How additive manufacturing can boost the bioactivity of baked functional foods

TL;DR

This study demonstrates how 3D food printing combined with optimized baking parameters can significantly enhance the antioxidant activity and phenolic content of functional cookies, offering a new approach to improve health benefits of baked foods.

Contribution

It introduces a novel application of 3D printing and experimental design to maximize bioactivity in baked functional foods, overcoming traditional baking degradation issues.

Findings

Four-layer, 30% infill cookies baked at 180°C for 10 min showed 115% higher bioactivity.

Phenolic content increased by 173% compared to free extract cookies.

Bioactivity varied between 300 to 700 μmolTR/gdry depending on baking variables.

Abstract

The antioxidant activity of baked foods is of utmost interest when envisioning enhancing their health benefits. Incorporating functional ingredients is challenging since their bioactivity naturally declines during baking. In this study, 3D food printing and design of experiments are employed to clarify how the antioxidant activity of cookies enriched with encapsulated polyphenols can be maximized. A synergistic effect between encapsulation, time, temperature, number of layers, and infill of the printed cookies was observed on the moisture and antioxidant activity. Four-layer cookies with 30 % infill provided the highest bioactivity and phenolic content if baked for 10 min and at 180 {\deg}C. The bioacitivity and total phenolic content improved by 115 % and 173 %, respectively, comparing to free extract cookies. Moreover, the proper combination of the design and baking variables allowed to vary the bioactivity of cooked cookies (moisture 3-5 %) between 300 to 700 {\mu}molTR/gdry. The additive manufacture of foods with interconnected pores could accelerate baking and browning, or reduce thermal degradation. This represents a potential approach to enhance the functional and healthy properties of cookies or other thermal treated bioactive food products.