Sustainable production of naturally colored extruded breakfast cereals from blends of broken rice and vegetable flours.

There is a growing demand for practical and healthy food products. Obtaining naturally colored breakfast cereals with the incorporation of functional ingredients is a promising alternative for consumers that are looking for healthiness. This study aimed to evaluate the feasibility of using vegetable flours, rich in pigments, to obtain naturally colored breakfast cereals through thermoplastic extrusion. Vegetables considered "unsuitable for the retail market", classified as "type B", were used to prepare different flours from carrot (CF), spinach (SF) and beetroot (BF). Extrudates were produced from a mixture of 90% broken rice (BR) and 10% vegetable flour (CF, SF or BF). Besides giving the extrudates a natural color, the use of vegetable flours also provided nutritional and functional enrichment due to increased mineral, protein, lipid, fiber and phenolic compound contents, and greater antioxidant capacity. However, some of these components, such as fibers, affect extrudate physical structure and technological characteristics, evidenced by reduced expansion, hardness, paste viscosity and greater interaction with water present in milk under consumption conditions. In general, the evaluated flours proved to be an alternative for imparting a natural color to extruded breakfast cereals, in addition to positively contributing to their nutritional and functional value.

Effect of enzymatic treatment of citrus by-products on bacterial growth, adhesion and cytokine production by Caco-2 cells.

Citrus by-products are inexpensive sources of polyphenols, important bioactive compounds with wide pharmaceutical and food applications. This study aimed to investigate the effect of enzymatic treatment of citrus by-products on the polyphenolic profile of extracts and assess the influence of extracts on the growth and adhesion of probiotics and foodborne pathogenic bacteria and on the inflammatory response of epithelial cells. Enzyme-assisted extraction altered the polyphenolic profile (as assessed by HPLC-DAD), increasing the content of aglycone flavanones (naringenin and hesperetin). Enzymatic extracts and aglycone flavanones exhibited higher antibacterial and prebiotic activities than non-enzymatic extracts and glycoside flavanones. However, a higher content of aglycones was not associated with higher anti-adhesion activity. Citrus extracts significantly (P ≤ 0.05) decreased the inflammatory response of Caco-2 cells to Salmonella Typhimurium adhesion. These results support the sustainable reuse of citrus agroindustrial wastes and indicate the potential of citrus extracts in preventing infection by foodborne pathogenic bacteria and inducing proliferation of probiotics in foods and the gut environment.

Passion fruit (Passiflora edulis) leaf aqueous extract ameliorates intestinal epithelial barrier dysfunction and reverts inflammatory parameters in Caco-2 cells monolayer.

The aqueous extract of Passiflora edulis leaves is rich in bioactive polyphenolics, with antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. In this study, the recovery of barrier dysfunction and the anti-inflammatory effect of P. edulis leaf aqueous extract (PELE) were evaluated using a Caco-2 monolayer model challenged with IL-1ß and LPS. After inflammatory stimuli, it was observed a 28% reduction in transepithelial electrical resistance (TER) and 78% increase of LY permeability. After 48-h treatment with PELE (10 mg mL-1), the monolayer showed 35% increase in TER after inflammatory decreases, and 67% lower LY paracellular permeability, showing a recovery of the monolayer integrity. The treatment also suppressed IL-8 production in 65%. Our results suggest that PELE is a potent source of antioxidants that may promote a protective effect by repairing the intestinal epithelial integrity.

Antioxidant Potential and Modulatory Effects of Restructured Lipids from the Amazonian Palms on Liver Cells.

Enzymatic interesterification is used to manipulate oil and fat in order to obtain improved restructured lipids with desired technological properties. However, with raw materials containing significant amounts of bioactive compounds, the influence of this enzymatic process on the bioactivity of the final product is still not clear. Thus, the aim of this study is to evaluate the antioxidant potential and modulatory effects of two raw materials from the Amazonian area, buriti oil and murumuru fat, before and after lipase interesterification, on human hepatoma cells (HepG2). The results indicate that minor bioactive compounds naturally found in the raw materials and their antioxidant capacity are preserved after enzymatic interesterification, and that the restructured lipids modulate HepG2 endogenous antioxidant enzyme.