Functional diet
It is the nutritional properties of food itself that offer an advantage to health.
“We are what we eat” said Feuerbach.
Nutraceutics
Nutraceutics is the study of beneficial properties of food and its purpose is to give hints regarding nutrition in order to enhance health and wellness of people who adopt a diet following this principle.
In order to help to follow a dietary pattern that has positive effects on health, Nutracentis offers its gluten-free pasta based on ancient grains, sorghum and white corn, enhanced by spirulina, beetroot and turmeric, chosen for their exceptional nutritional properties.
Why implement nutraceutics to pasta?
Because pasta is the symbol of Mediterranean diet, considered by the foremost experts in nutrition the best model to follow. With Nutracentis you have the chance to taste an excellent gluten-free superfood pasta.
The combination of ancient grains and superfoods
creates a pasta with unique beneficial proprieties
Why choose Nutracentis?
Because it is healthy and nourishing.
Because it is perfect, handcrafted and tasty.
Because it is 100% Italian, organic and certificated
Because it is just made of water and flour without any thickening agent.
Sorghum
White corn
Superfood
Superfood is part of a new idea of nutrition, a lifestyle that aims at a healthy and balanced diet.
BEETROOT
Beetroot provides anthocyanin,
minerals and vitamins.
TURMERIC AND PEPPER
Turmeric has depurative,
antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, analgesic proprieties.
Pepper eases the assimilation of turmeric.
SPIRULINA
Spirulina has antiasthenic
and immunostimulant properties.
Ancient and modern cereals: history and differences
Ancient or archaic grains are a popular topic, but what’s their difference?
Natural, ancient or traditional grains are those that:
- Have not been modified by man
- Have adapted themselves and have evolved spontaneously
Modified grain (or hybrid) are those that:
- Are born in the laboratory
- Have a genetic structure or their chromosome altered in an artificial way (by the hand of man)
Ancient and modern grains
Industrial conventions do not follow this logic classification and therefore as ancient grains are classified those existing before the Green Revolution (from 1944 onwards) and as modern grains those that have appeared and traded after that date.
The Green Revolution (1944) began during the industrial process aimed at increasing the productivity of Mexican farmers. As a matter of fact, this nation passed from the need to import half of the wheat, to the international exportation.
The greatest differences between ancient and modern grains are:
- Gluten power. Ancient grains have a W value of gluten power of 10-50, while modern ones have a power of 300-400. It is clear that the structure of gluten has changed in order to adapt to the needs of industrial and massive production.
- Size. Pre-revolution grains are taller (over 1,30 m), while post-revolution ones are shorter (far below 1 m).
- Yield per hectare, that increases as the amount of nitrogen increases (fertilisation).
- The lower genetical variability: ancient cultivars are instead a set of genotypes with an overall high biodiversity.
The result is that many of the available information about this topic are based on this distinction, grouping together with ancient grains varieties created in the laboratory through hybridisation.
Nazareno Strampelli and the wheat revolution in Italy
In Italy, the forerunner of Green Revolution was Nazareno Strampelli, who began to deal with genetic improvement already in 1907.
Thanks to the international reputation due to his work, he succeeded in founding in Rome the National Institute for Cereal Crop Genetics (Istituto Nazionale di Genetica per la Cerealicoltura). When he started his first experiments in Rieti, he was criticised by the very Association he had founded. In fact, new grains were seen as a threat to the “original Rieti wheat”, which was widespread and appreciated by local farmers. Farmers of the Association even get to the point of expelling those who used modified wheat from the Association. In 1931, in the midst of the “Battle for Grain”, the opposition to the introduction of new seeds where so strong, that the province of Rieti received a reprimand from the government. However, eight years later the situation reversed: in Rieti 90% of cultivated wheat belonged to Strampelli’s “elected species”.
During his career, Strampelli created around 800 different crosses of wheat and 65 different varieties, without neglecting other plants (corn, oat, barley, rye, tomatoes, lentils, peas, beans, beetroots, strawberries, potatoes, hemp).
Creso Wheat and Italian Research
At the end of the ’20, scientists began to employ X-rays to cause genetical mutations in plants.
The most robust strain was the line FB55, with short and vigorous plants, very fertile ears and resistant to diseases and in particular to stem rust. It was named Creso: a cross between a radium-induced mutant wheat (B144) originated from Cappelli wheat and a strain of the Mexican Centro Internacional, that revealed itself to be extremely interesting both agronomically and industrially for its high productivity in the field and the excellent quality in pasta-making.
In 1974 it was registered in the National Register of varieties of durum wheat, and in few years, it became the most cultivated variety in Italy (in 1982 it represented 60% of durum wheat in Italy), thus doubling the Italian production. Varieties of durum wheat derived from Creso have today a great role in the global production of wheat.