Characterization of Bioactive components in Functional Spaghetti Enriched with Olive Oil by-Product and evaluation of their bioaccessibility

Pasta represents one of the most well-known products all over the world. It is a traditional food of Mediterrean diet and it is generally manufactured with durum wheat, that confers the excellent rheological properties of dough, the superior color, the appearance and the cooking quality compared to other flours. The World Health Organization (WHO) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) consider spaghetti pasta a good vehicle for the addition of nutrients and consumers are increasingly interested in foods containing health promoting ingredients. In this contest, the objective of the present study was to characterize the bioactive components, such as carotenoids, triterpenic acids and polyphenols, present in durum wheat semolina spaghetti enriched with an olive oil patè coming from olive oil processing chain, and dried in order to obtain a flour (OPF) suitable for the pasta process. In particular, OPF was added to the pasta dough at 10% and 15% (w/w). Finally, spaghetti with 10% OPF, considered acceptable to the sensory panel test, were characterized for their bioactive components. Further, their bioaccessibility, after simulated gastro-intestinal digestion, was also assessed. Results showed that 10% OPF addition enriched the spaghetti in ?-tocopherol, ?- and ?-carotene, maslinic and eonolic acids. The ratio of polyunsaturated (PUFA) to saturated fatty acids (SFA) resulted higher (1.16) than spaghetti used as control (0.69). The total polyphenols content (free, conjugated and bound) in dry spaghetti samples increased of about 3 times respect to the control. In particular, the amount of total free phenolics in the enriched sample, was almost 50 times higher respect to the control spaghetti, with tyrosol and oleuropein as the most abundant. In addition, it is interesting to underline that the enriched spaghetti showed an high amount of flavonoids, such as apigenin, luteolin and quercetin already present in OPF. The phenolic acids were mainly present in the conjugated and bound fractions with the highest amount in the spaghetti with 10% OPF. Finally, the bioactive components showed a good level of biaccessibility, although during the cooking process, the 50% was naturally lost.