Is barley malt safe as a food ingredient?

Today's increased focus on sustainability require increased focus on the safety of the products in use. Barley malt is used for beer and whisky production and the spent grain by-products from brewing makes up to 85 % of brewers total by-products. Spent grain has previously been used mainly for animal feed and recently the high nutritive value has made it feasible as bread flour supplement [1] and therefore human food. Process contamination such as the genotoxic acrylamide formed due to Maillard reactions between reducing sugars and amino acids at raised temperature could appear during drying of the malt. Previously, acrylamide has been detected among others in potato products, coffee and bread [2]. The use of smoked barley malt for enhanced flavours for certain beer and whisky types may increase the content of carcinogenic process contaminants in the by-products. Carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) are such process contaminants previously identified in e.g. smoked fish [3]. Germinated barley is smoke treated and for many whisky malt dried over peat-fuelled furnace for flavour addition probably with increased health risks for spent grain consumers as a result. To evaluate our concern we studied different barley malt types.