SAS Soil to Society Quarterly Newsletter

 After a long winter, things are heating up and spring work has started. Our researchers are hard at work planting their various variety, rotational, and micronutrient trials. We are so excited to see the results of these trials be passed along to our food scientists and food engineers, who will utilize these grains to develop food products and ready-to-eat meals that are delicious, nutrient-dense, and highly accessible to consumers.

Updates

These soil samples will be analyzed for the presence of soil organisms including earthworms, mites, and collembola. Samples for nematode and microbiome communities will also be collected at this time in conjunction with soil health analyses, like microbial respiration. Similarly, the Plant Breeding team has finished their spring work, planting their respective crops in both Pullman and Mt. Vernon, WA.

The Food Science and Products Team is in the process of developing recipes using our six crops in ready-to-eat meals. Food scientists are also working with grains, such as quinoa and barley, that are ready for further food product and health testing. They are experimenting with existing varieties that have already been established as desirable according to plant breeders, and determining a.) if they can produce desirable food products that people want to eat, and b.) what food products they function best in. This involves using them as a flour in various baked goods, as an extrusion product, and cooked and eaten as whole berries. The food products deemed most promising by this team and our stakeholders will then undergo sensory and digestibility testing by our human health team to determine their effect on the gut microbiome.

A slide from Dr. Girish Ganjyal's presentation at the SAS Soil to Society Winter Update Meeting illustrating the different product avenues for grain and legume crops.

Photo Credit: Dr. Girish Ganjyal

Since January 2023, the Population Nutrition and Social Science Team has been conducting preliminary analyses of our six crops in the American diet.  Researchers have asked such questions as “how commonly consumed are grains and legumes?" and "In what types of meals or dishes are these crops consumed?"  To do this, they are using data from the National Health and Nutrition Survey, which contains detailed dietary information for a representative sample of United States residents. Two crops, lentils and dried peas have a surprisingly limited presence in the American diet, with about 3.5% of adults including these foods in their diets, with soups and curries being the primary dishes containing these crops. Drs. Sanjeevi and Monsivais will be presenting the team’s findings in more depth at the project annual meeting taking place this summer. 

The Population Nutrition and Social Science Team is also continuing to develop the national survey and choice experiment. They expanded the collaboration to include colleagues from the Center for a Livable Future at Johns Hopkins who will provide additional resources to explore questions around the consumption of pulses and substitution of meat for pulses and we have selected a partner to field the survey. They anticipate the survey will be fielded this summer with results available by early fall 2023.

(Left) The mill used to grind whole grain berries into flour for further analysis. (Right) The ANKOM instrument used to analyze flour samples for their dietary fiber content. Photo Credit: Ahhria Kirkendall

The Human Health and Nutrition Team researchers have finished the first two steps of the in vitro digestion and fermentation of differently prepared quinoa products (boiled, extruded, and cookies) and are currently finishing microbial DNA extraction in order to obtain gut microbiome data by the end of May. They have also started working to characterize the dietary fiber contents in bread made from smaller kernel wheat varieties, produced by the WSU Breadlab.

The many different wheat varieties from the WSU Breadlab to be tested by the Human Health Team for fiber content.

Photo Credit: Ahhria Kirkendall

 The Education Team has launched the first year of our summer research opportunity for Washington-state high school students. There are six different projects that students have been hired for; to work with soil scientists, plant breeders, or food scientists. We are really excited to offer this opportunity for young adults to work in a professional, field and laboratory setting! Our first group of student researchers will be starting in mid June.

While Soil to Society is only in Year 2 of its 5-year grant cycle, it’s never too early to start thinking ahead to the project’s end goals and how to best synthesize research findings from each objective to promote adoption of nutritious and accessible whole grain-based foods into consumer diets.

 
Recent data collections by the Evaluation Team from Advisory Committee Members and Graduate Students elicited suggestions from these groups pertaining to project synthesis and integration. Advisory Committee Members provided ideas to promote the ultimate synthesis of research findings. Graduate student feedback recommended methods to improve integration of student project participants into overall project collaborations and across disciplines.

Infographics by Kansas State University's Office of Education Innovation and Evaluation illustrating their results from their Advisory Board Committee Report (left) and Graduate Student Survey (right).

Outreach

Optimizing Human Health and Nutrition: From Soil to Society by project manager, Ali Schultheis, on the Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources (CSANR) Blog

WSU's School of Food Science is putting on an Extrusion Processing Short Course August 8-10th, 2023. Click here to learn more information and to register.

Events

The Soil to Society Annual Meeting is being held July 12th and 13th in Pullman, WA. Email for more information.

Thank You to Our Partners!

Acknowledgement

This research was supported by the United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) National Institute of Food and Agriculture’s (NIFA) Sustainable Agricultural Systems (SAS) program, grant number WNP00882.