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Eating pulses is not just about pea soup or baked beans anymore! The health benefits of adding these fibre rich foods to your diet is changing how we manage diseases such as obesity. PROJECT TITLE Evaluation of pulse fibre supplementation in obesity and the metabolic syndrome: Generating evidence in support of health claims PROJECT LEAD Raylene Reimer, University of Calgary TOTAL VALUE OF PROJECT $420,900 FUNDING PARTNER Alberta Innovates Obesity is associated with increased incidence of a variety of health conditions, and a higher risk of heart disease, diabetes and cancer. Quite apart from its impact on individuals, obesity brings a huge economic cost. According to the federal government's Public Health Agency of Canada, the economic impact of obesity in Canada was $4.6 billion annually between 2000 and 2008. Despite the high human and economic cost of obesity, there are promising strategies for Canadians to help curb obesity and the health complications that go with it: Eat more pulses. Pulse fibre, specifically, has been connected to reduced obesity. "We know that North Americans don't consume enough dietary fibre," said Raylene Reimer, Professor of Nutrition in the Faculty of Kinesiology at the University of Calgary. "That's what we call the fibre gap – the difference between what's recommended and what people actually eat." Narrowing the fibre gap was the aim of a research project led by Reimer between 2012 and 2015, with funding from Alberta Pulse Growers and others. NEW PRODUCT MAKES PULSE FIBRE CONVENIENT "In my lab, we are interested in what we call functional ingredients," Reimer said. "If we could incorporate healthier ingredients like pulse fibre, into something that people eat anyway, that's a win against the health crisis we currently have going on in Canada." Jay Han, Food Scientist at Alberta Agriculture and Forestry's Food Processing Development Centre in Leduc, developed two types of biscuits for Reimer's study. Subjects in the study ate 200 calories worth of the biscuits each day. The difference was in the amount of pulse fibre, in this case pea fibre. The pea fibre biscuit had 15 grams of fibre, while the control biscuit had just 0.7 grams of other fibre. One group of people received the pea fibre biscuit to eat, another group the control biscuit, over a period of 12 weeks. Weight, blood sugar and other values were taken before and after the study period. "This is a food product that, when included in the diet, provides small health benefits that add up over time," Reimer said. "There's a slight decrease in body weight, there is an improvement in appetite control and a benefit in terms of blood glucose. You're not going to quickly lose 50 pounds. The benefit is a natural trajectory of a slow, creeping improvement in body weight." The pea fibre biscuit developed for the study by Han, and tested by Reimer in her research, could be just the start of a wave of food products made with pulse fractions such as fibre and protein. It's one more sign that Alberta pulse producers are growing crops that will feed the world and make it healthier too. "There's a benefit from consuming dietary fibre in general and pulse fibre in particular," Reimer said. "The question is, how can the pulse industry get its products to consumers in a bigger way?" Used as a food ingredient, pulse fibre can help gradually reduce body weight and lower blood glucose levels. It's not a silver bullet, but this research showed it works. Obesity is a Health Crisis. Pulses are Part of the Solution 37 | Pulse Research Report GROW HEALTH

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