Abstract
Anthocyanins are colored valuable biocompounds, of which extraction increases globally, although functional applications are restrained by their limited environmental stability. Temperature is a critical parameter of food industrial processing that impacts on the food matrix, particularly affecting heat-sensitive compounds such as anthocyanins. Due to the notable scientific progress in the field of thermal stability of anthocyanins, an analytical and synthetic integration of published data is required. This review focuses on the molecular mechanisms and the kinetic parameters of anthocyanin degradation during heating, both in extracts and real food matrices. Several kinetic models (Arrhenius, Eyring, Ball) of anthocyanin degradation were studied. Crude extracts deliver more thermally stable anthocyanins than purified ones. A different anthocyanin behavior pattern within real food products subjected to thermal processing has been observed due to interactions with some nutrients (proteins, polysaccharides). The most recent studies on the stabilization of anthocyanins by linkages to other molecules using classical and innovative methods are summarized. Ensuring appropriate thermal conditions for processing anthocyanin-rich food will allow a rational design for the future development of stable functional products, which retain these bioactive molecules and their functionalities to a great extent.
Highlights
A similar study on biscuit dough fortified with anthocyanins and baked at 160 ◦ C for 10 min showed a two-fold decrease of anthocyanin degradation rate constant compared to control aqueous system, and three fold decrease when compared to a model blackberry juice, suggesting the great influence of matrix effects [77]
Process temperature is a critical parameter that impacts on the food matrix, altering heat-sensitive compounds such as anthocyanins, in strong relation to magnitude and duration of heating
The initial transformations of the chemical structure of anthocyanins under different pH and temperatures consist in reversible reactions of protonation, hydration and tautomery
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Anthocyanins are natural compounds of the phenylpropanoid class responsible for the red, blue, or purple color of fruits, flowers, or leaves, being largely distributed in plant cell vacuoles Based on their physical chemical and biological properties, such molecules found applications in nutrition (dietary antioxidants), medicine (therapeutic agents), or industry (food, textile—natural colorants, preservatives and ingredients, photoelectrochemical cells) [4]. The purpose of this study was to give in-depth updated knowledge on the molecular mechanism and kinetics of anthocyanin degradation during heating, to comparatively describe the thermal behavior of anthocyanins both within natural extracts (models) and in real food products, which could be considerably different, by presenting some practical useful examples. Of the total number of papers reviewed, 76% were published in the last 10 years, of which 70% were published in the last 5 years
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