Antioxidant potential of wheat flour chapattis as affected by incorporating barley flour

• Wheat flour can be replaced with barley flour to increase the TPC, TFC, reducing power and AOA in chapatti.
• The baking process reduces the TPC and TFC but increased the AOA and metal chelating activity.
• The PPO activity increased upon barley flour incorporation but was lowered upon baking.
• Antioxidant potential of chapattis can be enhanced by incorporating barley flour.

Whole wheat flour was replaced with whole barley flour at levels of 28, 56 and 84 g/100 g to prepare chapattis and their antioxidant properties were evaluated before and after baking. The total phenolic content (TPC) in wheat flour was 2062 μg ferulic acid equivalents/g, total flavonoid content (TFC) was 966 μg catechin equivalents/g and antioxidant activity was 12.3% and they increased by 57.1, 101 and 22.6%, respectively upon incorporating barley flour at the highest level. Baking significantly decreased the TPC by up to 17.0% and TFC by up to 30.7% however the AOA increased by 13%. Barley flour incorporation significantly increased the reducing power which upon baking showed an insignificant decrease. Polyphenol oxidase (PPO) activity significantly increased by up to 109% upon incorporating barley flour however baking lowered PPO activity by 67.9%. Chapattis containing barley flour can be used to deliver the bioactive components of barley.