Alimentos Saludables

Analysis of Bioctive Compounds in Cooked Strawberry

Arias-Borrego. A1 1Adesva R&D, Huelva, Spain, aarias@citadesva.com

Keywords: strawberry, bioactive compound, ellagic acid.

Strawberries (Fragaria x Ananassa) are one of the best natural sources of antioxidants, chemical substances that are much needed in our body´s fight with damaging free radicals. Beneficial effects of the strawberry and strawberry fractions on human health have been extensively investigated and substantiated by studies, suggesting a great potential of the strawberry for maintaining and promoting human health. Fresh strawberries contain a broad range of beneficial nutrients, including vitamin C (95%Recommanded Daily Intake-RDA/100g), folate (9%RDA/100g), fiber and polyphenols. Researchers around the world are also recognizing that the phytonutrients in strawberries - including ellagitannins - may have considerable preventative effects on cardiovascular disease, cancer and cognitive decline.

The quality of fruits is an issue of increasing concern for the European Community agricultural policy, and this question is especially significant for strawberries. On the other hand, the hospitality industry and food industry are increasingly using these fruits as key ingredients of all recipes.

For this reason, it is essential to show whether the nutritional properties of these fruits change when subjected to thermal processing, simulating the preparation of dishes.

The aim of this work was to identify nutritional losses caused by different processes when strawberries were cooked. The concentration of vitamin c and phenolic compounds, such us, ellagic acid, were measured during different cooking methods, baked, boiled and steam.

Our study includes the analysis of the 150 samples and the analytical methodology was based on liquid chromatography-diode array detection-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-DAD-ESI-MS/MS to analyze the content of vitamin C and phenolic compounds. Analogously, a statistical analysis was developed with principal components analysis (PCA) and linear discriminant analysis (LDA) to indicate the similarity with fresh strawberry. Minitab software was used for statistical analysis.