AUSTRALIA does not eat enough pulses and the best way to change this is to promote the taste of the produce rather than its health benefits.
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That was the overriding message during a panel discussion at last week's Pulse Breeding Australia conference in Adelaide, which featured celebrity chefs Simon Bryant and Ragini Dey, La Trobe University senior lecturer and researcher Regina Belski and Agrisemm Global Brokerage principal Peter Semmler.
While the panel agreed that pulses had an image problem, Mr Semmler said it was also a matter of getting people out of their comfort zone to eat more pulses.
"Pulse preparation and consumption is perceived by the majority of consumers as being outside the comfort zone – they just don't feel comfortable with it and hence they don't eat them," he said.
"The real problem is that no one in Australia has taken ownership of the task to change the consumer's comfort zone.
"We've got a lot of passionate people doing lots of bits and pieces around the place, but it's not all mixed together.
"There's no commonality, there's no brand and there's no focus on an image you can promote and that's one thing we really have to address as an industry."
Mr Semmler pointed to Pulse Canada as an example and said it was doing fantastic work to promote pulses.
"The fact they have a good budget is a function of the way they have organised their industry and the farmers are prepared to have a deduction to fund Pulse Canada," he said.
"They've already started in Canada on the whole concept of sustainability and the fact vegetable protein is much more sustainable in our global society.
"There's a lot of long term issues people are going to have to start to consider, and the Canadians have really started to address that."
Ms Belski said while many people knew pulses were healthy, they did not know how and why.
"The other problem is we tend to focus on one particular nutrient - protein," she said.
"Of course protein and protein content is an important part of what pulses contribute nutritionally, but it's not the only thing.
"If we look at pulses as a group, not only do they provide high quality plant protein, they also have a low glycemic index which is great in regard to blood sugar management and preventing and managing diabetes and they contain amazing fibre and different types of fibre depending on the pulse.
"They are also really rich in antioxidants, they provide minerals like iron, zinc, potassium and magnesium and don't contain cholesterol, unlike a lot of other protein sources in our diet."
* Full report in Stock Journal's October 31 edition.
