Nutritional Composition, Bioactive Compounds, and Phytochemicals of Wheat Grains

Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is a main food crop, which provides a big chunk of food calories to the world population. Whole wheat grains comprise many nutrients, bioactive compounds, and phytochemicals that are extremely significant for animal health. The increasing usages of bioactive components of wheat grain in the form of foods, antioxidants, and nutraceuticals have enhanced the significance of the wheat crop. Recently, bioactive compounds have been proved to be very effective to restrict many lifestyle-related diseases, for example, obesity, metabolic syndrome heart diseases, diabetes, stroke, cancers, and, thus, reducing the overall mortality rate in the human population. But the biological availability of nutritive and bioactive components in the human digestive system is a complicated issue because various biological factors influenced it. Many scientific investigations revealed that farming, abiotic stress, harvesting, grains processing, and bioprocessing treatments have influenced the distribution and bioavailability of bioactive ingredients provided by wheat grain. Moreover, food-making processes like debranning, milling, germination, fermentation, and bread-production process also affect the quantity and bioavailability of bioactive as well as nutritive compounds present in the wheat-based diets. Currently, research is focused on increasing wheat grain phenolic content and reducing anti-nutrients by using biotechnological protocols to enhance the bioavailability of nutritional agents in the digestive system.