Fourteenth International Conference on Food Studies

Abstract

Calamintha nepeta is an important source of bioactive compounds with various biological activities. This study exploits the characteristics of this species in the fortification of rice crackers. The fine vegetable powder is incorporated with rice flour to obtain the four formulations of fortified crackers, 0%, 2.5%, 5%, and 10%, W/W. After cooking the crackers were examined for their total phenolic compounds (TPC) and total flavonoids (TF) content via the Folin-Ciocalteu and aluminum trichloride spectrophotometric methods respectively. The results reveal a proportional correlation between content of bioactive compounds and levels of plant powder incorporated. The 10% enriched crackers formula showed the highest content of CPT (1206.43, ±, 19.19, Mg, EAG/100g, Food) and FT (912.50, ±, 60.10mg, EQ/100g, Food), which is quadrupled (x4) compared to the control (0%). The 2.5% formula showed a slightly higher CPT content than the control and similar amount in terms of FT (P < 0.05). Our study shows that the incorporation of medicinal plant powders in food is a very promising way for introducing and/or amplifying bioactive compound amounts in modern food products where rice crackers show higher contents of these bio-constituents than fruits considered as irreplaceable sources of phenolic compounds.