Rosemary extracts in functional foods: extraction, chemical characterization and incorporation of free and microencapsulated forms in cottage cheese

Abstract

a Consumers search for food with functional characteristics beyond its nutritional properties. Thus, the concept of functional food has become a hot topic, allowing us to obtain additional health benefits, including disease prevention. In this context, plants are recognized as sources of a wide range of bioactives, including phenolic compounds. Herein, rosemary aqueous extract was used as a functional ingredient for cottage cheese, after proving that it possesses both higher content of phenolic compounds and antioxidant activity, comparatively with the corresponding hydroethanolic extract. However, a decrease of bioactivity was observed for the cheese samples enriched with the extracts in free form after seven days under storage. Therefore, in order to preserve the antioxidant activity, the rosemary aqueous extract was efficiently microencapsulated by using an atomization/coagulation technique. Overall, the introduction of both free and microencapsulated extracts provided bioactivity that was better preserved with microencapsulated extracts without changing the nutritional value of cottage cheese.

Evaluation of Arenaria montana L. hydroethanolic extract as a chemopreventive food ingredient: A case study focusing a dairy product (yogurt)

“…In fact, the extract was, in this case, protected inside the alginate microspheres, material reported as stable in acid pH conditions (Cui, Goh, Kim, Choi, & Lee, 2000), thus effective to protect it in contact with the yogurt, an acidic food matrix . This behavior was also reported by Ribeiro et al (2016) in cottage cheese functionalized with rosemary extracts microencapsulated in alginate microspheres. This procedure is, in principle, effective to avoid the loss of bioavailability during the shelf life of the product, thus until its ingestion and release in slight alkaline medium (intestinal conditions) due to the disruption of the alginate microparticles.…”

“…2C, showing a shape similar to the one observed for the hydrated forms obtained after the encapsulation process (round and pear-like form), although they showed a roughened surface due to the water removal, a consequence of the drying process. Additionally, the small brown spots observed in hydrated and lyophilized microspheres were associated with the presence of the extract inside the microparticles, in conformity with the work development by Ribeiro et al (2016) and Caleja et al (2016).…”

“…Moreover, the microspheres were perfectly individualized (no agglomerates were detected). The size of the microparticles was estimated by OM as ranging between 14 and 88 mm, size slightly larger than the one obtained in previous works of the authors Martins et al (2014), Dias, Barros et al (2015) and Ribeiro et al (2016). The lyophilized microparticles can be observed in Fig.…”

“…The A. montana hydroethanolic extract was microencapsulated with alginate using the atomization/coagulation process and following previously optimized conditions, as described in some former works of the authors (Dias, Barros et al, 2015;Martins et al, 2014;Ribeiro et al, 2016).…”

“…The microspheres were produced by using an atomization/coagulation technique previously described by Martins et al, 2014;Dias et al, 2015 andRibeiro et al, 2016. Briefly, the encapsulating material (calcium alginate) was formed by using sodium alginate and a calcium chloride (CaCl 2 ) as the coagulation agent (source of Ca 2+ ions).…”