What do an Oklahoma State University Regents professor, a pepperoni pizza and legendary musician Prince have in common? Purple (G)rain.

Brady Sidwell, owner and operator of Enid Brewing Company and Chisholm Trail Milling, recently adopted a new type of wheat at his milling company, which he calls “Purple (G)rain” and uses in baked goods at his restaurant. The purple wheat, crossed and developed at OSU, is unique for more reasons than its purple hue.

Anthocyanins, the same pigmented compound that gives color to blueberries and black beans, are incredibly valuable in a diet, said Brett Carver, OSU Regents professor and wheat genetics chair. Carver is also the lead researcher on purple wheat.

“Anthocyanins in the purple wheat are really good at neutralizing highly unstable compounds in our bodies that are there from wear and tear on your cells,” Carver said.

This new strand of wheat was developed to make wheat healthier for consumers and seen as a healthier food in general, he said.

“People often look at gluten and bread and carbohydrates in a certain way,” Sidwell said. “But we’re trying to show consumers that in the natural state of how farmers grow these crops, bread and flour can be healthy.”

While the wheat kernel is a deep purple color, the products made from purple wheat flour lack a distinct purple hue. This is because a very small amount of the kernel is actually purple, Carver said.

“The part of the wheat that’s purple is just a really thin layer,” Carver said. “That’s less than 2% of the weight of that kernel, so it’s not going to impart a huge purple tint.”

The end products made from purple wheat do, however, tend to have a slightly darker hue, Carver added.

“I wanted wheat to be part of the conversation that involves fruits and vegetables because we always think of fruits and vegetables as healthy foods,” Carver said. “But how often do you see whole grains being a part of that conversation? Never.”

Joe Longoria, owner of Casa Rica Tortilla Factory in Plainview, Texas, encountered the purple wheat through a local farmer.

Longoria said he is passionate about making food healthier for people through high-quality products. He uses purple wheat in his tortillas and is experimenting with making purple wheat pancakes.

“The health benefits are really what’s driving the whole desire to put purple wheat out there in people’s hands,” Longoria said. “Whole wheat is very nutritious, and if you add the anthocyanin, which gives it the color, it gives it that icing on the cake.”

Anthocyanins in the wheat provide the body with antioxidants the body cannot create for itself, Carver said.

“We want to make sure we take care of ourselves,” Carver said. “One way we do that is by consuming antioxidants.”

In 2009, Carver brought in a strand of wheat from Romania for the original purple wheat cross due to the strong wheat production and high-quality germplasm in the region, Carver said.

“It only took one breeding cycle to come up with the wheat,” Carver said, “but a breeding cycle can last 10 years.”

While health benefits were the main goal for purple wheat, taste remains important to consumers. Some consumers steer away from whole grain wheats for texture or flavor reasons, but Longoria insisted the purple wheat has a pleasant texture and tastes nearly identical to white wheat.

“Let me just put it this way,” he said with a laugh, “I made some products for my grandkids, and they liked it. That’s difficult to do.”

While the products made from purple wheat are not distinctly purple, some bakers have experimented with adding natural dyes to give their baked goods more of a deep purple color, Longoria said.

Doing this adds consumer interest and makes the products stand out, Longoria added.

Many whole-grain wheats have a grittier texture because of the size of the bran in the milling and baking process, Longoria said.

“The way whole grain wheat is being built by the commercial industry, the bran ends up cutting the texture of the dough like a razor blade when it’s rising,” Longoria said.

Dough rises because yeast in the dough releases gases during the fermentation process. These gases are trapped inside the dough, creating bubbles that make the dough expand. Whole grain wheat bran can disrupt this process, Longoria said.

“If the bran is large in size, it cuts through the bubbles and releases the gas,” he said. “You don’t get the rise that you typically would get when baking with a white flour.”

Longoria worked with a team to prevent this from being an issue with the purple wheat, he said.

“When we milled the purple wheat, we were able to get the bran size small enough that it doesn’t do that,” Longoria said. “It gives us a better rise than you would get from a commercially milled whole wheat flour.”

Sidwell said he dealt with this issue as well. Chisholm Trail Milling uses a stone mill, which gives a much finer wheat and reduces cutting of the gluten in the rising process, he added.

Purple wheat opens the door to a new way of thinking in research, Sidwell said.

Whereas research is typically done with the producer in mind and explores yield or durability, purple wheat was crossed with greater emphasis on the consumer benefit, he added.

“To me, it’s a game changer for the wheat business,” Sidwell said.

Though purple wheat may seem strange to consumers now, Carver hopes it won’t always be the case.

“I hope one day we will look at purple wheat, or blue or even black wheat,” Carver said, “and they won’t seem so unusual.”

Story by Tierney Meyers | Cowboy Journal