation was found in wholegrain wheat flour. The analysed cereal products contained 0.2-5.7 g/100 g oligosaccharides (SDFS), with the highest level in rye bran. Wheat and rye bran were found to be the best sources for total DF (46 and 32 g/100 g, respectively), wheat bran was a superior source for water-insoluble DF (IDF; 41 g/100 g), whereas oat bran was found to contain the most water-soluble high molecular weight DF (SDFP; 6 g/100 g). These new analytical results for total DF are higher than currently presented in FCDBs.