ABSTRACT
This work proposes a novel drying method suitable for probiotic bacteria, called flash freeze-drying (FFD), which consists of a cyclic variation in pressure (up-down) in a very short time and is applied during primary drying. The effects of three FFD temperatures (-25 °C, -15 °C, and -3 °C) on the bacterial survival and water activity of Lactobacillus acidophilus LA5 (LA), previously microencapsulated with calcium alginate and chitosan, were evaluated. The total process time was 900 min, which is 68.75% less than the usual freeze-drying (FD) time of 2880 min. After FFD, LA treated at -25 °C reached a cell viability of 89.94%, which is 2.74% higher than that obtained by FD, as well as a water activity of 0.0522, which is 55% significantly lower than that observed using FD. Likewise, this freezing temperature showed 64.72% cell viability at the end of storage (28 days/20 °C/34% relative humidity). With the experimental data, a useful mathematical model was developed to obtain the optimal FFD operating parameters to achieve the target water content in the final drying.
ABSTRACT
Grapes present recognized beneficial effects on human health due to their polyphenolic composition. The grape overproduction together with the wine sales down and the world socioeconomic situation makes the wine grape valorization a promising strategy to give an added-value to this natural product. The objective of the present work was to study the influence of in vitro gastrointestinal digestion on antioxidant capacity and polyphenolic profile of skin and seed extracts of different grape varieties (Tempranillo, Graciano, Maturana tinta and Hondarrabi zuri). After in vitro gastrointestinal digestion, total phenolic content (TPC) of seed polyphenolic extracts decreased significantly for all the varieties. The highest decrease was for Tempranillo going from 108 ± 9 to 50 ± 3 mg / g dry matter (dm). This variety also showed the highest decrease of 90% in antioxidant capacity. However, for all the skin polyphenolic extracts there was an increase in TPC. The highest variation was also for Tempranillo. It varied from 10.1 ± 0.8 to 55.1 ± 0.9 mg / g dm. Among red varieties Tempranillo skin polyphenolic extract showed the lowest undigested anthocyanin content but the highest bioaccessibility index (BI) of 77%. For flavanols, flavonols and procyanidins the seed polyphenolic extracts showed a BI at the intestinal phase between 11% for (+)-epicatechin gallate to 130% procyanidin A2. The results of this study suggest that grape skin extracts and grape seed extracts are a reliable source of bioaccessible antioxidant polyphenols, to be used for the development of antioxidant supplements with specific functionalities depending on the grape variety.
