Dietary fibre fractions in cereal and cereal‐containing products in Britain

Abstract

Abstract The values for dietary fibre in the current UK food tables were obtained using a fractionation method which involved digestion of starch with a takadiastase preparation. For the revision of the food tables new values for the dietary fibre in cereal and cereal‐containing meat products were obtained by an improved fractionation method which used a mixture of amyloglucosidase and α‐amylase to digest starch. The full details of this analytical method are given, along with the fibre components which were found in 138 cereal‐containing foods. This method produced higher values than the previous method in most processed cereal products. Also the levels of pentoses in the non‐cellulosic polysaccharide fraction and of lignin residues are greater. The study considerably extends the range of cereal‐containing foods for which the amount of dietary fibre and its components has been determined.