Maca flour: a powerful ingredient for functionally enhanced bread

In this work a new functionally enhanced food was prepared by using Maca flour as powerful ingredient. Bread with improved antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties was prepared and characterized by performing different assays. For the characterization of Maca enhanced bread, in vitro tests, such as 2,2’-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl radical (DPPH), 2,2’-azinobis-(3ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid) (ABTS), Oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC), Folin-Ciocalteu and Deoxyribose assays were performed in order to evaluate the antioxidant properties, while the anti-inflammatory activity was investigated in terms of peroxynitrite scavenging ability. Furthermore, in vitro enzymatic assays were performed in the aim to evaluate the efficiency of the proposed functional food in the reduction of sugar intake. The obtained data confirmed the high potential applicability of prepared bread in human nutrition.