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. 2023 Aug 30;12(9):1691.
doi: 10.3390/antiox12091691.

Thermal Stability and Antioxidant Activity of Bioactive Compounds in Bread Enriched with Bee Pollen and Bee Bread

Seymanur Ertosun  1   2   3 , Volkan Aylanc  1   2   3 , Soraia I Falcão  1   2 , Miguel Vilas-Boas  1   2
Affiliations

Thermal Stability and Antioxidant Activity of Bioactive Compounds in Bread Enriched with Bee Pollen and Bee Bread

Seymanur Ertosun et al. Antioxidants (Basel). .

Abstract

Bee pollen (BP) and bee bread (BB) are natural food sources containing a wide variety of bioactive compounds, complementing their rich nutritional composition. These bee products are being explored to empower functional foods, with the term functionality being dependent on the bioactive compounds added to the food matrix. However, there is not enough evidence of the effect of heat on these compounds during food processing and production and how it impacts their biological activity. Here, we enriched traditional bread by adding BP and BB at different proportions of 1 to 5% and tested the thermal stability of their bioactive compounds through several spectroscopic and chromatographic analyses. Adding bee pollen and bee bread to bread resulted in a 4 and 5-fold increase in total phenolic content, respectively. While not all the 38 phenolic and phenolamide compounds identified in the raw BP and BB were detected in the processed bread, phenolamides were found to be more resilient to baking and heat treatment than flavonoids. Still, the enriched bread's antioxidant activity improved with the addition of BP and BB. Therefore, incorporating bee products into heat-treated products could enhance the functionality of staple foods and increase the accessibility to these natural products.

Keywords: bee products; functional food; natural antioxidants; phenolamides; phenolic compounds.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript; or in the decision to publish the results.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The diagram summarizes the process from gathering pollen grains from flowers by bees to forming bee bread.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Slices of bread enriched with (a) bee pollen (BP) and (b) bee bread (BB).
Figure 3
Figure 3
(a) Total phenolic content and (b) total flavonoid content of raw bee pollen (BP) and bee bread (BB), (c) total phenolic content and (d) total flavonoid content of enriched bread. Lowercase and uppercase letters denote statistical differences (p < 0.05) between BP and BB-enriched bread, respectively, compared to the control group.
Figure 4
Figure 4
(a) DPPH radical scavenging and (b) reducing power activity of raw bee pollen (BP) and bee bread (BB), (c) DPPH radical scavenging, and (d) reducing power activity of enriched bread with BP and BB. Lowercase and uppercase letters denote statistical differences (p < 0.05) between BP and BB-enriched bread, respectively, compared to the control group.
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