Physico-Chemical properties and antioxidant activity of rice cake with Codonopsis lanceolata powder.

To increase the utilization of rice cake as a traditional food and encourage healthy consumption of rice cakes, rice cakes with greater functionality are required. This can be achieved by adding medicinal plants to rice cakes. This study aimed to improve the functionality of rice cake by addition of the medicinal plant Codonopsis lanceolata. An experiment was conducted on the quality, functionality, and physiochemical properties of rice cake containing C. lanceolata powder. We confirmed the antioxidant activity of rice cake containing C. lanceolata powder by evaluating the DPPH(1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl) radical scavenging activity. We also confirmed the physiochemical properties of rice cake in a basic analysis experiment to determine the pH, glucose amount, and total flavonoid content. This experiment showed that rice cake with C. lanceolata powder contains higher values in all five (pH, moisture, crude protein, crude fat, and total flavonoids) physical and chemical characteristics tested, compared to the control group. When measuring 100 mg/ml, the antioxidant activity in the control group was only IC₅₀ = 844.26 mg/ml, whereas rice cake with C. lanceolata powder had activity of IC50 = 119.01 mg/ml. In this study, we obtained meaningful results confirming that rice cake containing C. lanceolata powder has high marketability and functionality. Consequently, we expect to increase the demand for traditional rice cakes, to enhance the value of rice cake as a healthy food and to contribute to the production of various rice cakes containing a medicinal plant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]