Students take charge of crumbly gluten-free granola

Many are familiar with the delicious, but terribly crumbly, gluten-free granola served in the dining halls. But, what most don’t know, is that some students are on Mission: Brittle Impossible. Last week, in the Hannon Hall Culinary Art classroom, volunteers gathered to take part in a gluten-free granola sensory test in exchange for a $5 grocery store gift card. The study is part of an ongoing undergraduate research project in the Food Product Development Lab whose pursuit is to develop sustainable community-based products here on campus.

The opportunity came to campus after Gluten-Free Prairie, a Montana business, reached out to Farm to Campus, MSU’s Culinary Services’ initiative to purchase local food, for help. This effort will provide stable demand for many Montana businesses. Farm to Campus presented the idea to The Food Product Development Lab and its head researcher Wan-Yuan Kuo, Ph.D., MSU assistant professor of food science. Kuo then handed the project to undergraduate Simone Paul, a junior studying chemical engineering, who’s been spearheading the research since August 2018.

Paul was familiar with this granola and its gluten-free properties since her former roommate had celiac disease. She agreed with student complaints about the granola being too crumbly and knew it could be improved. After being awarded a University Scholars Program (USP) grant, Paul began observing the granola provided at the dining halls. She noticed that the coconut chips were too small and gathered at the bottom of the dispenser, exasperating the crumbliness, and the ingredients overall needed to be more crunchy. Collecting data and using a texture analyzer, the team compared the properties of Gluten-Free Prairie’s product to a version by On the Rise, a bread company based in Bozeman.

Prototyping came next. Paul mentioned another challenge was that the ingredients “needed to be economic,” so they turned to Costco merchandise. To create clusters they experimented with different sugar combinations: honey, agave, molasses and maple syrup. Agave had the best texture properties, but tasted more bitter so through trial and error what effect different percentages of brown sugar had. The result was seven different recipes which were then tried in the sensory test last week. “This is the big part, giving the product to students,” Paul said.

Going forward, data from the sensory tests will be analyzed for consumer preference. Also coming up is also a poster presentation of their work for the USP grant. By the end of this semester another meeting will be held with Farm to Campus and Gluten-Free Prairie where the new granola will hopefully be accepted and implemented, bringing the days of gluten-free granola crumbs to an end.