By Cindy Green
Photos by Rolf Hagberg

Comfort foods — steaming oatmeal, spaghetti with tomato sauce, roast beef with garlic potatoes — are good not only for the soul, but also the heart and immune system.

Oatmeal contains beta glucan fibers that reduce cholesterol; lycopene in spaghetti sauce may reduce the risk of prostate cancer; psyllium fibers in pasta may reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease; the CLA in beef could reduce some tumors and body fat; garlic contains diallyl sulfide, which lowers LDL cholesterol.

The food industry calls such products and ingredients nutraceuticals or functional foods. “If you ask me, all foods are functional,” says Charan Wadhawan, AURI food scientist. “It really goes back to the basics — eating whole foods in moderation. But some foods may be more beneficial than others.”

Lisa Gjersvik, AURI project director in Waseca, says medicinal food is a major emerging opportunity in value-added agriculture. The current U.S. nutraceutical market is $16.7 billion and is expected to grow to $28 billion by 2006.

When a study confirms, or at least suggests, that a food component may treat or prevent disease, food companies quickly respond.

A California wine maker has capitalized on the 1979 “French Paradox” report that linked wine consumption to lower rates of heart disease, attributed to phenols in grape skin. A subsidiary is marketing grape extracts to companies that make herbal supplements, food products and beverages.

The Fluid Milk Strategic Thinking Initiative, funded nationally by dairy producers and processors, is looking at 12 ingredients that could be added to milk, including beta glucans for heart health, glucosamine for joints, lutein for vision, S-adenosyl-L-methionine to elevate mood, and green tea extracts rich in antioxidants.

Shifting to food-meds

The Hartman Group, a leading market research firm, says rising interest in medicinal foods reflects a shift in Americans’ consciousness, heightened by September 11. The firm’s report, “The Wellness Trends in 2002,” found that people are putting family and wellness above hectic daily routines. Many interviewed said they were frustrated with the U.S. healthcare system, wanted more control over their health, were concerned about aging, or had gone through life-transforming experiences such as cancer. “Dietary supplements ... (allow) them a way of self-managing their own health ... giving them a sense of empowerment,” the report states.

The Hartman Group finds 13 percent of U.S. households score high on wellness indicators, including regular exercise, healthy eating, using supplements and buying organic and natural foods. The biggest group, 62 percent, score in the mid range, and 24 percent rate low. The findings show the market for wellness products and services is vast, the report says.

Last year, a study of consumer attitudes toward functional foods by the International Food Information Council showed 89 percent of Americans believe they have at least moderate control over their health and 93 percent believe that some foods have health benefits that go beyond basic nutrition; almost 62 percent are incorporating at least one food for health benefits.

Other economic realities could increase the popularity of nutraceuticals. Gregg Wurster, a Duke University graduate student, predicts that as health insurance costs continue to rise, consumers will pay higher co-pays for drugs. Nutraceuticals will present a better economic value to those consumers than they did in the past. “They will become more conscious of ways to prevent those expenses,” he writes in the Nutraceutical World magazine, September 2002.

Research is booming

Nutraceuticals were defined in 1994 by the Institute of Medicine’s food and nutrition board as “any food or food ingredient that may provide a health benefit beyond the traditional nutrients it contains.” The main focus has been on phytochemicals — biologically active chemicals such as glucosinolates in cruciferous vegetables (cole crops), lycopene in tomatoes, limonoids in citrus fruits, lignans in flaxseed and catechins in tea — all purported cancer fighters.

The fastest growing nutraceutical market is weight-loss products, according to the Nutrition Business Journal. With more than 120 million overweight Americans and 17 million diabetics, demand is growing for foods or supplements that increase metabolism, suppress or satiate appetite, and control blood sugar.

While many claims have not been replicated in clinical trials, research facilities are going up around the country to study the medicinal qualities of food components, such as the Nutraceuticals Institute, a partnership between Rutgers University, St. Joseph’s University and the State University of New Jersey.

The University of Manitoba in Canada is establishing a $25 million Research and Development Centre for Functional Foods and Nutraceuticals to study prairie crops such as oats, wheat, buckwheat, canola, flax and hemp. The University of Minnesota’s Center for Spirituality and Healing is designing a program to “implement well-designed, scientifically rigorous clinical investigations of botanical medicines and dietary supplements to determine their safety and use in treating illnesses,” according to the Center’s Web site.

AURI recently launched a Functional Foods Initiative to look at the medicinal qualities of locally-grown grains, beans and oilseed crops. The initiative will be led by Wadhawan and Michael Sparby, AURI project director in Morris.

Drugs from the field

Nutraceuticals are not the same as pharmaceuticals, such as plant-derived proteins for vaccines and medical treatments. Pharmaceuticals are designed specifically for medical use under a physician’s supervision, and are subject to FDA approval.

There are 400 plant-based drugs under development worldwide, according to a National Corn Growers Association study. A January 2002 article in Top Producer magazine reports: “estimates of crop acres needed to serve this new drug market range from ‘tens of thousands’ to as many as one million.” Nevertheless, planting genetically-engineered crops for drug harvesting is controversial because of concerns over pollen drift and genetic contamination of traditional crops.

Nutraceuticals, which do not pose an environmental hazard, may be easier and faster to market. Farmers could gain from raising specialty crops such as garlic, cranberries and chicory with disease-fighting properties. Numerous new businesses in Minnesota are taking advantage of promising new markets for medicinal foods.

Pioneers in carbohydrates
Biorefining puts patent to work extracting nutraceutical ingredients

By Cindy Green

Minneapolis, Minn. — Biorefining, Inc. wants to turn a dime’s worth of raw material into medicinal components worth hundreds of dollars — and do it more efficiently than anyone else.

The start-up company’s technology is designed to extract high-value components from carbohydrates found in distiller’s dried grains, sugar beet pulp, citrus pulp and soybeans. Extract uses range from sport drink additives to fluoride replacements.

Minus the water

Typically, carbohydrates are fractionated with a water-based process using 90 pounds of water for every 10 pounds of material. Biorefining’s patented Thorre Process essentially eliminates water; “we can extract more efficiently” at a lower cost, says Thom Menie, vice president of sales and marketing.

Products from the Thorre Process will be able to compete on an economic and functional level with a multitude of petroleum and biobased products, states a company document.

Materials like distiller’s dried grains (DDGs), an ethanol byproduct, can yield such high-value extracts as:

• Xylose: a low-calorie sweetener and fluoride replacement; current market price of $6.60 to $7.00 per kilogram.
• L-arabinose: used in a Hepatitis-B treatment and as a sucrose inhibitor for diabetic and weight loss applications; current price $100 to $140 per kilogram.
• Galactose: plant-based, low-calorie sweetener and an energy additive in sport drinks and bars; current price $125 to $150 per kilogram.
• Galacturonic acid: a nutrient for functional foods, a replacement for phosphates in detergents and a biodegradable surfactant; current price $150 to $280 per kilogram.

While increased supply of these fractions will inevitably lower their market price, nutraceuticals and pharmaceuticals are still far more profitable than livestock feed, which values DDGs at about 11 cents per kilogram.

Carb chem finesse

The dry extraction process was invented by Doug Van Thorre, a former dentist with a physics and chemistry background. His work as an FDA clinical investigator on dentistry led to other medical research and eventually to carbohydrate fractionation. Menie met him in the early 1990s when Van Thorre was scientific advisor on a wastewater treatment project.

In the late 1990s, Menie learned of Van Thorre’s carbohydrate work; they decided to seek a patent and start a company. “We sat in a room with three patent attorneys — all Ph.D.s — and they were basically blown away. This was a process that could revolutionize the way people process carbohydrates — it’s called a pioneering patent.”

At the meeting was Wesley Hayne, a former computer software CEO with substantial investment banking experience. “That meeting convinced Wes ... to become full-time CEO of Biorefining.” Later Kim Plahn, with 17 years of financial experience, joined as CFO. “I’ve never seen a team as good as this company has,” says Menie, who has 28 years’ sales experience with such companies as Pillsbury, Johnson & Johnson and Oscar Mayer.

Starting out sweet

When Biorefining incorporated on January 21, 2001, it was called Sweet Beet, Inc. because the company’s first order was for pentose sugar L-arabinose from beet pulp. “That’s what got us going — we found out one plant alone was throwing off 300,000 tons of sugar beet pulp. We knew there was ample raw material at low cost.”

“But now the sugar industry is not doing well ... and we’re seeing a lot of aggressiveness in the ethanol industry,” Menie says. Because the target components can be extracted from DDGs or “anything that is cellulose-based biomass,” including citrus pulp and soybeans, Sweet Beet became Biorefining, Inc.
Minnesota’s 15 ethanol plants each produce 13 to 40 million gallons of fuel per year. “There are 3,000 tons of distiller grains for every million gallons of ethanol — up to 20,000 tons of distiller grain per plant — that’ s a load,” Menie says. “There’s only so much you can put into (livestock feed); they have to find other ways of adding value.”

Back it around

Ideally, ethanol should be a byproduct of Biorefining’s extraction process, rather than the other way around, Menie says. Extract pharmaceutical ingredients from corn first, and ethanol producers “end up with what is essentially starch and glucose, easier for them to ferment. … Ethanol becomes the sidestream — nothing goes to waste; we totally maximize utilization of the crop.” Also, the biomass doesn’t have to be dried, which reduces pollution. Menie says up to 80 percent of ethanol smokestack VOC (volatile organic compound) emissions come from drying distiller’s grains and syrup.

Biorefining wants to “hook up with co-ops to get farmers involved in a bigger profit trail,” although Menie says it will also work with privately-owned plants. In October, Biorefining signed a joint venture letter of intent with an ethanol plant in Stanley, Wisc. The company is also talking to two ethanol cooperatives and an investor group in southern Minnesota. AURI is assisting Biorefining with process optimization studies and further technology development.

“We take what Mother Nature gives us and keep fractionating — we could end up with 20 or 30 (components), some valued at $4,000 to $6,000 a kilo,” Menie says. “We expect to be inherently more profitable than anybody else in our industry.”