Published in Scientific Bulletin. Series F. Biotechnologies, Vol. XXIV
Written by Mihaela MULȚESCU, Marta ZACHIA, Nastasia BELC, Floarea BURNICHI, Florentina ISRAEL-ROMING
Vegetables represent one of the most important components of the human diet. Brassica vegetables have been shown a great antioxidant capacity due to the presence of a multitude of biochemical substances such as vitamins, compounds with phenolic structure and pigments. Also it is known that some of these nutrients have a positive impact on the human health, reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and some types of cancer. This study evaluates the influence of two processing methods (boiling and steaming) on the stability of phenolic compounds, ascorbic acid, carotenoids and chlorophyll and on the antioxidant activity in edible part of broccoli and cauliflower. Boiling treatments caused losses of total phenolic compounds for both analysed vegetables (16.3% and 25.2%), while steaming led to comparable values with the fresh sample for broccoli and an increase by 12% for cauliflower. Thermal treatments determined a substantial loss of ascorbic acid for the analysed vegetables, ranging between 28% and 43.9%. Total carotenoid and chlorophyll content was higher in cooked samples and the antioxidant activity was lower after boiling and comparable with fresh vegetables when steaming.
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