AsianScientist (Feb. 17, 2016) – Researchers from China have found that allowing peanuts to undergo the process of seed germination could reduce their allergen levels. Their findings were published in the Journal of Food Science.
Peanuts are widely used in food processing because they are rich in fats and protein. However, they are also one of the eight major food allergens and cause approximately 0.5 to 2 percent of all food allergies, a proportion that increases every year. Symptoms range from mild oral allergy syndrome to severe, whole-body anaphylactic reactions, and sometimes even death.
So far, no effective clinical treatment has been developed for peanut allergy. However, avoiding exposure to peanuts might appear to be an overtly simplistic approach to the problem.
In a study by a team from the Ningbo Institute of Agricultural Sciences, it was found that altering the natural process of seed germination by controlling environmental factors could reduce peanut allergenicity. This is because the allergenic proteins in peanuts degrade during the process.
In particular, the researchers looked at the effects of temperature and light on Ara h1, a previously identified peanut allergen protein. These two factors, besides water, are the most important factors affecting seed germination. They germinated the seeds for either 132 hours or 252 hours at temperatures ranging from 20-30°C, and either in darkness or various intensities and exposures of light.
The results showed that the allergenic proteins were significantly degraded into smaller molecules during short-term germination. The immunoreactivity of Ara h1, in particular, decreased approximately by a third after five to seven days of germination. The ideal conditions to process peanut sprouts, they found, would be in darkness at 25°C.
Short-term germination could be an easy way to produce hypoallergenic peanut food, the authors concluded. They also noted that further studies are needed to assess the effects of germination on other major peanut allergens, and to fully understand the role of seed germination in improving food safety.
The article can be found at: Li et al. (2015) Beneficial Influence of Short-Term Germination on Decreasing Allergenicity of Peanut Proteins.
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Source: Institute of Food Technologists; Photo: viZZZual.com/Flickr/CC.
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