Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1134511
25 farm406 A stabilizing component has appeared in the pulse market. Instead of sending pulse commodities overseas, such as to the Middle East and India, where pulses are a food staple, pulse commodities are beginning to sell beer within the United States because Americans are making a change in their diets. ey are looking for healthy meatless protein, and the lile pulse seed seems to be the major solution. "is is good news for the pulse grower and the pulse processor because the market is not at the mercy of tariffs that can be placed on pulses sold to international markets," said Sporkin-Morrison. In addition to products that use pulse as the major ingredient, like hummus, food manufacturers are finding multiple ways to make processed foods more healthy by adding pulses as an ingredient, such as using yellow pea flour to improve the glycemic profile of cereal products; adding pulse products to pasta, baer, and breading products; augmenting meat products with pulses; and adding pulses P U L S E M A R K E T Communities in the golden triangle area are investigating becoming involved in the process for supplying ingredients, which is the next step in processing pulses aer the seeds have been cleaned, sorted, and dehulled. "Ingredient suppliers" purchase farm-raised pulses and perform value- added processing to produce pulse fractions. ose who do the fractioning separate the pea components to the advantage of the consumer. For instance, the protein value of raw F I R S T S T E P : " I N G R E D I E N T S U P P L I E R S " Pulses grown in Montana. Upper left chickpeas, Upper right, processed crimson lentils, Center, split peas; Lower left, split yellow peas, and lower right, Richlea Lentils. Photo by Suzanne Waring as ingredients to snack foods and nutritional drinks. "Even General Mills is considering ramping up the protein in Cheerios by adding pulse products to this all-time successful product," said Schalper. "e time is right to process pulses right where they are grown in Montana. We have a window that is quickly shuing to grab onto this value-added opportunity before it is developed elsewhere."