The relationship between reducing sugars and phenolic retention of brown rice after enzymatic extrusion

To investigate the relationship between reducing sugars and phenolic retention of brown rice after enzymatic extrusion, reducing sugars, total phenolic content, total antioxidant activity, and individual phenolic acids of brown rice extruded with different α-amylase concentrations (0.1%, 0.5%, 1%, w/w) were evaluated. Reducing sugars were produced during enzymatic extrusion and significantly increased with the increasing enzyme concentration. Compared with traditional extrusion, the enzymatic extrusion with 1% amylase significantly increased the phenolic retention, DPPH value, FRAP value, and ABTS value by 22.4%, 19.5%, 14.7%, and 41.5%, respectively. The retention of most free phenolic acids was also increased with the increasing enzyme concentration. Besides, the correlation analysis indicated that the content of reducing sugars was positively correlated with total phenolic content (r = 0.915), DPPH value (r = 0.882), FRAP value (r = 0.861), ABTS value (r = 0.867) and free individual phenolic acids (r = 0.595-0.943) of treated brown rice. These results suggested that reducing sugars might protect phenolic compounds during enzymatic extrusion.