Original scientific paper
Bioactives in organic and conventional milled cereal products from Croatian market
Nikolina Čukelj
; Prehrambeno - biotehnološki fakultet
Saša Ajredini
; Prehrambeno - biotehnološki fakultet
Marina Krpan
; Prehrambeno - biotehnološki fakultet
Dubravka Novotni
; Prehrambeno - biotehnološki fakultet
Bojana Voučko
; Prehrambeno - biotehnološki fakultet
Ivna Vrana Špoljarić
; Prehrambeno - biotehnološki fakultet
Mirjana Hruškar
; Prehrambeno - biotehnološki fakultet
Duška Ćurić
; Prehrambeno - biotehnološki fakultet
Abstract
A need for food that contributes to individual nutrition and health status, and also to the sustainability of the planet, is rising as a consequence
of consumer’s awareness of foods nutritional value and origin. This behaviour is mostly expressed through the preference toward
organically grown and wholesome food. Science to some extent supports this preference, giving more evidence supporting the benefit of whole
food, and indicating that organic might be more nutritious than conventional. However, the question that remains is - is it always better? Thus
in this study organic and conventional cereal milling products from Croatian market were randomly selected (namely wheat bran, whole grain,
semi-white and white wheat flour, and whole grain corn, oat and rye flour) in order to determine their antioxidant activity (AO), lignans, ferulic
acid (FA), total phenolic (TPC) and dietary fibre (DF) content. The research aimed to point out how cereals contribute to the diet with their fibres
and bioactives, and to see to what extent consumers can expect organic cereal products to be better source of bioactives than conventional ones
when buying from the market.
Wheat bran distinguished among chosen products with its high FA, TPC, lignan content, and the strongest AO, especially in case of organic
bran. Within whole grains organic corn flour exhibited the strongest AO and the highest TPC (2576 mg FAE kg-1), while organic oat flour was
the most abundant in lignans (10064 μg kg-1). Higher content of FA, TPC, and lignans in organic wheat bran and established difference in
bioactives between flours from the organic farming compared to conventional do not lead to firm conclusion that consumers can expect organically produced cereals to be superior in all nutrition aspects to conventional, as is often believed. Despite that, interestingly, among analysed nutritional parameters lignans were in all cases higher in organic products and less strong correlated to fibre content, indicating that they could be influenced by farming system. Obtained data highlight the benefit of consuming different wholegrain cereals as an important source of fibres
and bioactive compounds, which, with the exception of lignans, are strongly positively correlated to the insoluble fibre content.
Keywords
antioxidant activity; conventional and organic cereal milling product; fibre; lignans; phenolics
Hrčak ID:
147818
URI
Publication date:
1.10.2015.
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