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.