Monday 24 February 2014

Designing future rice with health and nutritional benefits

An IRRI Seminar

By Nese Sreenivasulu
Head, Grain Quality and Nutrition Center, IRRI

Thursday, 27 February 2014
1:15 - 2:15 p.m.
Havener Auditorium, IRRI

Abstract

As a staple food for more than half of the world’s population, the assessment of rice should go beyond premium traits and into other valuable traits that have health and nutritional benefits for the consumers. Resistant starch and higher amylose content is known to effectively lower the glycemic index (GI) of rice. Thus, designing rice to improve starch quality resulting in a relatively lower rise in postprandial blood glucose level (lower GI) will be an important step.

Proteins and micronutrients that are mostly concentrated in the aleurone layer of the rice grain also contain additional nutritional value, even more when rice is consumed unpolished. Hence, understanding grain quality per se in brown rice versus milled rice, and exploring genetic diversity to improve health and nutritional attributes in the current breeding programs using genomics knowledge, lead to the design of the future rice grain.

In this seminar, I will highlight the initial progress achieved by the Grain Quality and Nutrition Center and future strategies to improve the health and nutritional benefits in rice.




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