When Jaspreet Singh sits down to a breakfast of baked beans and toast, he is far from enjoying the flavour of the nutritious meal.
Being the scientist he is, Dr Singh is more concerned about the goodness the humble bean can deliver to the thousands of sufferers of obesity and diabetes throughout the country and world.
Dr Singh of the Riddet Institute at Massey University in Palmerston North, is on the verge of unlocking the secrets of “good starches” in products such as beans (as in baked beans) and the humble spud.
So much so that he has now completed a 528-page book titled “Advances in Potato Chemistry and Technology, co-written with his wife Lovedeep Kaur, who is also a scientist working at the Riddet, with numerous contributions from renowned academics from throughout the world, including one from NASA.
Dr Singh and his team at Riddet are now at the cusp of successfully screening starches with a low glycemic index, which he calls “starch of the future”.
Explains Dr Singh in layman’s terms: “New Zealand has a significant number of people who are obese and diabetic.
“They require food which tastes good but at the same time have fewer calories. When we eat starches, enzymes act on the starch and gluclose is produced, goes to the blood, thus giving energy.
“Trying to identify starches which, when digesting, produce less glucose, is our aim. This is what is beneficial to the body.”
Dr Singh said so far they had screened starches in baked beans (Navy Beans), which produced promising results in pilot stages. The team had found special starches in the beans, hence the collaboration with Heinz Watties for further research on the project.
“My research currently focuses on characterising future carbohydrates to develop novel and healthy food products,” said Dr Singh.
“The research on future carbohydrate is important to produce healthy foods with low glycemic index. Consumption of starch containing foods is critical for diabetics, since due to lack of insulin, the glucose produced in the blood after digestion cannot be utilized in a quantitatively sufficient manner.
“The management of Type 2 diabetes and its complications account for a significant proportion of health expenditure in New Zealand, with Maori, Pacific islanders and South Asians living in New Zealand more susceptible to the disease.
“Nutrition is of utmost importance in the intensive management of diabetes and obesity to the extent that it has often been described as the cornerstone of care for both these problems. I am working towards the development of new starch structures which have low glycemic index.
“These structures would enhance the nutritional quality of food when used for the development of low-calorie, slowly digestible processed foods which also tastes good and have no safety issues.
In a recent presentation at a science summit in Auckland, Dr Singh spoke about the need to produce future starches for the food industry.
“Future starches are the starches with more health benefits such as low glycemic index and slow digestibility and provide fewer calories to the body.
“At the same time these starches provide a good texture to the food products and tastes similar like high calorie starches.”
Originally from Punjab, India, Dr Singh has also worked as a post-doctoral fellow at the Institute de la Recherche Agronomique in France and also at the Kansas State University in the United States.
Dr Singh, who joined Massey University in 2004, is also the president of Massey University Indian Association (MUIA) which is an association of Indian students and staff at Massey University in Palmerston North.
For now, Dr Singh is forging ahead with high hopes of producing a starch of the future.