Phytochemicals and heavy metals content of hairless canary seed: A variety developed for food use

Canary seed is one of the top four specialty crops grown in Western Canada. Currently it is used entirely in food mixtures for caged birds but our previous studies have shown its unique composition and potential use in food and non-food applications. Through improvements by plant breeding a hairless variety was developed for human consumption and animal feeding. This study was aimed at investigating phytochemicals and heavy metals in hairless canary seed in comparison with the hairy variety and common wheat using three milling fractions (wholegrain, starchy flour and bran). The levels of bound and unbound phenolic acids, phytate, trypsin and amylase inhibitors tended to be similar in the three grains at a given level of processing. This was also true for most heavy metals tested although hairy canary seed exhibited a significantly higher concentration of copper while both canary seed varieties contained more nickel and zinc than wheat. Condensed tannins, alkaloids and deoxynivalenol (DON) were not detected in any of the crops while very low levels of aflatoxin were detected in all three grains. The results show that both hairless and hairy canary seed possess phytochemicals and heavy metals profile close to that of wheat demonstrating the potential of hairless canary seed as a food crop due to the absence of harmful hairs.