“Fantastic seeds and where to find them – Exploring diversity of wattleseeds for food applications”.

Presenter: Sera Susan Jacob, PhD student, Centre for Nutrition and Food Sciences, Queensland Alliance For Agriculture and Food Innovation (QAAFI), The University of Queensland.

Summary: There is now archaeological evidence that over 200 plant seeds from different species have been utilised by Australian aboriginal communities. These seeds heavily supplemented the meat-based diet of aboriginal communities, especially in central desert regions. Acacia seeds, with over forty edible varieties commonly referred to as wattleseeds in Australia, constitute the largest group. Found in a range of different terrains across the country, seeds were often eaten raw, steamed, or roasted. When roasted, they were often ground into a coarse meal, then either stirred into a paste using water and consumed as is or baked on hot coal into a simple damper. Dietary patterns have however changed, and the usage of wattleseeds has plummeted over the past decades despite documented nutritional qualities. In order to better understand and utilize them in mainstream cuisine, it is worth exploring how food and nutrition have been understood by aboriginal communities. Combining the traditional knowledge and cultural heritage surrounding these seeds with analytical data and appropriate food matrices could reinvigorate wattleseed use while fostering a shared experience of health and wellbeing. This presentation explores selected pathways to understand the characteristics and potential uses of wattleseeds from the Northern Territory. Visual differences on both macro and microstructural levels point towards the large variability between the species of wattleseeds chosen. These differences are further illustrated by their distinct nutritional compositions. Preliminary studies based on this variability focuses on understanding the digestibility quality. This provides guidance for unique processing mechanisms to create potential food prototypes with real nutritional benefits.

“Standard deviation & standard error – siblings but not identical twins”.

Presenter: Gabriela Borgognone, Senior Biometrician, Crop and Food Science Agri-Science Queensland, DAF.

Summary: The standard deviation and standard error are statistics that measure variability and accompany the mean. It seems to be confusing which one to use when, and the published literature doesn’t help as in scientific papers both statistics seem to be used somewhat interchangeably. However, they represent two different concepts and are not interchangeable. In this seminar I will clarify their use in the context of comparative experiments, particularly what to present in tables and graphs after performing analysis of variance.