Abstract
The majority of components in fruits are sensitive to heat-processing. Nevertheless, fruits are becoming popular ingredients in processed foods, like bakery foods. Therefore, the fate of the components in the fruit-involved food during thermal processing is important for the assessment of their nutritional values and sensory properties. Unfortunately, comprehensive knowledge of the compositional alteration in real food products during processing is limited. In the current study, a popular bakery food, blueberry-filled pastry, was taken as the object, and a widely targeted metabolomic approach was applied to investigate the holistic compositional variation of blueberry filling during pastry preparation. Amongst the total of 630 chemicals identified, 288 chemicals were screened as differential compounds between samples collected at different processing stages. The most variation of the chemicals was observed during the process of stir-frying. A total of 197 chemicals varied significantly in concentrations during stir-frying, while only 75 chemicals altered significantly in contents during baking. Amongst 288 differential compounds, 117 belonged to the group of phenolic compounds, with the others found to be sugars and organic acids, amino acids, lipids, nucleotides, etc. The possible mechanisms of the chemical alterations during thermal processing were also discussed in the current study. The data provide comprehensive information on the compositional changes in berry-containing fillings during thermal processing, and hints and emphasis for further investigation of the underlying mechanisms.
Highlights
Blueberries contain various phytochemicals with potential health effects, including anthocyanins, flavonols, vitamins, lutein, sugars, and organic acid [1,2,3]
Our previous study [8] showed that the flavonoid content varied considerably during the thermal processing of blueberryfilled pastries, and the procedures of stir-frying and baking contributed to the different levels of the loss of anthocyanins and flavonol glycosides
This work applied metabolomic analysis to investigate the phytochemical changes of blueberry-filled pastry products during different thermal processing stages
Summary
Blueberries contain various phytochemicals with potential health effects, including anthocyanins, flavonols, vitamins, lutein, sugars, and organic acid [1,2,3]. The consumption of polyphenol-rich blueberries and their polyphenol extracts is associated with the protection and management of non-communicable diseases such as cancers, Chemical Variation During Pastry Processing cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, osteoporosis, and neurodegenerative diseases [1]. Food processing allows the all-year-round provision and provides various types of blueberry products to compensate for the different requirements and appreciations by the customers. One large group of products are bakery food products filled with blueberries or blueberry containing materials, such as pies, pastries, muffins, cakes, and cookies. Such food products are becoming increasingly popular and are consumed daily in many areas of the world. Processing can prolong the shelf life of blueberry products and increase the diversity of products for customers’ choice; nutritional compounds, such as polyphenols, may be destroyed to some extent during processing, especially during thermal processing, which in turn affects the health-promoting properties of the products [4,5,6]
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