“…The reduction of acrylamide in our model cookies containing the alkaline extract can be ascribed to three possible effects: (a) the phenolic ring postoxidative reaction with amino acids as reported in Figure 3 (Guerra & Yaylayan, 2014); (b) the elimination of acrylamide via Michael addition with free amino acids containing a nucleophilic side chain, as outlined in Figure 4 (Adams, Hamdani, Lancker, Méjri & De Kimpe, 2010;Bråthen, Kita, Knutsen & Wicklund, 2005) and (c) the presence of polypeptide chains, whose thiol or amino groups can act as nucleophiles, thus eliminating acrylamide. Antioxidant substances can influence the formation of MRPs (Troise, Fiore, Colantuono, Kokkinidou, Peterson & Fogliano, 2014); in particular, phenolic rings with an ο-dihydroxy function can hinder the formation of MRPs in two ways. Firstly, methylglyoxal and glyoxal can be trapped in an aromatic substitution reaction by the phenolic ring thus controlling the formation of reactive carbonyl species, as acetol or methylglyoxal, glyoxal, as well as 3-deoxyglucosone, the key precursor of HMF formation (Totlani & Peterson, 2007).…”