Changes in Microwave-Treated Wheat Grain Properties

Abstract

The world faces the challenge of feeding, housing and clothing an everincreasing population. On 12 October 1999, the United Nations marked the birth of the six billionth human currently living on the planet (Morris et al., 2000). Throughout our history there has been an overall increase in food production through agricultural innovations including the efforts of plant breeders. Cereals play such an integral part in global agriculture and diet. More than 50% of our food comes from three cereals: wheat, maize and rice (Morris et al., 2000). An important step forward in the feeding of the world was the green revolution. Advances in plant breeding and the adoption of highly efficient production systems bring about of fourfold increase in grain yield during the second half of twentieth century. But a continued, sustainable increase will be hard to realize without introducing modern cereals biotechnology and strong determination towards limitation of cereals grain losses during shipment and storage. Pests are one of the most severe threat for food products, but often ignored by many manufactures. According to Codex Alimentarius monitoring as well as fighting pests in production process is essential to maintain safe food products. Wheat is the world’s most important crop species providing about one-third of the global production of cereals. Stored grain is vulnerable to damage caused by internal and external insects. About half of annual grain production requires storage (Grundas et al., 2008). Cereal grain losses caused by pests during storage can reach 50% of the total harvest in some developing countries, which leads to a world-wide loss equivalent to thousands of millions of euros per year (Fornal et al., 2007). Generally postharvest food losses are estimated to range from 8 to 10% in industrialized countries (Ciepielewska & Kordan, 2001; Brader et al., 2002). Insects are a problem in stored grain throughout the world because they reduce the quantity and quality of grain (Sinha & Watters, 1985; Madrid et al., 1990; Warchalewski & Gralik, 2010). Many chemical insecticides and fumigates are used as protectants against insect infestation in stored grains. But their indiscriminate use and residual toxicity effect the non-target animals and human beings