Cereal Chem 59:413 - 417.  |  VIEW ARTICLE
Insoluble Dietary Fiber from Breakfast Cereals and Brans: Bile Salt Binding and Water-Holding Capacity in Relation to Particle Size.

R. Mongeau and R. Brassard. Copyright 1982 by the American Association of Cereal Chemists, Inc. 

Particle size has been reported to be important in the effect of cereal fiber on colonic function, but few measurements have been made on marketed cereal products. Insoluble fiber was therefore extracted from two oats cereals and from a group of breakfast cereals containing at least 10% neutral detergent fiber (NDF). Mean particle size (MPS), water-holding capacity, and glycocholate and taurocholate binding were measured in pooled NDF from each cereal. Fourteen of the 16 NDF had an MPS of 0.34-0.92 mm. Glycocholate and taurocholate binding varied from 16.2 to 34.2 and from 5.6 to 12.4 micro-mol/0.2 g of NDF, respectively. Water-holding capacity varied from 7.8 to 20.4 g of H2O/g NDF. In NDF from wheat (whole or bran) products, positive correlations were found between glycocholate (r = 0.90, P less than 0.001) or taurocholate (r = 0.86, P less than 0.05) binding and the logarithm of MPS; water-holding capacity was positively correlated (r = 0.85, P less than 0.01) with MPS. Similar correlations were found in NDF from unprocessed wheat brans ground at various particle sizes. The water-holding capacity of NDF was also highly correlated with dry bulk. The results indicated that nutritionally important physicochemical characteristics of wheat fiber are adversely affected as particle size is reduced.