Carotenoids, tocols and retinols evolution during egg pasta – making processes

The available literature reveals that vitamin decrease in cereal products occurs after technological treatments, depending on several physical and chemical factors, such as light, temperature, pH, O2, food composition and the presence of antioxidants. This paper investigates the influence of egg pasta-making process on tocols, carotenoids and retinols. Evidence suggests that processing may influence the levels of these compounds in the final products. In particular, an average of about 30% and 50% loss was observed for tocols and carotenoids, respectively, at the end of process. For retinols, a slight constant increase of cis retinols was observed during the whole production process, together with a slow decrease of all trans retinol. The 13-cis/trans ratio, namely degree of isomerisation, changed from about 12% in the mix to 32% in final pastas. Considering the whole production processes, the degradation of tocols and carotenoids was mostly limited to the kneading step, where several physical–chemical and enzymatic factors seem to exert an important role in determining their degradation, while the drying step did not induce significant changes. In contrast, a slight constant retinol isomerization was observed during the different technological steps, confirming the role of the retinol isomerisation ratio as a process index.