Effect of digestive process on Maillard reaction indexes and antioxidant properties of breakfast cereals

Extrusion, drying and toasting are the most representative manufacturing processes suffered by breakfast cereals, conjugating thermal/moisture conditions that allow the Maillard reaction (MR) and caramelisation development, as well as the destruction of thermally labile antioxidant compounds. However, other compounds – like Amadori products and hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) – are originated from the MR and caramelisation, showing different biological activities, as the antioxidant activity. But breakfast cereals are ingested and then affected by the digestive process, and so that the aim of this work was to analyse the effects of the digestion on the bioaccessibility of certain MR products (Amadori compound and HMF) and on the antioxidant activity of corn-based breakfast cereals, using a standardized in vitro gastrointestinal digestion. After digestion approx. 90% HMF remained soluble, but in some cases HMF distribution between soluble/insoluble fractions was higher than the initial HMF measured in the raw cereal, suggesting a release of initially bound Amadori products and its conversion to HMF during the digestion process. The Amadori compound was uniformly distributed between both fractions. The antioxidant activity of the soluble fraction was always higher than that from the raw cereal in any of the antioxidant method employed; therefore the digestion increased the solubility of the antioxidant compounds.