ANTIOXIDANT EFFECT OF MAILLARD REACTION-PRODUCTS - APPLICATION TO A BUTTER COOKIE OF A COMPETITION KINETICS ANALYSIS

The generation of a chain-breaking antioxidant capacity has been analy zed in butter cookies, as a function of the cooking time. A kinetics a pproach was used, by which the antioxidant capacity of aqueous extract s of cookies was measured in terms of equivalence by weight of a refer ence antioxidant. A diazo compound was used to generate at constant ra te peroxyl radicals, and the reporting reaction was the bleaching of c rocin in the presence of these radicals. Results indicated that during the first 20-30 min of cooking, when browning takes place, an antioxi dant capacity accounting for up to 5 g of Trolox is produced in 100 g of dried aqueous extracts of the cookies. This result supports the con cept that functionally relevant antioxidants are generated by Maillard reaction.