Composition of cereal germ preparations.

Germ from wheat, rye, triticale, barley and oat was prepared by passing the grain through an Entoleter impact mill. The content of a number of important nutrients in the germ preparations was determined in order to make a preliminary evaluation of the potential use of these preparations as food ingredients. alpha-Tocopherol, polyunsaturated lipids, protein, threonine, methionine, lysine, raffinose, sucrose, thiamin and riboflavin were chosen since these are the components regarded as most important in commercial wheat germ. All the germ preparations had compositions essentially similar to published values for commercial wheat germ derived from flour milling. The germ lipids of rye and triticale had a very high content of linolenic acid which could lead to problems of oxidative rancidity. Otherwise, the germ preparations appear suitable as an alternative to commercial mill gem for food ingredient applications.